(crossposted from the frontpage of MyLeftWing)
"Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all...It was pitiful...I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mr. President,' and then I felt ashamed."
"In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love it or leave it."
~ Hunter S. Thompson on George W. Bush
(more below the fold...)
If only George W. Bush and his entire administration were merely an embarrassment! But they are much more than that; they are criminals. They have committed numerous crimes against the people of the United States, against the world, and against humanity. This is not a trivial matter. It is the most important matter that we as a nation face. And yet the ‘smart money’, the ‘conventional wisdom’ is that we cannot, we must not impeach them for what they have done.
The reasoning seems to be that we can’t impeach the Bush administration because:
- It would be a distraction
- It would be too time consuming
- It would look like revenge
- It would hurt our chances in ‘08
Okay, let me get this straight. The Republicans can impeach Bill Clinton for getting a blowjob, but we can’t impeach the entire Bush administration for:
- Stealing two Presidential elections
- The illegal and illogical invasion of Iraq
- Causing the wrongful deaths of close to a million people
- War crimes, atrocities, and torture
- Kidnapping (extraordinary rendition)
- Assaulting the Constitution and stripping us of our constitutional rights (and in the process making a mockery of everything America stands for)
Alrighty then, that seems reasonable. I mean we wouldn’t want to look like we were taking revenge. That would be bad form wouldn’t it? And Lord knows we don’t want to be distracted by minor side issues like torture and war crimes. I mean we Democrats have our hands full arguing and fighting about which turkey is going to represent our side in ’08. I have just one question:
Who in their right minds are going to vote for a Party that ignores, excuses, or rationalizes war crimes, atrocities and torture? Not me, and I’m a dyed-in-the-wool yellow dog Democrat. But I have my principles.
Why do I think the pursuit of justice for the Bush administration is more important than crass political strategery? Because, contrary to the way we often act, we are not an island unto ourselves. The United States of America is a member of the world community. Many of the other members of that community have serious grievances against the Bush administration.
Many of those who have not been directly assaulted have had their citizens snatched off their streets by CIA operatives and smuggled out of the country to places where they were subjected to hideous torture. Many others have been merely snubbed, bullied or insulted, but its not as if these minor offenses don’t matter. They lower our standing in the world and reduce the number of friends upon whom we can call in other matters and in other circumstances.
All of these countries deserve to see us do the right thing. They all certainly watched the national disgrace that was the Clinton impeachment, the hideous spectacle of America being dragged through the mud by a self-righteous pack of snarling hypocritical rightwing Republicans bent on petty revenge for political slights they had suffered at Clinton’s hands. What will they think if we shrug and say, ‘fuggetaboutit’ to the Bush administration’s grievous and heinous offenses against America and the world? They’ll think we’ve lost our minds, that’s what – and they’ll be right.
We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
We have to do more than wash the crooked warmongers out of the Whitehouse and replace them with our team. We have to bring them to justice. This is our solemn obligation to the world.
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
We also have an obligation to ourselves and to future Americans. If we allow the precedent to be set that a President can get away with torture, atrocities and war crimes we are begging for a future filled with more of the same. It is incumbent upon us to send a powerful message that such horrendous misdeeds will not go unpunished.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As of this moment the number of American service men and women who have been sacrificed in Iraq for George W. Bush’s war based on lies stands at just under 3,000 and Iraqi losses are estimated at 655,000.
The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.
~ Lois McMaster Bujold
And to those who say we’ll worry about it after 2008, I say this:
Justice delayed, is justice denied.
~ William Gladstone (1809 - 1898)
Impeachment and prosecution of the Bush administration’s war crimes is the only honorable course for America and the world, and the only way forward for Democrats. By all means, let’s elect a strong Democratic leader as our President in ’08, but let’s first lay the groundwork making that possible by bringing the Bush administration war criminals to justice without further delay.