I can't escape the feeling that despite all of the families' grief, our military deaths mean little more to the president than the quarterly profit losses he grew used to hearing about in every business he ran into the ground. And like in those businesses, ultimately the loss is someone else's problem.
I have been intermittently following the various discussions on the left for and against the pursuit of articles of impeachment. I think that I had basically fallen on the against side, agreeing with several pundits that it would be a distraction from the fall elections. After today I'm leaning the other way. I spent the day indoors, avoiding the snow and slush to curl up with a little on-line news. I read excerpts from an article by Harper's editor Lewis H. Lapham, The Case for Impeachment. He wrote it in response to the report from John Conyer's committee investigating the lead up to war. In the closing paragraph he says,
Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man.Reading the report one realizes that this administration has done absolutely nothing well and most of their decisions, if not outright criminal are completely immoral. They lie to us, and despite their attempts at secrecy every lie is eventually uncovered. Of course it helps that their lies are ridiculously blatant. For instance, "no one could have anticipated the breach of the levees."
Their most dangerous lies are connected to the fighting in Iraq, starting with the lie that led us to war. This week we learned that Bush received a report in October 2002 and another in January 2003 that cast serious doubts on his central claims of imminent nuclear attack. Although in 2003 his reasoning for going to war was convoluted and suspect, this may be the first evidence supporting the assertion that he knew Saddam was no threat. As bad as this is, it may not be the most criminal act of this administration. I think its negligence is much more criminal.
I know they've been lying, you know they've been lying. The question is, do they? Do they know they're lying or have they deluded themselves? Otherwise how could they behave as if being prepared to receive flowers and candy is the same as postwar planning. The lack of postwar planning led to the insurgency. And pretending the insurgency didn't exists, was in its last throes, was more foreign than it is was set the country on the path to civil war. Further feeding the fires of violence leading to civil war has been the death squads connected to the Iraqi Interior Ministry in a replication of the US strategy in El Salvador. He's breaking the military. Recruitment numbers have tanked, they're taking recruits who are much less than our best. Can the volunteer army survive this man? Is it any surprise that 72% of the troops think they should be home within the year? Of course they want to come home. What could be more demoralizing than knowing that you could be killed or permanently injured for no honest or discernible reason? I would imagine the prospect of having the government responsible for one's well-being post Iraq to be somewhat frightening. This is especially true when you consider that veterans face future health care cuts from Bush's budget. They pay more attention to meeting the needs of Halliburton and its subsidiaries than they do our troops. Such immoral choices, if they are not criminal, should be. More from Lapham,
We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?
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