DON’T IMPEACH INDICT., What should be done with Bush?

Right on……. Kucinich for president.

From today's "American Progress":





From the Cartoonist Group.

Job Performance Anxiety
Deterioration of Civil Rights Under Bush
The Facts About Minimum Wage


Attached Image. (Click thumbnail to expand)

This is a clear case of the hypocricy of the Bush adminstration's blatant misuse of power and their hyporacy. The Pentagon has become a mindless tool of the administration. In any other branch of government, this brave man would have legal recourse as a "whistle blower". The final section in the article sums it up well.

From the Associated Press:


NORFOLK, Virginia (AP) -- A military jury recommended that a Navy lawyer spend six months in prison and be dismissed from the service for sending a human rights attorney the names of 550 Guantanamo Bay detainees in an unmarked Valentine's Day card.

Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz was convicted Thursday at his court martial of communicating secret information about Guantanamo Bay detainees that could be used to injure the United States and three other charges of leaking information to an unauthorized person.

The jury of seven Navy officers recommended Friday that Diaz receive his pay and benefits while incarcerated, but the sentence must still be approved by Rear Admiral Rick Ruehe. The dismissal will also be reviewed by a military appellate court, the Navy said.

Diaz, who could have received up to 14 years in prison, gave emotional testimony during the sentencing hearing, apologizing for his actions.

"I just want the members to know I'm sincerely sorry for what I did -- a stupid act," Diaz said. "I'm better than that."

"The prosecutors were right: I'm a meticulous man. I should have done better. It was extremely irrational for me to do what I did."

However, after the first day of his trial on Monday, Diaz told The Dallas Morning News that he felt sending the list was the right decision because of how the detainees were being treated.

"My oath as a commissioned officer is to the Constitution of the United States," Diaz said. "I'm not a criminal."

In early 2005, as he was finishing a six-month tour of duty as a legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Diaz sent an anonymous note to a lawyer at a New York civil liberties group with a list of the detainees' names.

The Center for Constitutional Rights earlier had won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that terrorism suspects had the right to challenge their detention. But the Pentagon was refusing to identify the men, hampering the group's effort to represent them.

"I had observed the stonewalling, the obstacles we continued to place in the way of the attorneys," Diaz said. "I knew my time was limited. ... I had to do something."

Diaz said he now believes it was "cowardly" to release the names and other identifying information in that manner.

"I was more concerned about damaging my career," Diaz said. "Obviously I chose the wrong path because here I am: My career is in jeopardy, serious jeopardy, much more serious jeopardy than it would have been if I had raised the issue to my chain of command."

Diaz, 41, of Topeka, Kansas, did not testify at his court-martial.

But in an hourlong interview after the opening day of his trial Monday, Diaz said he believes the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror is illegal. He accused officials of violating international law, such as the Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of war prisoners, and the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of due process.

"I made a stupid decision, I know, but I felt it was the right decision, the moral decision, the decision that was required by international law," Diaz told the Dallas newspaper. "No matter how the conflict was identified, we were to treat them in accordance with Geneva, and it just wasn't being done."

The Defense Department strenuously rejects such comments.

Bush administration officials have characterized the Guantanamo population overall as "the worst of the worst." Diaz said that is one of two incorrect or false statements.

"The other statement was 'We do not torture,' " said Diaz, whose jobs included tracking and investigating abuse allegations.

"I think a good case could be made for allegations of war crimes, policies that were war crimes," he said. "There was a way to do this properly, and we're not doing it properly."

That's the saddest story I've heard in a long time. With any luck, the guy will find a new career direction in international human rights law. It doesn't pay anything like the inflated government legal money, but he'll feel like a human being again. Which he is, clearly, anyway -- the egg on his face is not of his own laying.

I agree, milady Stormiel.

I am a patriotic American and have been proud of my country for most of my life. The actions and policys of the Bush administration makes me ashamed of my country. So sad.

Some of my British friends are expressing some of the same feelings (in a more reserved way). The Canadiens neatly sidestepped the whole Iraqi thing. They can be proud of their leadership.

I don’t think this guy bush isn’t going to leave Iraq, or the white house. You watch… martial law is right around the corner. (If I thought it would help, I’d pray).

JC

[QUOTE=John Clements,24-May-2007, 10:09 AM]I don’t think this guy bush isn’t going to leave Iraq, or the white house. You watch… martial law is right around the corner. (If I thought it would help, I’d pray).

Since no one seems to want to respond to my last post of May 24th 07, concerning impeaching, the “entire” Bush administration, I guess I'll have too.

I don’t know about you guys, but every time I hear someone blow off the idea of impeaching the “entire” administration, simply because the impeachment proceedings would tie up the government, and there for nothing would get done. To this argument I have to say bull crap, because in my opinion nothing being done by this administration. Would only be a step in the right direction.

Now I know you all have heard this before, but never has it been truer, at least in my life time. (If you wan to kill a snake…cut off the head.)

But hey what do I know. Except what I perceive to be right and wrong, and that it’s only our lives, and the lives of your children’s children, that are at stake, right here and now.

JC

Well -- I want to do you the honor of responding, good buddy, but I wish I could agree with you.

In effect we "impeached" the entire administration in Iraq, and look at it now. Do you honestly think this country would behave itself perfectly if the head and shoulders were suddenly cut off? Especially with this nauseatingly partisan presidential campaigning going on? Jockeying for position after that would take on all the restraint of an opportunistic fungal infestation, and NOTHING could be depended on to get done. Fractioning into city-states is what we'd do. Perfect time for another brutal hurricane in the gulf, for one thing, or any of the other impending natural disasters we have seeded in the country really getting out of hand. I know we like to think that an echoing vacancy would have been better than Great-Job Brownie, but I would not like to test it. An absolute chaos of finger pointing would ensue, far worse than last time for lack of a target, and it wouldn't be slowed down one bit by bodies choking the storm drains.

I’m sorry but I think this situation has gone far beyond finger pointing. Besides isn’t the speaker of the house supposed to step I as president. Or are we just going to allow them to ignore that law as well. Hey, maybe we should just ignore the law that gives the Supreme Court Justice a life time term. And we thought that there no justice before.
And so my dear friend, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree, because I’ll take anarchy… over slavery…any-day.
Signing off
JC

John, I would argue with you, but I agree with all you are saying. The US administration is nothing more than an organized crime family. THEIR kids arent dying in Bushnam while we grow members of Middle Eastern Terror organizations ten times faster than we can kill them. Time to make Georgie put away his toy soldier set and go to bed....in prison.

Thanks maisky, you always say it more eloquently than I do.

Let's face it--the Democrats in Congress aren't going to impeach the Bush gang because they are just as rotten as the Republicans. Being something of a libertarian, I have sometimes thought that paralysis at the Federal level would be a good thing. However, I do see one extremely bad consequence of such paralysis at the present time, which is that the global corporations will have even more free rein than they have now. In my darker moments I sometimes wonder whether the global war on terror is being exploited by the global corporations to increase their domination on all aspects of our lives, from the music we listen to (i.e., the recent assault on internet radio) to the food we eat to the electronics we use to the conditions of work, and just about anything else. It seems as though our entire society is being subsumed by the incessant greed of the global corporations whose entire raison d'etre seems to be: grow profits, cut costs.
I don't know what the solution is, and am not at all convinced that putting a Democrat in the White House will make a real difference. I do have real concerns about what kind of world we will be bequeathing to our children and future generations.

Right on! Hey, remember when he said he was a uniter, not a divider. (or words to that effect) To me that statement alone is enough to impeach him.

Why impeach? Just wait for all his cronies to fall off the branch like rotten apples, til he's stuck out on a limb all by himself. That process seems to be moving along fine.

What ever works stoirmeil, but I need restitution too. Why you could even call it revenge, because there doesn’t seem to be ant justice.