35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush 1657
vsync64 writes "Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) spent 4 hours reading into the Congressional Record 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Interestingly, those articles (63-page PDF via Coral CDN) include not just complaints about signing statements and the war in Iraq, but also charges that the President "Sp[ied] on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment,' 'Direct[ed] Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens,' and 'Tamper[ed] with Free and Fair Elections.' These are issues near and dear to the hearts of many here, so it's worth discussing. What little mainstream media coverage there is tends to be brief (USA Today, CBS News, UPI, AP, Reuters)." The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table." The Judiciary Committee has not acted on articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney introduced by Kucinich a year ago.
Too little too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pointless and stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Most likely, in February there will be a Democratic president and a more heavily Democratic congress. That's the time to open up investigations, because that's the time when investigations will actually have teeth.
This is just pointless grandstanding.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
My opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't count for much, as I'm not american, but impeaching this president might set a precedent and send a warning to newer presidents to tread lightly or be out of a job.
Re:Silliness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to complain about wasting time in Congress, look up which party has done more filibustering in recent years.
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
As the American Freedom Campaign put it in an email to members this morning:
"The founders of our country feared more than anything else the prospect of an executive who put his own power and desires above the Constitution. Congress was given the power of impeachment so that it could remove any president who committed the high crime of violating the Constitution during his (or her) term in office.
A strong case can be made that no president in the history of this country is more deserving of impeachment than George W. Bush. If he is not impeached, the bar for impeachment will have been raised so high that it might as well no longer exist. Future presidents will know that they can violate the Constitution at will, confident in the fact that Congress does not have the courage as an institution to do anything about it.
We cannot allow this to happen."
That's about as simple as it gets. Even if Bush only have seven months left, Congress has to set an example and exert its authority.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sex vs. Violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Violating the Constitution is a good reason (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite the howls from the far left, Bush didn't actually "lie and people died". Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, own report proves that. For example,
The list goes on, and Rockfeller's committee could only say, over and over, "Generally substantiated by intelligence information," though there was some exaggeration (which isn't the same as a lie).
HOWEVER! Spying on citizens, arresting and holding without probable cause or a trial, wiretapping -- basically using our Constitution to wipe his ass -- now that's a good enough reason to impeach him and the majority of assholes sitting on their fat asses in Washington DC (both Democrats and Republicans).
Going to war (Score:2, Insightful)
If the article is based on lying, you'd have to prove the person knowingly lied. And lying isn't against the law, unless you're talking perjury. And I though Democrats didn't think perjury was impeachable.
That being said, I'm not a Bush lover by any means, and I find it fairly interesting that he is being brought up on charges of spying on citizens. Whether or not that is illegal is debatable, even if it is reprehensible, and again, we're talking about bills that have been passed repeatedly by a bipartisan Congress. In Bush is guilty, again, so is everyone who voted on those measures.
Thusly, the impeachment isn't going anywhere.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
no petty mass murderer has ever been responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people.
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:1, Insightful)
He is the biggest nut job in congress. period!
Re:Violating the Constitution is a good reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Point two: False. He (and Cheney) KNEW it was false. Clearly a lie.
Point three: False. He (and Cheney) KNEW it was false. Clearly a lie.
Point four: False. He (and Cheney) KNEW it was false. Clearly a lie.
There is plenty of evidence suggesting they knew it was all false, and were manipulating the evidence in an attempt to find a reason to attack Iraq. It was not only all a base fabrication, it was an intentional, planned out, thoroughly well executed fabrication. I do agree with you on the rest though, there are plenty of reasons to impeach outside of his outright misleading of the American people. Did we get a FOIA on the Kennedy assassination yet? It's pretty clear that this whole "democracy" has been a ludicrous facade since that fateful day.
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Any treaty signed by the President and ratified by the Senate carries the full force of law. The U.S. is a member of the U.N., created by a multinational treaty signed by the President and ratified by the Senate. Any action the U.N. takes in accordance with that treaty carries the weight of U.S. law (but of course this is only relevant in the U.S.).
This does not stop our country from thumbing its nose at U.N. resolutions, however. Who is going to enforce it?
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) It will establish a precedent of impeaching presidents who are grossly incompetent and overstep the constitutional limits on their power. Future presidents will think twice before starting wars on false pretenses or torturing prisoners of war or illegally spying on citizens without warrants. Failing to impeach him would imply that these actions are acceptable, which WILL have an effect on future presidents' actions.
(2) It will show the world that America realizes that we made a huge mistake by electing Dubya twice. Right now, we're the laughing stock of the world (see any opinion poll taken after 2003). This decline in world opinion has real economic and political consequences that, for the most part, haven't been felt yet. Impeaching Bush would help to show the world that America always does the right thing, albeit after exhausting every alternative.
(3) It will remind Americans that impeachments can be used for something other than lying about blowjobs. Sometimes I cynically suspect that Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about his affair because they had the foresight to suspect that one of their own would be in this position today. (No, I don't actually believe this, but it's funny how convenient this sequence of events turned out to be for them...) It's a lot harder to push impeachment proceedings through Congress when the only impeachment anyone alive today remembers is one that centered around a trivial, non-job-performance related non-crime. Impeachments should be about high crimes and gross incompetence related to the duties of the office of the President, and impeaching Bush will help to restore some measure of seriousness to this procedure.
Due process (Score:1, Insightful)
- an elected member of US Congress, and
- in possession of relevant facts, and
- willing to step-up and present the facts, to
present a case that an employee of US Taxpayers is violating his oath to uphold the US Constitution.Further, Article II, Section 4 [findlaw.com] demands it.
If *you* knew the law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Article VI
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I have mod points. But I want you to repeat for us your assertion that the Attorney General has the power to issue warrants. Alternately, you may explicitly state your belief that a law may override the Constitution.
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Care to point to the UN resolution that would/should have prevented the US from going into Iraq?
After you find that... do take a look at some of the UN resolutions on Iraq where you'll find that wording that gives any member nation unilateral authority to ensure compliance with existing resolutions.
Let us not forget that this whole thing began with Iraq thumbing it's nose at multiple UN resolutions despite new ones being threatened, passed and largely being ignored by all except for the US and it's allies.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
Two things:
1) Clinton was the one with the historical legacy fixation, and...
2) THIS is a stain upon his legacy?!? A nutcase like Kucinich doesn't even bother to make a speech to the House, but has it read into the record after hours??? The Congressional Record is full of dreck read into it after hours by people who wanted things on record (usually for their reelection campaign). You DO know that the Congressional Record includes a couple of good recipes for chowder, right? That's the sort of thing the Record is full of....
Re:Silliness (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it stupid because you disagree with the terms, or stupid because it will accomplish nothing?
I think that it is stupid because it distracts from core issues and fails to separate the constitutional and legal issues from the reasons people dislike the President. Bush is unpopular because Iraq isn't going the way people wanted to believe it would and because you can no longer make yourself rich by getting an ARM in a rising housing market.
But those aren't the things that come close to impeachable offensives. The possibly impeachable offensives (signing statements, domestic spying) are things that people don't care about and my even agree with the President on.
I would like to try to focus attention on those issues without it being about the individual. An impeachment circus isn't the way to do that.
Mostly, I dislike the idea of impeaching any President who becomes unpopular. We (correctly) don't have a "recall" mechanisms for federal elections, and we shouldn't use impeachment as a substitute.
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:2, Insightful)
I weep for the future too - I weep because the current generation of Americans is so soft and so ignorant as to honestly believe that America has become anything resembling a police state or fascist state.
Re:Violating the Constitution is a good reason (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not what Sen. John D. Rokefeller's own website says.
Washington, DC -- The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, and a bipartisan majority of the Committee (10-5), today unveiled the final two sections of its Phase II report on prewar intelligence. The first report details Administration prewar statements that, on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq. The second report details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department.
reference [senate.gov]
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
"Worst" in the sense of damaging the country more than helping it, and generally failing to uphold his responsibilities as well as failing to meet anything close to his stated goals in his largest presidential decision. But yes, he was certainly an effective leader, and he accomplished a great many things for his party, as well as running a very tight ship in terms of controlling Congress and the media. or, as Scott McClellan would put it, he was in perpetual campaign mode, and at that he was very successful. But perpetual campaign mode is not about success in substance, it's about success in contemporary perception.
Substance is what history will judge his term on, and barring any major changes in the Middle East, it's unlikely to be kind.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:0, Insightful)
All it does is establish that you're a batshit-insane loony-tunes motherfucker who has no concept of reality.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with the historical record of those you mentioned, and add in Chairman Mao, the Khmer Rouge, Francisco Franco, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and a number of other popular icons of the lefty loonybin, and then come back and tell me how you justify putting a sitting president among them.
You goddamned idiot.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
Godwin's Law!
Devil's advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd have impeached Bush a long time ago over Jose Padilla however. Padilla is a scum bug, but he is an American citizen all the same. I routinely disagree with fanatics who scream the sky is falling, and that we'll all go to gitmo for being unpatriotic, but the Padilla case did happen. There should be fallout for suspending the rights of a US citizen.
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
They never would have been caught because no one would have CARED.
There would not be the initial scrutiny and there would not be the continued witch hunt and bullying of witnesses.
The "Law and Order" tactics would never have come up because
under normal circumstances NO ONE would view it as a useful
expenditure of the effort.
The "crime" would never have come to light to begin with.
Re:Silliness (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Next, Congressional Democrats keep crying about high gas prices, and they are doing nothing about it. The only thing they have done (today 6/10/2008 the Republicans saved us) is try to raise taxes on the oil companies. This may come as a shock to some of you, but in the real world, business don't pay taxes--their customers do!!!! What does this mean in regards to the oil companies? Higher taxes from them will translate to higher gas prices for us!!! The Republicans blocked this from happening...thankfully!!! If Congressional Democrats really wanted to do something about high gas prices (not just spew hot air about oil companies' big profits), they would have a 4 pronged attack. First, encourage Bush, and other countries with the ability, to flood the market with oil. In the case of the US, we could release 1/3 of the oil reserves at one time. This would flood the oil commodities market and drop the price of oil. This would cause the people investing in oil commodities (who are driving up the cost) to lose their money. Then, Congressional Democrats would allow more drilling in and near the US. China is drilling off the shores of Florida!!! That should be our oil!!!
The first item is only a short term fix, so thirdly, Congressional Democrats should encourage research and development in to new technologies and energy sources. They should encourage a bang for your buck energy policy. This means encouraging improving the percentage of energy efficiency you achieve in comparison to the lost energy potential! If something else becomes more efficient and product to produce our energy needs we will move to it.
Forth, Congressional Democrats should open up trading on the commodities so that all trades are public with all parties known (i.e. the person putting up the money). I can come up with reasons for everyone to have their money in the pot...including Democrats.
In the last election, the Democrats kept crying about Republican pork spending. They promised to change it. They did change it, but it was them doing the pork spend at levels higher than the Republicans.
Finally, (but not the last problem) the truth is that the Democrats in Congress can't even think about stirring the pot with an impeachment when Barak is on such shaky ground! Barak can't even handle reporters like the light weight "Fox and Friends" show (which Hillary went on several times). If he can handle an interview with Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly, then he can't handle being president! Part of the Democrat party is seriously considering voting for McCain!!! They need to play it safe!
Re:What a Joke (Score:5, Insightful)
And then your signature tells us the irony in your ad hominem for kucinich.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whichever party is in the minority. Right now that would be the Republicans; a few years ago it was the Democrats. The majority party doesn't filibuster; they simply don't let legislation they want to die get out of committee.
Not sure exactly what your point is though; many people would argue that filibustering is an important tactic to prevent a very narrowly divided Senate from railroading the minority party. I'd hardly call that a waste of time.
Impeaching Bush makes it "routine"???? (Score:2, Insightful)
What would he have to have done for you to consider impeachment merited? And do you consider his actions so typical that we should assume that any standard that justifies impeaching him would, de facto, justify impeaching anybody simply for being president?
Oh, and btw, he has yet to be arrested or jailed.
Though we can certainly hope ;->
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean the democrats, who filibustered their way out of drilling in ANWR, preventing progress in a slush-tundra featuring the most rugged and survivable species in the world; who's preventative action is causing us to pay $4 a gallon for gas now?
Actually the side who filibusters is the side with the minority, since they are trying to prevent measures they know will lose to coming to vote. So logically the side that filibusters the most in recent years should be the side that couldn't win with voting power in the most recent years.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clinton was asked if he had sexual relations with Lewinsky.
He asked the judge to define "sexual relations". The *judge* told him sexual relations means intercourse.
Now, you might have a different definition, but unless you are going to try to convince us that he had intercourse with Lewinsky, then you must admit that he did not commit perjury.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Bill LIED UNDER OATH in a court of law, and everyone acts as though it was about the sex.
2. Hillary LIED in a book she wrote, as well as several times along the campaign trail about an incident where there was VIDEO footage that contradicted her. Everyone seems to have accepted a bold faced lie because they'd prefer to believe that she "Misspoke".
3. Bush has his flaws, but no one has shown me any actual, verifiable, concrete evidence that he's lied to us. There's plenty of rumor and innuendo I'll grant that, but I've not seen anything substantive from an author that doesn't have a personal interest in tar and feathering the Republicans.
I want to see a book about the Lies that the Clinton's tell that isn't trying to make excuses for them.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
The democrats don't want to have to deal with that right before an election.
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pointless (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
The domestic spying thing is just and extension of keeping an eye on the danger instead of pretending it isn't there till after the domesting war bombs go off.
We are suppose to have a reactive system that assumes everyone is innocent then proves them as guilty. Not a proactive system that finds people guilty before they do anything.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If *you* knew the law... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Violating the Constitution is a good reason (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Impeachment is the wrong avenue... (Score:3, Insightful)
He hasn't broken United States law.
What we ought to do is turn him over to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes.
Or the converse.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
That 4-hour rant would be much more interesting if it described the seedy underbelly of the regime as a whole, to include Cheney, Rove, big Oil's insane profits, the conflict-of-interest contracts involving retired-military execs now working for the military industrial complex, the 9/11 snafu, the FBI/NSA/CIA/etc's blatantly illegal honeymoons with the major telecoms, and finally, a special thanks to Diebold for making it happen.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:1, Insightful)
They watch CNN.
There's a whole lot of wrong facts in your post. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress will do nothing because it will expose their own complicity.
As someone above stated, perhaps next year with a more activist Congress and the Bushies out of power, then maybe some of the truth will start to trickle out. We will probably never know how bad things really got. Thanks for nothing, Congress.
Don't vote for any incumbents unless they spoke out when it was unpopular to do so.
Re:Going to war (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically speaking, it is simply not factual to call this current military activity in Iraq a war. The president never asked congress to pass a declaration of war, congress has not made such a declaration - thus there is officially no war.
Why did the president not ask congress to officially declare war? Maybe because he knew they wouldn't do it, but probably because he didn't want to be on the hook for what an official declaration of war would mean. Instead he submitted requests for funding military action in the region - which the cowardly congress has passed.
So we have de facto war at a heavy price in terms of wasted lives, wealth and resources , with no clear victory conditions - without anyone actually being accountable for approving a war in terms of law.
I can understand how and why people would view such an action by our representatives as illegal and contrary to the spirit and principals upon the which U.S. and its government were supposed to be founded.
Here's why I'm done with politics: (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are they doing it now, when Bush has only seven months left in office rather than a year and a half ago? Election year theater.
And that's why I cringe when people say "We really need to get the Democrats the White House and majorities Congress in 2008" or something to that effect. They have no interest in you, the country, or anything but power and money.
Kucinich is an exception among them. We need more like him, but he is an anomaly.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:If *you* knew the law... (Score:3, Insightful)
So your argument is that USSID 18 overrides the Constitution?
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, if they'd spend more time being practical and actually getting shit done without the melodrama I'd be more impressed.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
>He is the biggest nut job in congress. period!
Perhaps, but he has entered articles of impeachment into the Congressional Record.
Right or wrong, sane or insane, it's historic.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Even that, as it turns out, is false. And there lies the crux of the failed impeachment against Clinton.
Clinton asked the judge to define sexual relations. He then responded according to that definition.
In no court in the land is that perjury.
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have had more respect for him if he'd said, "None of your fucking business". That's sort of a pun, too.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
He gets the job done. (Score:1, Insightful)
If
False swearing (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush took an oath to uphold the Constitution.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, Congress could force Bush to close Guantanamo any time they want. All they have to do is say that they war powers they gave him after 9-11 don't include the ability to invent a new category of prisoner, denied both the constitutional protections of the accused criminal and the treaty protections of the POW.
Congress is complicit in all of Dubya's excesses. That's the real reason they can't impeach him.
Not my support. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately it will likely hinge on one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
A quote from a Bond film (which may have been somewhere else first but that's where I heard it) is "The line between genius and insanity is measured only by success." Well, there's some truth to that. Something that is "An insane stunt," when it fails can then become "A brilliant feat," when it succeeds. Success or failure often clouds how we evaluate the situation that lead to something.
Thus it will most likely be for Bush. The Iraq war has been the major thing of his presidency, so it's outcome will likely shape how he is judged. Doesn't matter if it's outcome really has nothing to do with his actions, or is even in spite of his actions. If it comes out good, he'll likely be held up as a great president, if it comes out poorly he'll be held as one of the worst.
I have a bad feeling about this... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a bad feeling we are witnessing a new trend in politics... that from here on out damn near every president will be impeached by the other side of the isle.
If I'm right on this it's going to hurt us as a nation in the long run, and make the act of impeachment have little meaning.
Think about it, if every president is officially pronounced a criminal.. what message does that send to the rest of the world about our nation? How strongly will our citizens back a president in times of crisis?
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
People that hate Bush 43 are going to have to choose: too stupid to tie his own shoes or the mastermind of the Iraq war for his oil buddies. I believe he is neither, but he can't be both.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't even have to do that. All they had to do was say "no more money" and cut his appropriations to the bare minimum needed to provide the necessary services and no more. All of Bush's blustery posturing and wild legal theories don't change the fact that Congress could have shut him down in a heartbeat, but they've chosen not to do so.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention anything of the millions of people of other nationalities (perhaps an order of magnitude higher) who have died, been irreversably wounded or displaced as a direct result of Bush's lies and mis-leading of the American public. A few Americans might have a problem with that, too.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:1, Insightful)
If there are no major changes in the Middle East in the next ten to twenty years which are attributable to GWB's actions, history will pretty much forget him as a NOP (relegating him to the same heap as Ford and Carter).
If there are major negative changes in the Middle East in the next ten to twenty years which are attributable to GWB's actions, history will be harsh to him. But, given the extent to which the Middle East was screwed up before GWB took office, blame will be apportioned and GWB's administration will receive only part of it. History will note that GWB was the only one of these administrations forced to act, starting with Afghanistan, due to the first massive terrorist attack on America's soil occurring not long after he took office. History is more likely to look critically at previous administrations for doing nothing than to simply label GWB as the source of the problems in the Middle East in, say, 2028.
However, if the Democrat's worst nightmare becomes reality, history is likely to look very favorably on GWB. This "nightmare", which has a finite chance of being reality in 2028, is that most of the following are true:
+ The U.S. military strategy of the past year in Iraq continued to improve the situation.
+ Iraq is governed by those fairly elected by its citizens.
+ A reasonable level of rights is afforded to minority groups in Iraq (i.e., no "tyranny of the majority").
+ Iraqis are in complete control of their internal security with little, if any, regular assistance from outside parties.
+ Iraq is a relatively safe place to live and do business.
+ Iraq is prospering economically as a country.
+ Iraqis are prospering socially and economically as individuals.
+ Iraqis of differing religions, heritages, and beliefs live in relative harmony.
(Admittedly, many Americans would be happy for most of these to be true within the US!)
While to many the preceding outcome may seem unlikely, recall that just a little over a year ago (April 2007) Senator Reid was proclaiming [msn.com] and this was the "standard view" at the time. Now, however, this view is hotly contested and many who previously held this view now grudgingly acknowledge that the surge seems to be working as violence has declined dramatically in Iraq and previously lawless areas are now under control of Iraqi security forces.
Predicting history is a tricky business - and those that are consistently good at it usually enrich themselves by acting on their insights on Wall Street or elsewhere rather than pontificating in online forums.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:3, Insightful)
when I read posts by russian-born americans (or other soviet countries from the 'russia == boogeyman' days) saying that they SEE the slippery slope happening right before their eyes, THEN you can believe its real.
all the signs of fascism are here. its not hard to find even if its not affecting you DIRECTLY right now. but just because you are not personally feeling the loss of liberty does not mean its not on the slope and going downward, continually. give it time, you'll get affected. but by then, it *will* be too late. (cue dramatic music...)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real difference between Clinton and Bush is that Bush's people are too smart to let him get tripped up on the minutiae like Clinton did. I would say that Clinton certainly should have paid more for his perjury, but Bush needs to serve hard time for some of the stuff he's done.
A lot of people respect Dennis Kucinich (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Dennis Kucinich is the best politician in office today. I think he would make a far better president than anyone running. And I think he did the right thing by reading this into the record.
Re:Result: civil war (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Getting shit done without melodrama..." You mean like shoving the Patriot Act or DMCA down our throats with little debate and even less public comment? No, thank you, I'd rather have a Congress that sits on its collective ass and engages in melodrama, thank you.
If you want "efficient" government, move to a dictatorship.
All I have to say is... (Score:2, Insightful)
All this nonsense based on spin and innuendo... And people actually believe this stuff...
I thought that the people on
I know, I'm trolling, thats not like me... But Wow...
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When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out fact and reality, is your conclusion true?
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is news why? (Score:2, Insightful)
emark, answer me one question: if not for Bush, then what the *fuck* do we have impeachment for, exactly? How do you violate half the Bill of Rights and not get impeached?
Kucinich is perceived as a nutjob by tools and fools such as myself.
Fixed that for you.
That's not a reason to be done with politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:2, Insightful)
OTOH, every society has it's fringe elements. I see posts from, and discuss with over coffee, by persons of the same background who are quite aware of the vast difference between where the US is and where fUSSR was. And the facts back them up. Hint: The very existence of Slashdot, the Daily Kos, and hundreds if not thousands of such websites reveals the truth. Then there's the protesters I drove by on my way to the doctors office today.
Not to someone who actually knows what fascism means, rather than using it as a buzzword.
And, the buzzword trifecta is complete....
That's stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:False swearing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:3, Insightful)
Congress shall make no law exceeding in length this Constitution.
(Let's make them earn their pay by holding a separate vote on every pork-laden amendment.)
Re:False swearing (Score:2, Insightful)
And uphold it he has, until the Supreme Court says otherwise. And even then, so long as he desists from any policy the Supreme Court has deemed unconstitutional. Or would you rather we just accept you as our self-appointed arbiter of all things Constitutional?
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, filibustering does not mean anything any more because you can leave the chamber during a filibuster.
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:2, Insightful)
These Democrats would have kissed Nixon's ass (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why he did it (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's why he did it. A permanent record.
Yes, the impeachment is going nowhere. Even if Pelosi did go forward with it, a split Senate [wikipedia.org] would never get the 2/3 majority to actually oust Bush.
But at least people in the future will be able to look at the record and know that we all weren't duped.
negligent ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
The buck stops with him, and it's HIS fault if he was to ignorant to think analytically about the bullsh*t that Cheney, Rove, and Rummy were spooning him.
Bush must be accountable for his decisions, whether or not they were his ideas or not...he's the 'decider' as he was fond of saying.
That said, I think he should be impeached, booted out of office in disgrace (along with Cheney), tried for many crimes, but I would stop short of saying he should be put in court for mass murder.
Simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that's just my patriotic rhetoric. I believe that we stopped being a nation governed by law a looooong time ago. It's just now we have to live with it thrown into our faces on a daily basis, and there will be no consequences for these criminals except that a marginalized senator reads a bunch of accusations into the record.
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
Which would happen regardless. If the Dems had opposed the Administration and the Iraq invasion from the beginning, they would be winning outright instead of winning by default.
Playing good politics and taking a firm stand on ethics aren't mutually opposing stances.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as we also require all the rest of the representatives to sit there and listen to everything be read...so they will all hear the fine details instead of just signing off on it....
Re:Does it matter? (Score:1, Insightful)
Collectively we need to see that the US system of checks and balances w.r.t. its executive branch actually works. Your main man has run roughshod over your own Constitution, and not been called to task over it.
If you don't call him on it, then we lose just a bit more faith in what's historically been a pretty good relationship between the US and most of the rest of the world.
And, between you and me, I don't think there's a lot of faith left between us these days.
You elected him, but all of us had to deal with the consequences. Then you re-elected him. The least you can do is ensure that stuff that's gone on under his watch can't happen again, and a very good step in that direction is to punish the bastard.
It doesn't matter if it takes years to do it, but it needs to happen if you want the rest of us to respect you again.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Drill Everywhere, Drill Now (Score:5, Insightful)
$5 a gallon? That's nothing. That's cheap. You ain't seen nothing yet.
And do your really think that domestic drilling is going to keep oil prices low? Tell me how that works, then.
Those oil reserves have immense long-term strategic and economic value. What's your reason for tapping them now? To save a few cents for people who are wasting oil just to fill their SUV to go to the supermarket? What a total waste. Instead of just throwing it all away for frivious purposes today, why not wait until it is really needed, and use it in a more efficient manner?
It's not really a good idea wasting precious oil on fueling private cars. We can do transport without oil. But it's harder to replace when making things like plastics and petrochemicals. Sure, there are some substitutes emerging. But oil would be really useful in the case of a real national emergency where we need to manufacture or rebuild things quickly, or in the case of a real war.
I still can't get over the fact that you think current gas prices are expensive, and that's significant justification for tapping domestic supplies. That's fucking hilarious.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
+1 Flamebait mods?
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world. All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for " Science ". The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc [Ingsoc is oligarchical collectivism - Ingsoc rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism]. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance - meaning, in effect, war and police espionage - the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. - George Orwell, 1984
The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional po
Ahem (Score:3, Insightful)
FUCKING
TIME.
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, the only reason impeachment is off the table is because the American people wouldn't go along with it. Impeaching him would be like admitting that we were suckered when they used our fear over 9/11 to promote a needless war. It'd be admitting that it's an unjust war and has caused thousands of needless American deaths and countless (as in my calculator only goes to a grillion) Iraqi deaths. We're not ready to admit to that quite yet. Maybe in 30 years or so when they define the '00's for the history books, but not yet. We had our chance 4 years ago but we went with the fun loving frat brother instead of the stuffy old dean because we weren't ready to face the fact that America's gotten pretty sucky and it's no ones fault but our own.
(Well, not my own. My vote went to the other guy in both elections. Fortunately we have the Electoral College to make sure my votes don't count.)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if she weren't, and I've seen noone but Bush defenders saying she wasn't, any other agent, front, or contact she'd dealt with in her career is now potentially exposed.
Second, the ultimate classification authority is the President. This has a long history of precedent. If the President wishes to reveal something which is classified, that's his prerogative. The Soviet nuke missile sites in Cuba were classified information and JFK didn't need anyone's permission to reveal that.
Ever hear of abuse of power? Was JFK giving up secret spy plane specs so that he could get revenge on an op/ed writer? In any case, your argument rests on the notion that Bush ok'd the leak. Did he do that?
Third, it was Richard Armitage who revealed the information about Valerie Plame. Even the special prosecutor knew that before investigating.
This is very hard for Bushies to understand, but if one person in the administration reveals a secret, that doesn't make it ok for the rest of the administration to launch a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible.
This is a country of laws, It's the usA, not the usSR.
It sure is! There are laws against abusing presidential powers, against lying to congress to start wars, against trying to force US attorneys to prosecute people for political reasons, against torture, against arrest without trial. We've got a lot of laws, but no guts to enforce them.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
No wonder Kucinich was able to snag such a young, sprightly and attractive wife. The man has the biggest balls in Congress.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
The unfortunate truth here is that US Presidential candidates who are likely to refuse to commit mass murder to promote the interests of multinational corporations are dismissed as "unelectable" by the media owned by said corporations, leaving in the race only those who are willing to facilitate the dirty work.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:2, Insightful)
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I watched part of it on C-SPAN but, judging from the coverage by the so-called "liberal" media, it doesn't even seem to qualify as news. Didn't happen. Nothing to see here...
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see... He's knowingly lied about mobile chemical labs (via Colin Powell), aluminum tubes, Nigerian yellow-cake, an Iraqi nuclear missile could reach us in under 45 minutes, secret diversion of $150M in public funds allocated to Afghanistan to the then-as-yet-unapproved invasion of Iraq, the equal disbursement of faith-based-initiative funds (all of which went to Christians), funding No Child's Behind Left... that's just a few off the top of my head.
For goodness sake, Bush has said whatever lies his handlers have told him to say, with goofy relish. The best you can say about him is he's no mastermind, but he sure likes playing the game.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
False choice.
Bush intentionally lied the country into a war he intended to launch from before his 'election'. The motivation for this war included the enrichment of his political allies in the form of access to oil and government contracts, a legacy as a "War President" which was inspired by the bump his father got as part of the Gulf War as most of the most renowned Presidents have fought wars (Washington, Lincoln, FDR) and the political capitol he'd get from a successful war to implement the conservative social and economical changes he wanted by using the "political capital" he would later cite after his reelection.
The problem is, he is incompetent. His motives are bad AND he's bad at implementing them. There is nothing mutually exclusive about being an evil mediocre-mind, not even one who manages to gain power.
your moral compass is a bit off (Score:5, Insightful)
Adultery is not a Democratic monopoly--during the impeachment both Delay and Gingrich were having affairs. During! Do Republicans care? No, which shows that the whole sordid thing was, after all, only about politics.
Which do you consider more morally wrong--Clinton's blowjob, or people being tortured at Abu Ghraib?
The data point you're missing... (Score:3, Insightful)
...is that articles of impeachment are fairly routine. Yes, it's true - they were introduced by various congressmen at various points against Bush prior to this, against Clinton (before Lewinsky), GB I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson...
Any congressman can introduce articles of impeachment. Big deal. 99.9% of the time, it's a publicity stunt. Just like this time.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's very naive to think ANYONE a person who was supposedly an undercover agent 15 years prior has dealt with is "potentially exposed." Semantically, your statement is correct but it's not realistic. Everyone, you included, interacts with thousands of people over 15 years. You may have heard of the concept of six degrees of separation. Apply that and it's quickly apprent the words you used, while semantically correct, yield an impossibly large number of contacts when seen from the "outside." It's common for people who have never been in these types of environments to think that type of thing. As I said, read the Congressional Record. The sworn testimony during a Congressional investigation is more accurate than projections.
No, my "argument" does not rest on "the fact that Bush OK'd the leak." By definition, the President can't "leak" anything because "leaking" would involve unauthorized disclosure which, by definition, the President cannot do. It is impossible for the pre-requisite to exist. The President has the authority to declassify, at will, either explicitly or implicitly.
"Abuse of power" is a phrase with no legal definition. The Executive Officer is not subservient to the Representitive Brach of the Federal Government. The CIA is in the Executive Branch, under the authority of the Executive Officer. Again, the President cannot be guilty of violating classification. It really is that simple.
As as aside, the legal basis for action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was laid years ago. The first Gulf War was never officially ended according to the U.N. conditions and Saddam's troops kept violating the cease fire agreement. An existing war cannot be "started" again, it can only be in stasis, continue or end. (The Korean War never ended, either. It's in the same situation, a cease fire agreement.) Saddam's troops violated the cease fire repeatedly during Bill Clinton's terms in office. History didn't start in February of 2001.
WRT "a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible", it was Valerie Plame and her husband in conjunction with Vanity Fair and the traditional news media who were proclaiming a "secret" had been revealed. Those are not Federal Branch entities and, most certainly, not controlled by a Republican administration. The President didn't force all the "reporting" and speculating in the press. He didn't put a scarf and sunglasses on Valerie Plame, sit her in a convertible next to her husband, take a photo, write an article and publish them. Valerie, most certainly, wasn't trying to "hide" and wasn't concerned about any past contact who might have been "potentially exposed." If she was, she wouldn't have taken those actions. You can dig through archives such as Lexis-Nexus or even the recorded press briefings on C-Span's website if you wish. What you'll find is the Executive Branch overwhelmingly said there wasn't any "there" there.
Joe Wilson was a paid staffer for John Kerry's Presidential campaign before he wrote the article in which he claimed the VP sent him on a secret mission to gather intel in Niger. Curiously, there was no record of such a meeting, Joe's story changed significantly over time and even he said there was no written record. Additionally, he did state that Iraq was seeking to build increase imports from Niger whose primary exports are livestock products, onions and Uranium ore. Look at a map. Iraq wouldn't get importing onions across Libya then onto ships when they could come from much closer areas. Liby's public renouncement of NBC porograms wasn't an isolated occurrence. It's all in the Congressional Report.
What you are promoting fits the structure of a halfway decent conspiracy theory but only with "a willing suspension of disbelief" given the facts.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the reality of the current political climate in this country means Congress will move on these Articles approximately as quickly as they have moved on Kucinich's last introduction of Articles of Impeachment (against Richard Cheney, in case you didn't know, and which are still pending).
It's a shame you consider rules of order to be "melodrama", but your opinion is not necessarily the standard against which such things are weighed, and I thank the Framers for that. It is even more of a shame that Congress apparently feels no compunction to do their sworn duty.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Kittens and bunnies were not mentioned I believe.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
The most dangerous people in the world are those who believe that violating human rights for any reason is worse than not doing so. These people realize that peace can become viral, and if they are charismatic enough, they can start persuading people to give up force as a form of politics. Those who rely on force fear these people more than anyone else. Ghandi was such a person, as was MLK. Look what happened to them.
In fact, this is the central story in Western culture. A guy suggests (just suggests... doesn't start a revolt or hit people or act like a bigot) that we abandon violence and hate as a means of life and promptly gets nailed to a piece of wood for his trouble. I'm not a believer, but the essence of the story is spot on.
That's my dose of idealism for the day.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
When Bill Clinton lies, people get offended. When George W. Bush lies, people die.
And you're the one who's flabbergasted??? Seriously? Are you kidding me??? Call me a left-wing hypocrite if that's makes you feel better, but please do get off your high horse of righteous indignation.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
I might be wrong, but it was my understanding that people organising spontaneously for the defence of their country (regardless of whether they're in uniform) as well as rebel groups who operate like a regular military service — i.e. hierarchical, uniformed — in spite of not being officially recognised by any country, are also covered, so long as they generally operate in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
So I don't know how Al Qaeda operate, but if they have uniforms and a hierarchy, they're not necessarily not covered.
This is of course to protect people who wish to defend themselves against perceived evil overlords, something Americans, whose country has been through two civil wars/revolutions, and who regularly defend the right to bear arms, should fully understand.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:3, Insightful)
Had he called for impeachment *in* session, it'd be front page news.
Re:I'll never understand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, the punishment for breaking a law should be more severe the higher up in the government you are.
This would discourage people in power from abusing their power.
Granting them any kind of immunity is asking them to abuse you...
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a whole lot different from breaking the law and trying to get away with it. The point of civil disobedience is that you don't want to get away with it.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2, Insightful)
On both counts, Clinton was quite sneaky legally and the prosecution bungled completely. All that they would've had to do is ask, "Have you ever had vaginal, anal, or oral sex with Monica Lewinsky?" and *bam*, he's done. Instead they asked roundabout questions about his location and whether he was "alone" at the time. Now I'm not any kind of expert, so perhaps their hands were tied by procedure (this was a slight tangent in the Jones case), although frankly it seems that if they're asking about Lewinsky due to a connection to a sexual harassment suit, they would be able to simply ask whether he's had sex with employees. Anyways... when they (prosecutors) asked about sexual relations, his (Clinton's) team asked for a legal definition and the prosecution *agreed*. Not only that, but after looking at three of them, listed below, they agreed to exclude 2 and 3 due to ambiguity. Definition 1 is vague enough (who constitutes "any person"?) that Clinton was able to defend interpreting it as the other person. In fact, when I read it, that's the exact same interpretation I had the first three times - I had serious trouble seeing what other interpretations their could be, as the use of "any" is inconsistent with their other references to "persons" like "the person" for Clinton, the deponent and "another person" for the other, Lewinsky.
Now, this is absolutely fiddling around with words, but that event primarily occurred when they agreed to use these legal definitions. Remember that - the prosecutors *agreed* to use these things, and they didn't have to, to my knowledge. And the interpretation after that fact actually isn't very weasely. At least it was good enough that it's what I saw the first multiple times
Here's the definitions (remember that 2 and 3 were excluded. Clinton would've failed on 3):
"For the purposes of this deposition, a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes:
1. Contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person;
2. Contact between any part of the person's body or an object and the genitals or anus of another person; or
3. Contact between the genitals or anus of the person and any part of another person's body.
Contact means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing."
Now, that was one of the issues on which he was held in contempt. The next was about whether he was "alone" with Lewinsky, which is definitely a bit fuzzier (although he of course did find a way to wease out of it and the prosecution was incompetent). Anyone can read the full transcript after a bit of google searching - the questions really were fairly stupid and the answers sneakier.
Anywho, the basic point is: that's not perjury.
IASNAL (I am soooo not a lawyer). If you couldn't tell
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:3, Insightful)
How long do you think either of them would have lasted in the USSR, Mao's China, or most African dictatorships?
And for the record, Jesus wasn't nailed to the cross for his support of being peaceful - he was nailed to the cross for directly challenging the theocracy's right to rule. He walked into temples and trashed the place (read the bible closely in the story about the money lenders - no offense intended, but it sounds like a standard moderately violent protest to me). He claimed that people went to heaven through *him*, not through the established hierarchy. He was also a charismatic demagogue of a conquered people - one of many claiming to be the Jewish Messiah who would lead his people to freedom - most of the others leaned toward freedom in the military sense. So whether you hold he was set up by the Jews for challenging the established hierarchy or by the Romans for rebellion... it's not so much because he was preaching peace and people didn't like it.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:2, Insightful)
If the U.S. wanted the oil, why hasn't it been taken? If, as you claim, the majority of the public thinks it was an oil grab, who gave them that idea? It's a dumb idea, actually. If the U.S. had that motivation, it would be far easier and more productive to take over Argentina. If the U.S. wanted that oil, why isn't the world supply of oil much higher? That would have been a huge expense compared to buying oil. It doesn't make sense.
I looked at a map before my first post to this thread and saw Libya is between Niger and the ocean, a relatively short distance from Iraq. The way Libya gave up their WMD sure looks like they were rolled. There must be lots of that sort of thing that happens but isn't revealed in the open. Just a few days ago there were some reports (I think it was also here on Slashdot) about the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture's laptop and suspicion the Chinese had copied the hard drive. Why would THAT have been in the news? It seems more like trying to send somebody a message than anything else.
Re:A lot of people respect Dennis Kucinich (Score:3, Insightful)
This wasn't a tirade, but a list of the treasonous crimes of the current administration. Calling a criminal a criminal is not name calling. Your arguments are weak appeals to emotion with no factual basis.
Re:Ultimately it will likely hinge on one thing (Score:3, Insightful)
If you recall during the 90s the Shia in Iraq rose up against Saddam (and were subsequently crushed). That to me does not sound like a people who want to continue that sort of regime.
Now they have the opportunity to govern themselves - and judging by the vote turnouts, they want to do just that. And they are indeed paying the price "in blood", as the Iraqi Army takes a lot more casualties than the Americans do.
That to me says they've got a real chance of making it work. It could still all go south, but they've got a chance. For their sake and ours, let's hope they succeed.