It’s Treason: Dems Stay Silent on Bush White House Crimes
By Richard W. Behan, AlterNet. Posted November 16, 2007.
Lying to the people and the Congress was the most despicable violation
of the rule of law by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, but many more followed.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war
against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and
comfort.
--Article III, Section 3, United States Constitution (emphasis added)
The mainstream Democrats -- represented, say, by Harry Reid, Nancy
Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and
Christopher Dodd -- have not levied war against the United States.
Their treason lies instead in committing the second offense: They
adhere to enemies of the country, giving them aid and comfort.
The enemies are President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard
Cheney. Like no other president and vice president in history, these
men attacked their country.
It was not our geography George Bush and Richard Cheney invaded.
Instead they abandoned and subverted the bedrock institution of our
constitutional democracy: the rule of law. By word and deed, Mr. Bush
repeatedly and arrogantly sets himself above the law, claiming
obedience to be a matter of presidential choice. Mr. Cheney
orchestrates, coaches, applauds and iterates.
This cannot stand if the country we know and cherish is to survive.
George Bush and Richard Cheney are literally enemies of the state;
long before now and by any measure of constitutional justice, they
should have been impeached and removed from office.
Abjectly, continuously and stubbornly refusing to hold them
accountable, however, the mainstream Democrats adhere to this criminal
president and vice president: Nothing they have asked for has been
denied, no barriers placed in their way. That is giving them aid and
comfort, and that is treason. George Bush and Richard Cheney took the
country to war illegally, with a deliberate, carefully designed and
executed package of fear-mongering propaganda: lies, distortions and
deceptions. No informed citizen entertains the slightest doubt about
this.
Lying to the people and the Congress was the most despicable violation
of the rule of law by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, but many more followed:
torturing prisoners, denying habeas corpus, spying on U.S. citizens,
nullifying new laws with "signing statements" and so on and on. The
litany of impeachable offenses is long and painful, but the so-called
"War on Terror," these men insist, makes all of it acceptable, even
necessary. Nearly six years have elapsed since the Bush administration
first defeated the rule of law. For most of these years, a Republican
Congress saw fit not to intervene, or even to question this behavior,
so effective was the administration's propaganda campaign and so firm
were the bonds of partisanship. But now the mainstream Democrats
control the Congress.
Also during these six years, the truth emerged, and now we can see the
"War on Terror" truly for what it is -- an overarching megalie, an
untruth of such unimaginable scope and magnitude it recalibrates for
an entire nation the perception of reality. (Aryan supremacy was the
megalie of Nazi Germany.) No one should be surprised that the threat
of terrorism has increased, not diminished, since 9/11: the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq were not even remotely intended to combat it.
We know the Bush administration, when it took office, was indifferent
to terrorism, brushing aside explicit warnings about al Qaeda and
Osama bin Laden; we know the president was planning instead, at least
six months before 9/11, to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq; we know
of a National Security Council memorandum dated Feb. 3, 2001,
concerning the "capture of new and existing oil and gas fields" in
Iraq; we have acquired with a lawsuit the maps of Iraqi oil fields
Vice President Cheney's "Energy Task Force" was studying a month
later; we have learned how the privatized structure of Iraq's postwar
oil industry was designed by the Bush administration a year before the
war began; we know the administration was negotiating pipeline
rights-of-way with the Taliban, unsuccessfully, until five weeks
before 9/11; we know the final threat to them was a "carpet of bombs";
we are aware of President Bush twice refusing offers from the Taliban
to surrender Osama bin Laden, before and after the carpet of bombs was
unleashed; we've read of the five "megabases" in Iraq to house 100,000
troops for as long as 50 years; we've learned the U.S. Embassy
compound under construction in Baghdad will be ten times larger than
any other in the world; and we know Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch
Shell, and British Petroleum/Amoco are poised to claim immense profits
from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped oil fields.
Are these the activities and outcomes of a "War on Terror?"
We also know President Bush, a month before 9/11 in August of 2001,
notified the governments of Pakistan and India he would launch a
military mission into Afghanistan "before the end of October."
Between the dates of the president's announcement and his order to
attack, the Trade Towers and the Pentagon were struck by the hijacked
airliners. Seizing in a heartbeat this spectacular opportunity to
disguise and launch the preplanned invasions, the Bush administration
concocted the megalie, and the "War on Terror" was born.
The "War on Terror" is a conscious and ingenious masquerade for the
geostrategic pursuit and control of Middle Eastern oil and gas
resources. The facts place this beyond dispute. Mr. Bush's claim of
"taking the fight directly to the terrorists … and the states that
harbor them" was yet one more intentional deception, as subsequent
events fully demonstrated. In Afghanistan the state was overthrown
instead of apprehending the terrorists -- Osama bin Laden remains at
large -- and in Iraq, when we invaded, there were no terrorists at
all. But today both "states" are fitted with puppet governments and
dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in close proximity to their
hydrocarbon assets.
More: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/67707/
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