Another Republican prez and another open-ended war

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.

5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."

10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.

18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.

19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

George W. Bush had no real plan for Iraq when he started this war with the people of that country.
Yes, I said the people and not Saddam or the Iraqi government because the people of Iraq have suffered the most, and will continue to suffer.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Iraq was not a home to terrorists.
In fact, Saddam did not like or trust bin Laden.
While it is true that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, it is also true that Iraq is worse now than it was under Saddam.
This war has made Iraq a home for terrorists, and has divided the country through hate and violence.
No one is safe there.
That is what Bush has done.
I get sick every time one of our brave service men and women die in Iraq and other places.
We the people of the United States stand with our soldiers.
We love them all.
And that is more than I can say about President Bush who laughed at them during a black-tie event in 2004.
He said.... (While looking under a piece of furniture) "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere."
Then, while pretending to look out of a window, Bush laughed as he said..... "Nope, no weapons over there."
While he was laughing, there were men and women fighting and dying in Iraq because of WMD.
In his State of the Union speech, it was very clear that Bush is living in fantasy land.
I never watched a speech that was so full of empty words that had nothing to back them up with.
It was a joke.
Even many of his fellow Republicans must have been laughing at him.
He should have told the people that he does not know what he is doing.
At least he would have been telling the truth for once.
The sad part of it all is that the rest of us have to put up with him.
And our troops deserve better.
Thank you.
George Vreeland Hill.

Here is an eye-opener:
The cost of the war in Iraq has cost the taxpayers more than $359 billion dollars.
According to a Yahoo Internet news source on January 18, 2007, that means with that same money, you could provide total health care and insurance for more than 215 million children a year.
Or, you could hire 6,224,739 schoolteachers for a year.
Or, you could provide more than 17 million full four-year college scholarships.
BUT NO!
BUSH WANTED SADDAM!
LOOK WHAT WE COULD HAVE HAD!
LOOK WHAT WE GAVE UP FOR SADDAM!
FOR SADDAM????
YES!
ALL THAT FOR SADDAM!
AND SADDAM HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11.
BUT BUSH WANTED HIM ANYWAY!
AND YOU PAID FOR IT!
LET ME SAY IT AGAIN:
(This is what we could have had instead of the war with Iraq)
The cost of the war in Iraq has cost the taxpayers more than $359 billion dollars.
According to a Yahoo Internet news source on January 18, 2007, that means with that same money, you could provide total health care and insurance for more than 215 million children a year.
Or, you could hire 6,224,739 schoolteachers for a year.
Or, you could provide more than 17 million full four-year college scholarships.
I am,
George Vreeland Hill