The Case for Impeachment: Censorship, Burying Facts, and Criminal Negligence

[babylonsister]

http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1436

The Case for Impeachment: Censorship, Burying Facts, and Criminal Negligence
A. Alexander, February 6th, 2007

If the President of the United States knew that his or the government's failure to act could reasonably be expected to lead to the misery, impoverishment, or death of scores of Americans and/or other innocent people all around the world and he did nothing to prevent it - wouldn't that be an impeachable offense? How would that not be an impeachable offense? And, what does this President and administration's tendency to ignore, bury, censor, and cover up realities it doesn't want to acknowledge say about the way in which terrorists were able to be so successful in their attacks on September 11, 2001?

As a whole the Bush administration doesn't simply ignore inconvenient facts, they punish those who try to tell them things they don't want to know or that they don't want the public to know. Perhaps, the most famous case of the President and his administration's tendency to censor and punish truth-tellers involved General Eric Shinseki, during the lead up to the war in Iraq.

General Shinseki appeared before Congress and said post-invasion Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops in order to secure the peace. The administration sent one of their many neoconservative know-nothings, Paul Wolfowitz, to the Hill to refute the General's claim. Mister Wolfowitz, never having served a day in the military, told Congress that the General's estimate was "wildly off the mark." Not just "off base" or "a bit over the top" or "probably not the case"; the administration insisted General Shinseki's truthful assessment was "wildly off the mark."

Shortly after General Shinseki's testimony, his replacement was named - 14 months prior to the General's actual date of retirement.

Shortly after 9/11, when Donald Rumsfeld and the President were looking to blame Saddam for the attacks, Richard Clarke and others tried to warn them that Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist assault - but he and others were either ignored or told to find a connection. Not long afterward, Clarke, who had faithfully served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, was bypassed for promotion and resigned his post.

More recently, at a cost of millions of dollars to American taxpayers, James Baker and Lee Hamilton were commissioned to form the Iraq Study Group. Supposedly their mission was to assess the situation in Iraq and its impact on the Mid-East Region as a whole, and to offer the administration a way forward. The President and his people decided the group's conclusions didn't fit into their ideologically-driven preconceived notions, so they swept the report aside and had their radio, television, and print propagandists -- Limbaugh and FOX News etc -- attack the lifelong Republican, James Baker, as having done little more than designed America's defeat at the hands of "terrorists."


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[texpatriot2004]

1. Impeachment...it's happening nm