Ralph Nader: Bush At The Tipping Point

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" Zepp " <zepp

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:42:46 -0800

Nader: Putsch at the tipping point

 

 

 

 

 

Bush At The Tipping Point

A Lawless And Incompetent Leadership

 

By Ralph Nader

3-18-6

http://www.rense.com/general70/incomp.htm

 

 

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, two top outlaws smashing our country's

rule of law and democratic liberties, are testing the American

people's resistance. Every day they are testing. Every day they think

by flaunting the words, " war on terror " , they can get Americans to

concede more and more of what makes the United States a

constitutionally-abiding government under the rule of law.

 

You know what? With not enough exceptions, they are right. Day by day,

we're giving up what our forefathers fought to bequeath us since that

famous Declaration of Independence of 1776. They were determined that

people in this country would not be arrested without charges and

jailed indefinitely, that they would not be tortured, or sent to be

tortured in dictatorial regimes, or deprived of habeas corpus to take

their incarceration to our courts of law, or be snooped on at the whim

of the President and his deputies or that people in faraway lands

would be destroyed in the tens of thousands due to a fabricated

war-invasion-quagmire.

 

They instituted a constitution so that people would not be jailed

without " probable cause " , or be lied to about taking this country and

its soldiers to war, or have shoved aside the checks and balances

represented by American courts and the Congress. All these are being

done by two pro-Vietnam war draft dodgers!

 

What does all this tell you about all of us out there in the great

United States of America? A giant yawn of " who cares " by citizens,

nearly two-thirds of whom now have turned against these two White

House fabricators in poll after poll regarding the war, the surrender

to Big Business, the gross incompetence in managing taxpayer dollars

and the Katrina disaster.

 

But listen, the rumble of resistance and opposition is getting louder

and not just from the increasing number of public demonstrations

around the country.

 

A new Zogby poll reports that 72% of American soldiers serving in Iraq

think the U.S. should get out within the next year, including 58% of

the Marines! Three-quarters of National Guard and Reserve units

support withdrawal within 6 months. Every month, more former

high-ranking military officers, intelligence officials and diplomats

are declaring their opposition to the war.

 

For a few examples of many: Retired four-star General, Joseph P. Hoar,

who commanded the U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf after the 1991 war,

described the Iraq war as " wrong from the beginning " . Similar tough

criticism has come from John Deutch, former head of the CIA, Zbigniew

Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter and Brent

Scowcroft, national security advisor to the first President Bush.

 

Retired General William Odom, former head of the National Security

Agency and security adviser to Ronald Reagan, wrote that the Iraq war

" is serving the interests of Osama bin Laden, the Iranians, and is

fomenting civil war in Iraq. " He describes the Iraq war as " the most

strategic foreign policy disaster in U.S. history. "

 

More recently, internal memos of criticism or dissent, Inspector

General reports from Defense the Justice Department, and former

highly-positioned staff within the Bush Administration, like Colonel

Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell, are taking apart

the public relations sheen concocted by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld triad.

 

Now comes the conservative American Bar Association--400,000

lawyers--whose House of Delegates has overwhelmingly approved a task

force report accusing President Bush, in polite legal language, of

violating both the Constitution and federal law. ABA President Michael

S. Greco sent it to Mr. Bush with a cover letter dated February 13,

2006 (see www.abanet.org/op/domsurv for the full report).

 

The mass media, which has finally produced many exposes of the Bush

war, ignored the significance of this condemnation by the nation's

largest body of lawyers, written in part by attorneys who have served

in the FBI, CIA and NSA. It should have been page one news.

 

There comes a tipping point, however, when the opposition of the

establishment, the public opinion of the citizenry, the disgust of the

soldiers--their spreading casualties, diseases and mental traumas -

and the corruption of the large corporate contractors to whom much of

the military's functions have been outsourced, all congeal and

overcome the cowardliness of most members of Congress. Then a surge of

Congressional followers and allies of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), war

veteran and leading voice against the Bush Iraq policies, will come to

the forefront.

 

The illegal, disastrous (to both Iraqis and Americans) Iraq war is now

almost three years of quagmire old. The chaos and bloodshed are

worsening.

 

It is time to make the spring of 2006 the tipping point period for

constitutionalism, justice and a sane foreign and national security

policy. More yawns must turn into growls from outside Washington, DC.

See http://www.DemocracyRising.US for more information.

 

 

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act -

G.Orwell

 

There is no way to Peace Peace is the way

 

 

--

" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government

talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court

order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about

chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order

before we do so "

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004