NEW YORK--George W. Bush told us that Iraq and Al Qaeda

were working together. They weren't. He repeatedly implied that

Iraq had had something to do with 9/11. It hadn't. He claimed to

have proof that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons of

mass destruction. He didn't. As our allies watched in horror and

disgust, Bush conned us into a one-sided war of aggression that

killed and maimed thousands of innocent people, destroyed

billions of dollars in Iraqi infrastructure, cost tens of billions of

dollars, cost the lives of American soldiers, and transformed our

international image as the world's shining beacon of freedom into

that of a marauding police state. Presidents Nixon and Clinton

rightly faced impeachment for comparatively trivial offenses; if we

hope to restore our nation's honor, George W. Bush too must face

a president's gravest political sanction.

As the Bush Administration sold Congress and the public on the

"threat" posed by Saddam Hussein last winter, White House flack

Ari Fleischer assured the American people: "The President of the

United States and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as

plainly and vocally as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass

destruction if it was not true and if they did not have a solid basis

for saying it." That's unambiguous rhetoric. But since allied

occupation forces have failed to find WMDs, Bush is

backtracking: "I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out

that they did have a weapons program," the C-in-C now says.

What's next? Claiming that Saddam had WMDs because, you

know, you could just feel it?

A ferocious power struggle is taking place between Langley and

the White House. "It's hard to tell if there was a breakdown in

intelligence or a breakdown in the way intelligence was used,"

says Michele Flournoy of the Center for Strategic and

International Studies. No it's not. Career analysts at the Central

and Defense Intelligence Agencies, furious at Bush for sticking

them with the blame for the weapons scandal, are leaking prewar

memoranda that indicate that the Administration covered up the

spooks' assessments, making the case for war with a pile of lies

constructed on a bedrock of oil-fueled greed.

A September 2002 DIA study said that there was "no reliable

information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical

weapons," but Bush ignored the report--and told us the exact

opposite. After Bush used the discovery of two alleged mobile

weapons labs to claim "we found the weapons of mass

destruction," CIA "dissenters" shot back that Bush had lied about

their reports and that they "doubted the trailers were used to

make germ agents, not[ing] that the plants lacked gear for steam

sterilization, which is typically necessary for making bioweapons."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld parried: "Any indication or

allegation that the intelligence was in any way politicized, of

course, is just false on its face...We haven't found Saddam

Hussein either, but no one's doubting that he was there." Rummy

also floated the CIA-debunked tale of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.

Both factions are missing the point.

Calling for a full Congressional investigation, Sen. Carl Levin

(D-MI) of the Armed Services Committee, says: "I think that the

nation's credibility is on the line, as well as Bush's." But not even

the discovery of a vast WMD arsenal should save Bush now.

Assuming that one accepts preemption as a legitimate cause for

war--and one ought not--you must possess airtight substantiation

that a nation poses an imminent and significant threat before you

drop bombs on its cities. Evidence that falls short of 100 percent

proof, presented in advance, doesn't pass the pre-empt test.

Bush claimed to have that proof. He said that Iraq could deploy its

biological and chemical weapons with just 45 minutes notice. He

painted gruesome pictures of American cities in ruins, their debris

irradiated by an Iraqi "dirty bomb." It was all a bald-faced lie, and

lying presidents get impeached.

George W. Bush, like Richard Nixon, "endeavor[ed] to misuse

the Central Intelligence Agency." George W. Bush, like Richard

Nixon, "[made] or caus[ed] to be made false or misleading public

statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United

States." (The legalese comes from the first Article of Impeachment

against Nixon, passed by the House Judiciary Committee on July

27, 1974. Faced with certain impeachment in the House and

conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned two weeks later.)

In the words of Bill Clinton's 1998 impeachment, George W.

Bush "has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought

disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President,

and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and

justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States."

Nixon and Clinton escaped criminal prosecution for burglary,

perjury and obstruction of justice. George W. Bush, however,

stands accused as the greatest mass murderer in American history.

The Lexington Institute estimates that the U.S. killed between

15,000 and 20,000 Iraqi troops during the fraudulently justified

invasion of Iraq, plus 10,000 to 15,000 wounded. More than 150

U.S. soldiers were killed, plus more than 500 injured. A new

Associated Press study of Iraqi civilian casualties confirms at least

3,240 deaths. Although Bush, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and

Condoleeza Rice denied such legal niceties to the

concentration-camp inmates captured in their illegal invasions of

Iraq and Afghanistan, these high-ranking Administration

henchmen should be quickly turned over--after impeachment

proceedings for what might properly be called Slaughtergate--to

an international tribunal for prosecution of war crimes.

Anything less would be anti-American.

(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the

American Occupation of Afghanistan," an analysis of the

underreported Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project and the real

motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information is

available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2003 TED RALL

RALL 6/10/03

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/

A blow job at least, didn't kill anyone.

Don't expect Clear Channel to pick up on this.

It seems that Bush and the media are each others bitch.

"Cast you votes online to impeach Bush. Go to this web site to impeach Bush online: http://www.officialspin.com"

Yeah. Whatever.

Don't worry; it'll all be over soon.

Bush's second term will be done in 2008.

parole denied. No pardon, get back in your cell, Bush.

If he goes to jail, he'll be separated from Hillary.

That would be a reward.

Every time America goes to war, at least if a Republican is president, the Democrat left works itself up into a frenzy claiming that the conflict is going to be "another Vietnam." It happened with the Gulf War, with Afghanistan and with the liberation of Iraq. The tone of these warnings is typically not one of concern or fear, but of hope, even lust. The reason is simple but perverse: In Vietnam, America's loss (and that of the South Vietnamese people) was the left's triumph. And like an elderly ex-athlete boring everyone silly by going on endlessly about past glories, the left just won't get over Vietnam. Probably never will, at least until the baby-boom cohort has passed from the scene and the conflict has ceased to be a living memory.

But lurid quagmire fantasies are hard to sustain in the face of lightning victory. So those on the left have changed their tack in recent weeks. Now Iraq isn't another Vietnam, it's another Watergate! This is what's behind the "debate" over whether the Bush administration "lied" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Those on the Democratic left think of Watergate as a feather in their cap. They brought down a president! Of course, they didn't really bring down the president, though they helped; he brought himself down by countenancing and then covering up a crime. But left-wing mythology seems to be all about hoping for a recurrence of these decades-old victories.

Of course, no sensible person thinks the Iraq war is Watergate, any more than it was Vietnam. There's no crime here. The complaint seems to be merely that administration officials spoke with too much assurance when they described their beliefs about the present state of Iraq's weapons programs. In other words, they did what politicians always do when trying to win public support for a policy: They made the most compelling argument they could. It's hardly a scandal that the administration didn't make its opponents' case for them.

A new Gallup Poll suggests all this scandal talk has failed to persuade anyone. Eighty-six percent of respondents still think it is "likely" or "certain" that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons before the war, and only 31% agree that "the Bush administration deliberately misled the American public." That's roughly equivalent to the proportion that opposed the war, or the proportion that supported the impeachment of President Clinton back when. But Forty-eight percent of Democrats think the administration lied, which means the party is split between the hard-core partisans--who opposed Iraq's liberation all along--and the more sensible wing.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr030616.asp

The New York Times confirms this perception, surveying the presidential field and finding that "the war in Iraq is once again dividing the Democratic Party." On one side are all three of the most serious candidates--Dick Gephardt, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman--along with John Edwards. On the other side, Bob Graham "went so far as to compare Mr. Bush and his fellow Republicans to Richard M. Nixon"--but let's face it, Graham is a marginal candidate and an eccentric fellow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/14/politics/14WEAP.html?pagewanted=all

Then there's Howard Dean, who's trying to have it both ways:

At first, Dr. Dean aggressively challenged Mr. Bush's credibility on the issue. But he has since held back as pressure on the administration has built in Congress. "Howard Dean said for a long time that the president didn't make the case for war in Iraq," said Steve McMahon, one of Dr. Dean's senior advisers. "Now the question is, was the case the president made based on facts or ideology?"

Dean, of course, has been antiwar if not pro-Saddam all along, and it's not surprising that he'd take a different tack than his opponents. He's a dark-horse candidate, and the only way he can win the nomination is by appealing to wild-eyed hyperpartisan Democrats. It just might work: WisPolitics.com reports that Dean trounced Kerry in a straw poll at the Wisconsin Democratic state convention over the weekend, 203 votes to 50. But Dean would not seem to be the party's best hope of defeating Bush next year.

http://www.wispolitics.com/freeser/features/f0306/f0306demconv/f03061402.html

The Times quotes one other prominent Democrat who is, cautiously at least, joining the anti-Bush frenzy. "Serious questions have been raised that need to be answered," says Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. Mrs. Clinton has been a strong supporter of the administration's Iraq policy, so what's she up to? Well, here's one possible explanation: Many observers think she intends to run for president in 2008. She's unlikely to do so if a Democrat wins next year, so if she has her eye on the White House, Bush's re-election is in her interest. With this in mind, perhaps then she's trying to exacerbate the division within her own party.

Josh Marshall, meanwhile, weighs in on the "debate" with this bit of hyperbole: "Seldom, I think, has a country undergone such a subtle, textured, distinction-granting debate about lying and truth-telling." That depends on what the meaning of "has" is.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/june0302.html#061403149am

Michael Rivero nails it again:

" I don't think that Americans have really abandoned a demand for truth, especially from the government that takes so much of their money and their children's blood. Suggestions by the media that Americans do not care if Bush lied about WMDs may be an even greater hoax than the WMD lies themselves, yet another deception from the mainstream media that is neck deep in the earlier deceptions. The goal is to trick you into thinking that Americans don't care about truth, to trick you into thinking that maybe YOU don't care about the truth.

I don't know anyone who really think it is okay for the government to lie. The Founding Fathers certainly did not authorize the government to lie to the people in the Constitution. I've checked; it isn't in there. Truth must have been important to those who set up this nation with stiff penalties for lies. Perjury is a crime. Those oaths for high office are not empty ritual. Failure to keep an oath of office is equal to lying before a judge. I certainly do not know any Christians, Muslims, or Jews who approve of lying. The prohibition against bearing false witness is in the Ten Commandments. Those Americans with a regard for any of those religious faiths cannot in good conscience approve of the government violating that Commandment, yet that is the illusion the mainstream media is trying to create.

Of course you do not approve of government lies. It's equal to being deaf, dumb, and blind if you live under a government that lies. Are your taxes fair? How can you know if the government lies to you? Are the taxes even legal? How can you know if the government lies to you? Is the money the government takes from you really being spent on services for your benefit? How can you know if the government lies to you? Is a war just? How can you know if the government lies to you? Did your children die for a good cause or to make some greedy bastard whose own children stayed safe at home richer? How can you know if the government lies to you? Did a popular leader and reformer really die at the hands of a lone assassin? How can you know if the government lies to you? Was that plane disaster really an accident? How can you know if the government lies to you? Are there are WMDs in Iraq? How can you know if the government lies to you? Are there WMDs in Iran? How can you know if the government lies to you? Who was the mastermind behind 9-11? How can you know if the government lies to you? Do your friends and neighbors really approve of government that lies? How can you know if the government lies to you?

You can't. You can't know anything if the government, aided by the media, lies to you. All that you know is an illusion, created to trick you into thinking what the government wants you to think, wants you to believe. That's all mind control is, controlling the brain by controlling what it knows. And that means you are already a slave, as enslaved by what you believe is the truth but is a lie as those Medieval serfs who were enslaved by the lie that Kings ruled by divine right.

Free citizens demand the truth. Only slaves kneel down and say, "It's okay if you lie to me. I don't care".

Which are you? Free? Or slave? Time to decide."