Bush won't be pardoning his buddy

[Electrophil]

If dead is a new identity with millions of dollars living in Barbados, then this guy is dead.

Lay learns a trick from Elvis. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060705/ap_on_bi_ge/obit_lay;_ylt=Aho2g9Yu5iGKXSFKZsGaWYskkKQB;_ylu=X3 oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[Manarius]

Yeah, Bushy can't pardon him if he's "dead."

[Electrophil]

Sometimes in life a conspiracy really is a conspiracy.

Bush's #1 contributor goes off on a trip and dies of a heart attack.

It's just too dog gone convenient. If he's not a Super duper top VIP member of the "Witness Protection Program", then there aren't any candidates.

[WGJ]

Ho hum, nothing to see here… it's just another one of those watery Old Boy suicides that happen every once in a while. What is it about Washington GOP insiders like Philip Merrill that compels them to take to the water, then take their own lives? Perhaps the most famous military-industrial-intelligence-complex figure to pull an Ophelia was former CIA chief William Colby, who abandoned a half-cooked dinner to take a one-way canoe trip to Nowheresville, back in 1996. Prior to that, there was CIA/Watergate and JFK-assassination figure John Paisley, whose manner of death was almost a mirror duplicate of Merrill's. Both men took solo sailboat rides on Chesapeake Bay, tied anchors around their ankles, stood on the edge of their vessels, put both barrels of a shotgun into their mouths, then simultaneously blew their own heads off whilst deftly tipping themselves into the briny deep. Quite the pair of finishing flourishes, separated by nearly three decades, and yet still somehow connected via both men's nebulous dealings with the shadowy shenanigans of the Bush Crime Family. Merrill, for instance, was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Service by the Defense Department back in 1988. He also served as a high-ranking NATO appointee and, despite amassing an impressive personal fortune in the private sector, was known to take on sensitive diplomatic and intelligence assignments from time to time. In other words, he seems to have been the kind of guy who played hard ball, at a high level, for a long time. And look where it got him: the cold, dark bottom of Chesapeake Bay.

Do you hear the theme song to the Twilight Zone playing in the background?
Spooky, huh? By the way, it's easy to induce a heart attack, all it takes is to inject air into the bloodstream. A mechanic horsing around with an air hose managed to kill a coworker (heart failure) by 'goosing' him with a pressurized air hose. All it takes is a bubble of air in the bloodstream. G'bye!
WGJ

[lhopp77]

If dead is a new identity with millions of dollars living in Barbados, then this guy is dead.

Lay learns a trick from Elvis. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060705/ap_on_bi_ge/obit_lay;_ylt=Aho2g9Yu5iGKXSFKZsGaWYskkKQB;_ylu=X3 oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

It is so totally unsupportable and absurd to ever think that Bush would pardon Lay when it was his administration that went to great lengths to prosecute him and bring him to justice. There is NOW a long list of big business figures that Bush has successfully investigated and brought to trial with very successful prosecutions-----read jail time for big business cheaters.

We have to go back to Slick Willie to really see how a Presidential pardon can be BOUGHT. Check out the good old MARC RICH affair and see how Clinton was bought and paid for.

Lee

[mohrds]

...William Colby, who abandoned a half-cooked dinner to take a one-way canoe trip to Nowheresville, back in 1996. Prior to that, there was CIA/Watergate and JFK-assassination figure John Paisley, whose manner of death was almost a mirror duplicate of Merrill's. Both men took solo sailboat rides on Chesapeake Bay, tied anchors around their ankles, stood on the edge of their vessels, put both barrels of a shotgun into their mouths, then simultaneously blew their own heads off whilst deftly tipping themselves into the briny deep...

You would think that after 30 years the CIA could come up with a new "suicide" technique to use that would actually be believable by the public.

As for Kenny, I would look at the wife as the prime suspect. Since Hubby died before his sentencing, now she gets to hold on to the 43 million that was going to be collected from him since his conviction was erased at his death.
The civil suits will continue, but the battle just became harder and less likely to be successful since there is now no legal conviction against Lay.

The chances of any money coming out of the Lay's estate is slim to none. A last slap in the face to the millions of people that were screwed over by his greed.

[Royal Tiger]

Forget reason Lee, there is too much tunnel vision around here. clinton sold his way out the door and hell-ary bought votes in her race, both reported by major media outlets, but because Ken Lay died, it's all a Bush conspiracy.

[Electrophil]

Forget reason Lee, there is too much tunnel vision around here. clinton sold his way out the door and hell-ary bought votes in her race, both reported by major media outlets, but because Ken Lay died, it's all a Bush conspiracy.

So you are saying that the top contributor to Bush's campaign is awaiting sentencing, but leaves the convicting state on "Vacation". (???)

He then suddenly dies of a heart attack with absolutely no previous record of heart problems. Well.... some doctor is now saying he "may" have suffered a heart attack sometime earlier in his life, but there's no medical record of course.

I just know, if I had the clout, money, and friends Lay has built up over the years, and I had the inside of being the president's largest campaign contributor, I personally would leave the convicting state on vacation, and suddenly die of a heart attack.

You will find me and my exploded heart living in a hilltop villa in Brazil, drinking a Rum and Coke, and practicing my new signature of Roderick Jones. Or Brett Hill. Yeah, I like that one. I wonder if they let him choose his own name. I'm sure they did. That would be fun.

I mean, come on! It's not like his personal morals would make him refuse to do it. And it's not like our government doesn't already have a top of the line system in place to make it happen. He ain't dead! This isn't an Elvis conspiracy, and any of us with the clout would do it. The guy was about to get at least 30 years in prison. Albeit a country club prison, but still....Prison!!

He ain't dead, and I find it all very amusing.

Now those poor guys who lost their nest eggs need to secretly hunt him down and "give" him a heartattack, or at least blackmail the guy to get their nest eggs back.

[Electrophil]

And Afterthought.

Yeah, he has money hidden. I am about as middle as middle class goes, and if I can hide a few bucks from my wife (Who handles the bills), someone on the caliber of Lay can hide a few million. And a few million is all it takes for any of us.

I'm working on my 3rd million myself.

I gave up on the first and second million, and unless there's a miracle, I'm going to have to give up on this one, and start on the 4th.

[Electrophil]

Falling together nicely.

Conviction to be reversed (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060706/ap_on_bi_ge/lay_what_s_next_1;_ylt=Aq68RTJpEM8jj9XoK4up2X8kkKQ B;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[lhopp77]

Falling together nicely.

Conviction to be reversed (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060706/ap_on_bi_ge/lay_what_s_next_1;_ylt=Aq68RTJpEM8jj9XoK4up2X8kkKQ B;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

It won't change any civil suits in progress or planned. And all of the evidence in the criminal case can be used in the civil cases. It will actually be easier to get money from the estate in civil cases than criminal.

As an after thought--would you rather be dead or in prison with at least a faint hope of getting out??

Lee

[Electrophil]

It won't change any civil suits in progress or planned. And all of the evidence in the criminal case can be used in the civil cases. It will actually be easier to get money from the estate in civil cases than criminal.

As an after thought--would you rather be dead or in prison with at least a faint hope of getting out??

Lee

I'd much rather be in Brazil with everyone thinking I'm dead.

[lhopp77]

I'd much rather be in Brazil with everyone thinking I'm dead.

Are you seriously implying that you think there is a conspiracy????:rolleyes:

Remember he DIED, not disappeared, and in a very public area a long ways from home where there MIGHT be some influence over facilities, doctors, etc. :rolleyes:

Lee

[Suby Fan]

I'd much rather be in Brazil with everyone thinking I'm dead.
nawww you don't want to go to brazil... mexico is funner

[Electrophil]

Are you seriously implying that you think there is a conspiracy????:rolleyes:

Remember he DIED, not disappeared, and in a very public area a long ways from home where there MIGHT be some influence over facilities, doctors, etc. :rolleyes:

Lee

And why do you feel it isn't possible? Wasn't the timing of his death, and the subsequent elimination of the conviction a little convenient? If you were in charge of planning a witness protection style death, would you do it in the person's hometown?

Oh, wait a minute.... That's right. You are Lee. You still think Bush is wearing a halo.

Come on Lee. Saddam isn't the only diabolical in the world. We can actually have people who connive and conspire here in the U.S. Honestly! Wealthy and connected people can actually get things done that's illegal! This guy had seriously high government contacts. The president can run around saying he is merely an acquaintance all he wants to, but there is still the "highest campaign contributor", and all those golf rounds they had together to deal with.

You just have to admit, the timing of his death, and the now "horribly clogged" arteries they are reporting after no previous doctors, etc. is highly suspicious.

If he was a Kennedy, would you suspect something then?

[Electrophil]

nawww you don't want to go to brazil... mexico is funner

I'd prefer Peru, and a couple of Latin beauties. He's somewhere down in South America. I would lay odds on that... no pun intended. :)

[Landshark]

get out your tin foil hats, kids....

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/paulbubel/tinfoil-hat.jpg


i think Bush's friends, the aliens from planet Gronk, took Lay safely into outer space so he could avoid jail time. in exchange for their help, Bush had to promise to let the aliens destroy New Orleans again with their hurricane ray once the city was rebuilt.

damn Evil Bush!!!!

[WGJ]

Thanks for the post Landshark, that busted me up so bad I almost fell outa my chair!
WGJ

[WGJ]

'Lay had to know, for instance, that a presidential pardon was politically impossible. Was he, in preparing for his pending appeal, perhaps getting so desperate to avoid spending the rest of his heretofore luxurious life in jail that he would willingly spill the beans on his criminal cohorts in the White House? Insist that he was only "following orders"? Provide the court with whatever unshredded Energy Taskforce documents remain in existence to prove such? And, if so, did The Powers That Be catch wind of, then put a stop to, his plans? Or did Kenny-boy, with a little help from his friends in high places, arrange to be Elvised to a well-appointed piece of Costa Rican real-estate where he might live out the rest of his natural life in the kind of splendiferous ease and comfort to which he had grown accustomed, while some unlucky look-alike provides a feast for worms in his soon-to-be-alleged grave?
In the end, does it even matter? Does any of it matter? The White House attempt to revoke the First Amendment in the case of unfriendly media… does that matter? The fact that the average Iraqi is worse off today than he was under Saddam "Hitler" Hussein's reign, that the soldiers who were so cavalierly dropped into that hopeless morass by a gluttonous herd of degenerate profiteering swine are turning feral as the months and years tick by, and who even now are being used and abused as propaganda props for reasons both electoral and otherwise… do these things matter? Or, perhaps more to the point, does it matter whether or not we believe they matter?
I'm beginning to think, especially in regards to that last part, that it doesn't. I'm beginning to think that maybe this sorry state of affairs is irreversible, and that some sort of Great Reckoning is inevitable, hard-wired into our collective DNA. Pardon my Spenglerian musings, here, but perhaps what we are experiencing is nothing less than the endgame of liberal democracy. Perhaps even the poisoning of democracy, itself -- apparent to anyone willing to open their f**king eyes -- is a part of that unavoidable destiny. Perhaps we are reaping the whirlwind, living the prophecy scratched upon the seed."

Interesting point of view. And I thought I was pessimistic...
WGJ

[lhopp77]

If he was a Kennedy, would you suspect something then?

I never think or expect anything out of the Kennedys except to act like scuzzballs. Either murderers, alcoholics, rapists or drug addicts.

If you even vaguely think Lay's death was a conspiracy, I think you have some mental problems.

As far as I know right now, no one really knows Lay's actual medical background except that the massive heart attack was a surprise. We just have far left nut speculation.

Lee

[Electrophil]

I never think or expect anything out of the Kennedys except to act like scuzzballs. Either murderers, alcoholics, rapists or drug addicts.

If you even vaguely think Lay's death was a conspiracy, I think you have some mental problems.

As far as I know right now, no one really knows Lay's actual medical background except that the massive heart attack was a surprise. We just have far left nut speculation.

Lee

Well, it's plausable you would think that way. We were making the same tin foil hat jokes back when you guys were screaming mobile chemical labs and running in circles coining the new phrase of WMD's. It still makes me laugh to think you guys came up with a new word via a country that didn't have any.

How come your wild conspiracies never involve US citizens? Is that how we got this idiot we now have in office? Don't answer....Rhetorical.

I assure you I'm not suggesting an invasion of Brazil. I just think it would be a nice place to live, and if he got by with it, well.... power to him. All those people who suffered over him.... Check Brazil.:)

[lhopp77]

Read the intelligence about the WMDs. Also, read ALL of the Conclusions that clear Bush and fault the intelligence community.

You need help, Robert. I think you should visit your shrink. Your current workload must have put you over the top.

Lee

[Electrophil]

Read the intelligence about the WMDs. Also, read ALL of the Conclusions that clear Bush and fault the intelligence community.

You need help, Robert. I think you should visit your shrink. Your current workload must have put you over the top.

Lee

I guess you are talking about the intelligence guys who received the highest civilian award in the US from Bush for giving him exactly the intelligence he wanted? The intelligence leaders who bungled both 9/11 AND Iraq WMD's? You mean those intelligence services?

If you really believe there is no possibility for Lay to pull this off, then you are truly naive.

But you aren't naive. You simply choose which conspiracies you believe in, and they usually follow party lines.

[Royal Tiger]

Maybe we should have a field trip to the funeral and demand to see the body.

If it was a Kennedy, it would have been a stroke during a rape after a night of heavy drinking and a DUI-related car crash.

[Electrophil]

If it was a Kennedy, it would have been a stroke during a rape after a night of heavy drinking and a DUI-related plane crash into a car knocking it into the river killing the passenger as the police looked on.

Fixored.....

[Royal Tiger]

Detailing all the felony activities of the Kennedy clan would give some of the threads around here a run for the money.

[Electrophil]

Detailing all the felony activities of the Kennedy clan would give some of the threads around here a run for the money.

I think most were too busy getting murdered to have time.

[Royal Tiger]

Only 2, the rest do it on their own.

My favorite bumper sticker to this day is:

Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people then my handgun.

[WGJ]

not the KENNEDY's. So you can obsess about Clinton and the Kennnedy's all you want but they are not who's screwing your country into the ground. It's Dubya, Cheney, Rummy and Rove and most of the Republican Party.
Speaking of fossils (Ted Kennedy) how is it that Nixon had to resign because of Watergate, and Clinton was brought up for impeachment because he was stupid enough to lie about getting a hummer or two, yet Dubya is still in office in spite of admitting to more criiminal activity than Clinton, the Kennedy's and Nixon put together?

WGJ

[Electrophil]

not the KENNEDY's. So you can obsess about Clinton and the Kennnedy's all you want but they are not who's screwing your country into the ground. It's Dubya, Cheney, Rummy and Rove and most of the Republican Party.
Speaking of fossils (Ted Kennedy) how is it that Nixon had to resign because of Watergate, and Clinton was brought up for impeachment because he was stupid enough to lie about getting a hummer or two, yet Dubya is still in office in spite of admitting to more criiminal activity than Clinton, the Kennedy's and Nixon put together?

WGJ

This is all dead fact. There's no arguement against it. The Kennedy's are almost extinct as it is.

[Royal Tiger]

not the KENNEDY's. So you can obsess about Clinton and the Kennnedy's all you want but they are not who's screwing your country into the ground. It's Dubya, Cheney, Rummy and Rove and most of the Republican Party.
Speaking of fossils (Ted Kennedy) how is it that Nixon had to resign because of Watergate, and Clinton was brought up for impeachment because he was stupid enough to lie about getting a hummer or two, yet Dubya is still in office in spite of admitting to more criiminal activity than Clinton, the Kennedy's and Nixon put together?

WGJ

You need help. Robert and I can laugh about the Kennedy's if we like. Which by the way made their money running booze during prohibition. Go for a walk by the ocean and breath some fresh air.

[WGJ]

Instead of recommending others get help, which you and lhopp77 are fond of doing, how about forgoing the personal attacks and change of subject and actually respond with something we don't know? It's very old news, common knowledge actually, that Joe Kennedy stole bootleg liquor from the Mafia and then sold it back to them. How about answering this question:

"how is it that Nixon had to resign because of Watergate, and Clinton was brought up for impeachment because he was stupid enough to lie about getting a hummer or two, yet Dubya is still in office in spite of admitting to more criiminal activity than Clinton, the Kennedy's and Nixon put together?"

You might also want to read up on how the Bush Crime Familly aquired their wealth. Many consider the Bushs' criminal activity at least equal if not worse than the Kennedy's.

You and lhopp77 need to read up on a psyhological problem called "projection"
in Freudian psychology:

"A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."

My home beach, called Ocean Beach has excellent surf and lots of great looking young women in bikinis. And I go to the beach every day.
WGJ

[Royal Tiger]

I have never resulted to name calling or "projecting". I told you to go get some air as you are so fired up, I worry about you. You are the one that blew up demanding attention be returned to Bush instead of Kennedy. Relax.

[WGJ]

"You need help" implies a number of things, primarily psychological and used previously a number of times by Lee. I have tried to write my posts in a calm, reasoned manner, reflecting my general demeanor. Thanks for your concern.
The ocean is warm and the surf was good.

WGJ

Don't suppose you have an answer to my question?

[Royal Tiger]

I'm just happy you used Nixon, a republican. There is hope for you.

[WGJ]

Nixon, Lay, Bush...all crooks should go to jail.


In the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

Charles de Montesquieu (1689 - 1755)

WGJ

[Royal Tiger]

Very true. But so should clinton for his land scam. People lost their life savings on his property scams.

[WGJ]

trying to get Clinton. Far more than the deal was ever worth. $40 MILLION if memory serves. What a waste. Kept Ken Starr in beer monry though.

WGJ

[Electrophil]

Very true. But so should clinton for his land scam. People lost their life savings on his property scams.

Oh for crying out loud. Who lost their life's savings? Nobody. Not one solitary soul lost their life's savings on that deal. The Clinton's were investors with clout, nothing more. Or they would be in prison. The Republican controlled congress beat that horse into a pulp. If something was there, they would have fried.

I wish your party would have spent all that time on constructive things, instead of sniffing dresses like a bunch of deviants.

No... Then again, as soon as their attention was turned away from the Clinton's and onto the country, we see how that turned out. No... Better they spend their time thumping bibles, belittling "sinners", and vibrating in church aisles as they speak in gibberish. Just make them stay out of running the country, cause they stink at running a Republic. Move em' to a muslim country and have em' run a theocracy. They would be decent at that, and they get to stone people. Maybe burn a couple at the cross.

Now back up to the savings and loan scandals that caused the loss of thousands of acres of Texas land, and a landslide in property values down there. uhhh... Who was involved? Oh yeah! Now you remember that little scandal, don't you?

Clinton's land deal... wait... I'm falling in the trap. Lets try this again. That land deal that the Clinton's invested in and lost money on is a trinket next to the Hope Diamond of the Savings and Loan scandal, and the Bush family was front and center, now weren't they?

[WGJ]

The Bush Crime Family Tree
George Walker, GW's great-grandfather,* set up the takeover of the Hamburg-America Line, a cover for I.G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the United States. In Germany, I.G. Farben was most famous for putting the gas in gas chambers; it was the producer of Zyklon B and other gasses used on victims of the Holocaust. The Bush family was not unaware of the nature of their investment partners. They hired Allen Dulles, the future head of the CIA, to hide the funds they were making from Nazi investments and the funds they were sending to Nazi Germany, rather than divest. It was only in 1942, when the government seized Union Banking Company assets under the Trading With The Enemy Act, that George Walker and Prescott Bush stopped pumping money into Hitler's regime. (1)

*Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather. According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush. (2) On the 20th of October, the government commenced action against the company under the trading with the enemy act. (3) After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal. (4)* In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past.(5)

George Herbert Walker Bush, the presidents father. Bush, as director of the CIA, had funneled enormous amounts of cash to drug runners including Manuel Noriega and helped in the destabilization of Argentina. Bush utilized his own connections to help fund drug runners from Laos to Panama. Most shocking was the so-called "cocaine coup" in Bolivia in June 1980, masterminded by fugitive Nazi Klaus Barbie, "The Butcher Of Lyons." Barbie, who had been previously secreted in Latin America by the CIA, began working closely with the Argentines and used drug money to finance a neo-Nazi cabal, one that succeeded in overthrowing the government. The troops swept through the capital wearing Nazi armbands, according to former DEA agent Mike Levine. George H.W. Bush later facilitated the Iran-contra affair, employing many of the same methods: secretly selling Central American cocaine in America and weapons to Iran while using the profits to fund the contras and to overthrow democratically elected socialists in Central America.(6) as the head of the CIA and later as Vice President, toppled democratically elected regimes in South and Central America and began propping up a dictator by the name of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Although forbidden by congress to do so, he continued to sell chemical and biological weapons to Saddam even after he used them on villages of innocent civilians. A decade later The United States had to go to war against him and the Bush family again, made millions from it.
Jonathan J. Bush, the Presidents uncle. Jonathan Bush's "Pioneer Profile" in "George W. Bush's $100,000 Club" cites him as the "head" of the Riggs Investment Management Co.; "Bush’s uncle Jonathan ... founded its subsidiary, J. Bush & Co., of which he is chair. He also is an ex-chair of the New York Republican State Finance Committee. Bush credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early ‘80s." (17)
*Jonathan J. Bush, is a top executive at Riggs Bank, which this week agreed to pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering. Jonathan Bush, who is a major fundraiser for his nephew, was appointed in 2000 to run Riggs Investment Management Co. His association with Riggs began when he headed J. Bush & Co., a New Haven, Conn., company he created in 1970 and built to offer advice on money management. (18)
According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for "failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs's failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank." The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, "may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists."
(...)
According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush. The President "credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." According to Public Citizen, the uncle Jonathan was a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000.(19)

Neil Bush, the president's brother. Central player of the 1980'ssavings and loan scandal, he ran a savings and loan into the ground while shoveling millions of its taxpayer-backed dollars into the pockets of two deadbeat partners. Neil served as a director of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan in Denver, Colorado, from 1985 until 1988. During that time, the now-dead thrift made over $200 million in loans to Neil's two partners in JNB Exploration, Neil's abysmally unsuccessful oil company. Federal regulators determined that, while Silverado was pumping loans to Neil's two associates, Neil was completely dependent on the two men for his income. The failure of Silverado -- its closure delayed until after the 1988 election -- cost taxpayers about $1 billion. After Silverado failed, Neil started a new oil company, Apex Energy. This time, his money came from a $2.35 million loan through a Small Business Administration program. When news of this reached the press in March 1991, the SBA discovered that the companies through which the loan was approved were technically insolvent, and it gave them up to thirty months to "self-liquidate." This meant that Apex would have to repay its SBA-guaranteed loans. Neil took this as his cue to move on, and he left Apex -- and its debts -- for others to worry about. (7)** update:* Neil Bush made $171,370 in one day. The fact that he was a former consultant to the company whose stock he dumped is just a coincidence

Marvin Bush, the president's brother was on the board of directors of a company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, according to public records. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for years to the Bush family. The security company, formerly named Securacom and now named Stratesec, is in Sterling, Va.. Its CEO, Barry McDaniel, said the company had a ``completion contract" to handle some of the security at the World Trade Center ``up to the day the buildings fell down." The suite in which Marvin Bush was annually re-elected, according to public records, is located in the Watergate in space leased to the Saudi government. The company now holds shareholder meetings in space leased by the Kuwaiti government there.(8) (9)**** more

(1)**** http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id195/pg1/
(2)**** http://www.clamormagazine.org/features/issue14.3_feature.html
(3)**** http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3713.htm
(4)***http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=39&contentid =997
(5)****http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=39&contentid=963&page=2
(6)**** http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushcontra.htm
(7)**** http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1992/09/bushboys.html
(8)**** http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm
(9)**** http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Marvin_Bush
10)** http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/BushFV.html#p2
(11)** http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=122&row=1
(12)** http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0228/ridgeway.php
(13)** http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Central_America/Iran-Contra_Felons_Get_Good_Jobs_from_Bush
(14)** http://www.oldamericancentury.org/pnac.htm
(15)** http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/sperry/stories/storyReader$526
(16)** http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/
(17)* http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_Bush
(18)* http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28396-2004May14?language=printer
(19)* http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/05/bushs-uncle-is-executive-at-bank-fined.html

WGJ

[WGJ]

U.S. DOCUMENTS SHOW EMBRACE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN IN EARLY 1980s
DESPITE CHEMICAL WEAPONS, EXTERNAL AGGRESSION, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
Fear of Iraq Collapse in Iran-Iraq War Motivated Reagan Administration Support;
U.S. Goals Were Access to Oil, Projection of Power, and Protection of Allies;
Rumsfeld Failed to Raise Chemical Weapons Issue in Personal Meeting with Saddam

Washington, D.C., 25 February 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980's, including the renewal of diplomatic relations that had been suspended since 1967. The documents show that during this period of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would "probably" include "an eventual nuclear weapon capability," harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam (20 December 1983).
The declassified documents posted today include the briefing materials and diplomatic reporting on two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, reports on Iraqi chemical weapons use concurrent with the Reagan administration's decision to support Iraq, and decision directives signed by President Reagan that reveal the specific U.S. priorities for the region: preserving access to oil, expanding U.S. ability to project military power in the region, and protecting local allies from internal and external threats. The documents include:
* A U.S. cable recording the December 20, 1983 conversation between Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein. Although Rumsfeld said during a September 21, 2002 CNN interview, "In that visit, I cautioned him about the use of chemical weapons, as a matter of fact, and discussed a host of other things," the document indicates there was no mention of chemical weapons. Rumsfeld did raise the issue in his subsequent meeting with Iraqi official Tariq Aziz.
* National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114 of November 26, 1983, "U.S. Policy toward the Iran-Iraq War," delineating U.S. priorities: the ability to project military force in the Persian Gulf and to protect oil supplies, without reference to chemical weapons or human rights concerns.
* National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 139 of April 5, 1984, "Measures to Improve U.S. Posture and Readiness to Respond to Developments in the Iran-Iraq War," focusing again on increased access for U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf and enhanced intelligence-gathering capabilities. The directive calls for "unambiguous" condemnation of chemical weapons use, without naming Iraq, but places "equal stress" on protecting Iraq from Iran's "ruthless and inhumane tactics." The directive orders preparation of "a plan of action designed to avert an Iraqi collapse."
* U.S. and Iraqi consultations about Iran's 1984 draft resolution seeking United Nations Security Council condemnation of Iraq's chemical weapons use. Iraq conveyed several requests to the U.S. about the resolution, including its preference for a lower-level response and one that did not name any country in connection with chemical warfare; the final result complied with Iraq's requests.
* The 1984 public U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons use in the Iran-Iraq war, which said, referring to the Ayatollah Khomeini's refusal to agree to end hostilities until Saddam Hussein was ejected from power, "The United States finds the present Iranian regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims."

WGJ

[lhopp77]

As I recall a total of 15 Clinton associates or administration members were charged with crimes and several went to jail and at least one committed suicide. And his records mysteriously disappeared. One went to jail to keep from testifying against the Clintons over the Whitewater deal. They were not "savvy" business people---they were bought with bribes by placing investments for them--turning $1000 into hundreds of thousands.

Lee

[Electrophil]

As I recall a total of 15 Clinton associates or administration members were charged with crimes and several went to jail and at least one committed suicide. And his records mysteriously disappeared. One went to jail to keep from testifying against the Clintons over the Whitewater deal. They were not "savvy" business people---they were bought with bribes by placing investments for them--turning $1000 into hundreds of thousands.

Lee

They lost money Lee, they LOST money on that deal.
I hope we aren't going to rehash that documentary "fahenheit whitewater" saying how many "mysteriously" died.

[lhopp77]

The Clinton Crime Family
Bill Clinton has surrounded himself with criminals

Feeling Your Pain : The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years
by James Bovard
In his book, Bovard looks at Clinton and Gore's record on such abuses and absurdities as taxes, gun control, the Waco fiasco, AmeriCorps, and federal funding of every program from those dealing with disaster relief to those that put on puppet shows in Northern California. [More]

Bill Clinton and Al Gore have conspired with known criminals
Bill Clinton and Al Gore met with known criminals who either gave large amounts of money to the Democrats or were brought in by those giving huge sums of money to the Democrats. These people included convicted drug dealer Jorge Cabrera; a Chinese arms dealer named Wang Jun; and Grigory Lutchansky, whose company, Nordex, was on Clinton's CIA watch list and who was denied entry into Canada because he failed a background check!

There was also the appearance of foreign policy quid pro quos involving Indonesia, Paraguay, Guam, Vietnam and China. Even more disturbing are allegations of economic espionage, communist Chinese involvement in U.S. elections, and compromising U.S. national security - all in the name of helping the Democrats and securing Bill Clinton's reelection.

Jorge Cabrera, a convicted felon from Florida, gave the DNC $20,000 and then attended a political reception in Miami at which Cabrera got his picture taken with Al Gore. Cabrera was soon invited to a December 1995 pre-Christmas event at the White House and was photographed with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The next month in January 1996, undercover agents arrested Cabrera with three tons of Colombian cocaine. Prior to Cabrera's January arrest, he had been arrested twice on drug charges, and pleaded guilty to non-drug-related charges in both cases. Cabrera is serving a 19-year prison sentence. (The Detroit News, 2/16/97; Miami Herald, 1/19/97; The Washington Post, 10/20/96)

Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, President Clinton's longtime friend and a Democratic fund-raiser, pleaded guilty to two charges in his Arkansas trial (May 21, 1999). Trie plead guilty to a felony charge of causing false statements and a misdemeanor count of making political contributions in the names of others.

Charlie Trie arranged for Wang Jun, chairman of Poly Technologies Inc., an international Chinese weapons dealer, to meet with Mr. Clinton at a Democrat Party event at the White House on Feb. 6, 1996. At the time Clinton met with Wang, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Customs Service were wrapping up an investigation which caught Wang's company smuggling at least $4 million worth of 2,000 illegal AK-47 assault weapons destined for gang members in California. Wang's Poly Technologies Inc. is owned and run by the communist Chinese People's Liberation Army. (The New Republic, 1/20/97; Chicago Tribune, 1/5/97; The New York Times, 12/27/96)

Grigory Loutchansky, linked by Interpol to the Russian mafia, money laundering, drug trafficking, nuclear smuggling across the Baltics, and international arms trading, attended a Democrat Party White House dinner in October of 1993. Loutchansky got a private two-minute meeting and a picture with Mr. Clinton. (The Washington Times, 2/11/97; The Detroit News, 2/16/97; New York Post, 11/1/96; Time, 7/8/96) Loutchansky was invited back to a second DNC dinner in July 1995. A year before, Canada had blocked Loutchansky from entering Canada because he had failed a background check. Canadian officials also had questions about the source of Loutchansky's Nordex company's assets. (The Washington Times, 3/1/97) Both of Clinton's CIA Directors James Woolsey and John Deutch described Loutchansky's Nordex company as an "organization associated with Russian criminal activity."

Eric Wynn, a twice-convicted securities promoter who pleaded guilty to stock manipulation that benefited a member of the Bonanno organized crime family and who served two years in prison for theft and tax charges, attended a December 1995 White House coffee with Clinton. In 1996, Wynn attended four other DNC fund-raising events involving Clinton. Wynn has been arrested five times during the last six months while out on bail for aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, aggravated assault with a motor vehicle, violation of a restraining order, terroristic threats and driving while intoxicated. At least one of the arrests occurred between DNC fund-raisers Wynn attended in 1996 with Clinton. (The Detroit News, 2/16/97; The Washington Post, 2/20/97; The Star-Ledger, 2/20/97)

Roger Tamraz, an international fugitive from Interpol, donated $177,000 to Democrats and the DNC through his companies and attended several White House dinners and coffees in 1995-1996. Tamraz is a former financier wanted, according to a 1989 Interpol warrant, in Lebanon for embezzling $200 million from his failed bank. On June 2, 1995, Tamraz was briefed by a National Security Council (NSC) expert on Russia at the same time he was negotiating a multibillion-dollar deal to build a pipeline from oil reserves from the Caspian Sea to Turkey through Azerbaijan and Armenia. On July 26, Tamraz contributed $20,000 to the DNC. After the meeting occurred, then-DNC Party Chairman Don Fowler called an NSC official to try to overturn a recommendation that Tamraz not attend high-level White House meetings. Tamraz went on to attend four more White House events with Clinton which included receptions, dinners and the premiere of the movie "Independence Day." Tamraz, through his New York-based oil company, gave $50,000 to the DNC after going to a DNC sponsored White House reception on Sept. 11, 1995, and a dinner four days later. In October, Tamraz contributed another $100,000 at the direction of the DNC to the Virginia Democrat Party using his Tamoil Inc., company. Tamraz also had coffee with Gore on Oct. 5, 1995, and with Clinton on April 1, 1996.

Russ Barakat, a south Florida Democrat Party official, was indicted on criminal charges just five days after his coffee meeting at the White House in April 1995. Ultimately, Barakat was convicted for tax evasion. A Florida newspaper was full of stories about Barakat's problems with the law before his White House visit, but he was asked in for coffee anyway.

Chung Lo contributed $10,300 to the DNC. The bulk of the money was given in July 1996, the same month Ms. Lo was arrested on 14 counts of bank and mortgage fraud. Lo's arrest came four days before she was to host a $400,000 Asian American fund-raiser featuring Clinton. The event was abruptly canceled. Lo was convicted of tax evasion in the 1980s under the name of Esther Chu. Lo had attended a White House coffee and a fund-raising event involving First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Gore.
There have been about 70 Congressional witnesses who have pled the Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate (or chosen to flee the country) in the Clinton-Gore dollars for political influence scam.

In a round of testimony by FBI Director Louis Freeh before Congress, Rep. Dan Burton asked: “Mr. Freeh, over 65 people have invoked the 5th Amendment or fled the country in the course of the Committee s investigation. Have you ever experienced so many unavailable witnesses in any matter in which you ve prosecuted or in which you ve been involved?” Freeh responded: “Actually, I have.” Burton asked: “You have? Give me, give me a rundown on that real quickly.” Freeh: “I spent about 16 years doing organized crime cases in New York City...”

Co-President, Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton was the first first lady to testify before a grand jury when she was subpeonaed by the Whitewater grand jury.

She took a $100,000 bribe, camouflaged as futures trades, from Tyson Foods Inc.
Speculated in Health Care industry futures while overseeing legislative reform of same.
Failed to correct false testimony by co-defendant Ira Magaziner in Health Care trial.
Obstructed justice by ordering the shredding of Vince Foster's documents in the Rose Law Firm.
Ordered members of the Health Care Task Force to shred documents that were the target of a court probe.

She ordered the removal of documents from Vince Foster's office and told aides to lie about their removal of documents.
Obstructed justice by keeping her billing records, a document sought under subpoena, in the White House residence.
Lied to investigators about her knowledge about billing records.
Lied to investigators about her involvement in the Castle Grande land flip con.
Ordered the use of the FBI to discredit Travel Office employees.
Lied to investigators about her involvement in the firing of Travel Office Employees.
A Federal judge orders a trial on July 25, 1994 to determine if Hillary Clinton's heath care task force illegally operated in secret.
The White House finally releases more than 2,000 documents on June 25, 1996, relating to the travel office firings, originally requested two years ago by congressional investigators.

Clinton's Criminal Appointees
Waco - The Rules of Engagement (1997)
Director: William Gazecki
Video looking at what happened at the Branch Davidian compound in Mt. Carmel, Texas, in 1993. Why did 4 federal agents and 86 civilians lose their lives?

Attorney General Janet Reno fabricated charges of child molestation against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. She ordered the use of military equipment and the use of chemical agents against citizens of the United States. Eighty-six men, women, and children died after FBI agents used grenade launchers to mount a CS gas attack on their compound.

With the apparent approval of President Fidel Castro, in a pre-dawn raid of the Gonzalez home in Miami, Janet Reno ordered heavily armed INS agents to storm the house and snatch the young Elian Gonzalez from his relatives there. Outside, more armed thugs fired pepper spray into the angry crowd as they took away the crying and screaming 6-year-old boy.

More than 20 federal agents arrived at the home shortly before 5 a.m., using rams on the home's chain-link fence and front door to force their way in. Inside, hiding in a closet, Elian's great-aunt and one of the fishermen who rescued Elian, Donato Dalrymple held Elian in his arms as the federal thugs told him, "give me the boy or I'll shoot you." A short time later, a woman and man brought Elian out of the home as he was screaming, "Help me! Help me! Don't take me away!" in Spanish.

This unconstitutional federal raid on a private and lawful home, seizing a person accused of nothing has been perhaps Clinton's most tyrannical acts of despotism.

Washington lawyer, Clinton confidant and golfing partner, Vernon Jordan, was deposed by Ken Starr for his role in obtaining $50,000 in “consulting fees” for Webster Hubbell, between the time Hubbell left the Justice Department and entered federal prison. Starr was trying to determine if those fees were “hush money.” That money came from Revlon Corporation, where Mr. Jordan sits on the board of directors.

Jordan, at the request of Clinton's personal secretary, Betty Currie, had also helped Monica Lewinsky search for a new job and a lawyer after she left the White House.

Vernon Jordan's relationship with Bill Clinton goes back to a 1991 Bilderberger meeting where Clinton was introduced to the group by Jordan. The Bilderbergers arrogantly plot the subversion and silent takeover of constitutional governments everywhere. Their goal is a World Government run exclusively by their hand-picked puppets. It was shortly after attending the 1991 Bilderberger meeting, Governor Bill Clinton was selected to be the next President of the United States.

President Clinton has done a masterful job of placing "fall-guys" between himself and his administration’s indigenous corruption scandals. Independent Counsels have indicted and jailed senior administration officials for corruption, but Mr. Clinton has always maintained arms-length plausible deniability. Clinton’s defensive modus operandi: admit nothing, deny everything and make counterallegations.

It was alleged George Stephanopoulos, Senior Advisor, took a $600,000 loan below market interest and with insufficient collateral from NationsBank, a bank having business before the Clinton Administration, lied to Congress during Whitewater hearings, and attempted to have Whitewater investigator Jay Stephens at the RTC fired.

Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich lied to Congress when he wrote that there were no memos circulating in the Labor Department instructing staff to gather political material against the Contract with America. Such memos were later published.

Former Assitant Secretary of HUD, Roberta Achtenberg violated the First Amendment when she ordered HUD lawyers to silence citizens who spoke out against planned housing projects. She also exceeded her authority when she had HUD staff threaten Allentown County to withdraw an "Use of English language encouraged" ordinance.

On Feb. 12, 1995, the Los Angeles Times reveals Veterans Affairs Secretary Jesse Brown made 20 trips at taxpayers' expense to his hometown of Chicago—rarely attending any official events.

Former Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, through criminal negligence was responsible for the death of Army Rangers in Somalia. He has never been held accountable in public hearings. He subseqently resigned and is now deceased.

The Los Angeles Times revealed on June 25, '95, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, at taxpayers' expense, routinely upgrades her airline flights to business and first class and stays at expensive hotels—seeking reimbursement from the government at as much as 150 percent of the maximum level allowed. In Jan. '96, the General Accounting Office audit finds $255,000 in undocumented expenses from Hazel O'Leary's trips abroad. In April, '96, a General Accounting Office audit showed that the 14 overseas trips Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary took in 1994 and 1995 netted only about $448 million worth of business -- not the $2 billion her administration claimed -- and that some of the deals concluded on the trips benefitted foreign firms more than U.S. companies. An Energy Department inspector general report stated that part of the $4.6 million Secretary Hazel O'Leary spent on overseas trips may have been spent illegally.

Chief of Staff to the First Lady, Margaret Williams obstructed justice when she removed documents from the office of Vince Foster. She lied to Congress about removing those documents.

Treasury Department Employee, Joshua Steiner, lied to Congress about conversations with White House personnel about the RTC and has resigned.

Former Chief of Staff, Mack McLarty conspired with Democratic Congressional Leadership to block access to vital documents in a Congressional hearing.

USIA Inspector General, Marian Benett, covered up credit-card fraud by USIA Inspector General staff.

Federico Pena, Secretary of Transportation has been accused of awarding State and federal contracts to companies in which he had a financial interest.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Deval Patrick was accused of using extortion to force banks to give preferential treatment to minorities.

Clinton administration officials indicted
Absolute Power: The Legacy of Corruption in the Clinton-Reno Justice Department
by David Limbaugh
Bill Clinton and Al Gore consistently saw the courts as a means to achieve political ends. With Janet Reno as attorney general, they gave the United States the most politicized justice department we have ever endured. Instead of disinterestedly pursuing justice, America’s federal lawyers became tools to give the president and the vice president of the United States absolute power.

Henry Cisneros, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development became the second Clinton administration official to be indicted.

The Justice Department probe began on Sept. 22, 1994, it's investigating whether Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the FBI about payments he made to his former mistress, Linda Jones. In March '95 Attorney General Janet Reno concluded HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros made yearly payments to Jones of between $42,000 and $60,000—contradicting Cisneros' claim to the FBI that his yearly payments totaled no more than $10,000. In May 1995, an independent counsel was named to investigate if the lies HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros told to the FBI constitute a felony.
On Dec. 11, 1997 a federal grand jury in Washington handed down a 21-count indictment, charging Cisneros and Jones variously with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fraud and perjury. Evidence including 40 hours of secretly recorded telephone calls, IRS records and canceled checks suggests to prosecutors that Cisneros committed perjury and conspired with his ex-mistress and others to lie about the hush money. Those records indicate Cisneros paid Jones about $250,000 and continued to pay her after he came to Washington, including payments totaling some $40,000 prior to his interview with the FBI.

Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was indicted on charges he accepted illegal gifts and lied to investigators. In August, 1994 Attorney General Janet Reno asked for an independent counsel to investigate Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy for accepting gifts from companies regulated by his department. On Oct. 3, 1994, Mike Espy resigns amid charges he accepted gifts and perks barred by federal ethics laws and rules.

In Dec. 1997, Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's largest poultry processor, pleaded guilty to giving former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy more than $12,000 in illegal gifts, and agreed to pay $6 million in fines and investigative expenses.

Ultimately, Independent Counsel Smaltz s investigation of Agriculture Secretary Espy, has resulted in 14 indictments yielding 2 convictions, 3 guilty pleas, 4 acquittals, 3 companies paying enormous fines, and 3 defendants awaiting trial or retrial.

In the tenth major probe into high level Clinton appointees, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether or not Labor Secretary Alexis Herman was involved in a scheme of influence peddling during ‘94-’96 when she was a White House aide. The seventh independent counsel of the Clinton era will investigate influence peddling and corrupt campaign fundraising allegations against Labor Secretary Alexis Herman. In response to these allegations, President Clinton remarked, "I don t believe that for a minute."

Under investigation for overbilling clients, mail fraud and tax evasion, Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell resigned on March 14, 1994. On Dec. 6, '94 Hubbell pleads guilty and on Aug. 7, 1995 he began serving 21-month sentence for defrauding the federal government and tax evasion.

A June 24, 1997 Los Angeles Times story revealed a City of Los Angeles audit found Webster Hubbell cheated Los Angeles out of almost $25,000 by lying about the consulting work he did for them.
The Justice Department began investigating Commerce Secretary Ron Brown on Feb. 19, 1995 for violation of tax and financial disclosure laws and whether he took money from people seeking to influence him. Apparently, he took bribes from almost everybody saying it is part of the way Washington works. Ron Brown was still under investigation by an Independent Counsel when he died mysteriously in a plane crash in 1996.

Former Brown business associate and lover Nolanda Hill revealed on the June 18, 1997 ABC Prime time Live that deceased Cabinet Secretary Ron Brown was set to accept a $700,000 cash payoff from Vietnam in return for pushing normalized trade relations with the communist country.
On May 17, 1996, Kendall B. Coffey, Clinton-appointed U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida, resigns after the Justice Department begins investigation into his conduct at a strip club. He allegedly argued with a stripper and bit her arm, breaking the skin.

Whitewater
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Impeachment of the President
by Steven D. Strauss, Spencer Strauss
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Impeachment of the President is dedicated to helping Americans understand the what's and why's of impeachment. It explains and explores such basic issues as: *the legal and political steps involved in the impeachment process *a dissection of the Starr Report, and what it means to future presidents *a discussion of what the impeachment of Clinton would mean to the country *a review of how the Watergate scandal compares to the current sex scandal, and *a history of sex in the White House, from George Washington to Bill Clinton

On Jan. 20, 1994, an independent counsel is named to investigate the Clintons' personal, political and business finances in the 1980s, including their role in the Whitewater Development Corporation. As a result, Clinton's cronies begin to fall around him.

Former Arkansas Municipal Court Judge David Hale was indicted for defrauding the federal government by misrepresenting Capital Management's paid-in capital. David Hale pleads guilty on Mar. 22, 1994 to conspiracy and mail fraud.

Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker was indicted on three felony charges of making false statements and conspiracy to defraud the United States in the Whitewater venture. Later, 11 new counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, making false statements and misapplying funds are added. When Clinton loyalist Judge Henry Woods dismisses the original three-count indictment against Gov. Tucker, independent counsel Kenneth Starr files an immediate appeal. Tucker is eventually found guilty of fraud in connection with the failed savings and loan institution and faces 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. After Tucker's resignation as Governor, Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee replaced him.

Clinton's partner in the Whitewater venture, Jim McDougal, was indicted on 19 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, making false statements and false bank reports, and misapplying funds. McDougal was found guilty of fraud in connection with the failed savings and loan institution. Jim McDougal was serving his 3 year sentence for bank fraud at the Fort Worth Federal Medical Center in Texas, a facility operated by the federal Bureau of Prisons for inmates who need medical attention. Just prior to another round of testimony before Kenneth Starr's grand jury, Jim McDougal suffered a heart attack while in solitary confinement, which may have been brought on by the diuretics forced on him.

Susan McDougal was indicted on eight counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud and making false statements.

On Feb. 6, 1996, President Bill Clinton is subpoenaed in the bank fraud and conspiracy trial of James and Susan McDougal, his partners in the failed Whitewater development project and on Mar. 26th, the White House agrees to have Clinton videotape his testimony.
The White House releases on Feb 20, more than 100 pages of "mistakenly overlooked" Whitewater records subpoenaed in 1994.
On May 16, 1996, the Senate Whitewater committee votes to subpoena FBI reports showing that Hillary Clinton's fingerprints were found on hundreds of pages of Rose law Firm documents found in the White House residence quarters in January. The records, subpoenaed in 1994, and had been missing. In a two-page affidavit to Senate Whitewater investigators on June 17th, Hillary Clinton states that she "does not know" how her Rose Law Firm billing records ended up in the White House.
The Strange Death of Vincent Foster : An Investigation
by Christopher Ruddy
In this extensively researched book, journalist Christopher Ruddy presents a compelling examination of the startling and confusing evidence in the mysterious death of a top adviser to the Clintons--a case that shocked the nation and continues to haunt the White House.

Criticized for attempting to quash a Whitewater investigation at the RTC through White House liaisons, obstructing justice in the Foster suicide investigation by blocking access, removing documents, lying about his removal of documents, and by retrieving Foster's pager from Park Police, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum resigns on Mar. 5, 1994 and is under investigation for lying to Congress.

Director of White House Administration, Patsy Thomasson, lied to Congress about the composition of the Health Care Task Force and the size of its budget and obstructed justice when she removed documents from the office of Vince Foster.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman resigned on Aug. 17, 1994 amid charges of lying to Congress in his testimony concerning Whitewater/Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) investigation.

Treasury Counsel Jean Hanson resigns on Aug. 18, 1994 amid charges that she briefed the White House on Whitewater/RTC investigation.

On Dec. 15, 1995, Former White House lawyer William Kennedy refuses to comply with Senate Whitewater Committee subpoena demanding Whitewater-related documents.

Jury selection began on June 17, 1996 in the Whitewater-related trial of Herby Branscum and Robert Hill, two Arkansas bankers indicted on charges of fraud. Prosecutors maintain Hill and Branscum funneled $7,000 to then-Gov. Bill Clinton's 1990 re-election campaign.

Deputy Chief of Staff, Harold Ickes, broke into New York Republican headquarters in 1970 but has never been indicted for this crime which was similar to what the Watergate Plumbers spent time in jail for. He also lied to Congress about his involvement in the Whitewater coverup.

Former White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler lied to Congress and attempted to withhold vital information from Congress. He obtained a confidential Treasury report and showed it to witnesses before they testified before Congress in the Whitewater hearings. He again lied to Congress when he denied having shown testimony to witnesses. Lloyd Cutler has resigned.

Campaign Finance
In October 1996, the Clinton/Gore campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Commerce Department engaged in covering up a Democrat political fund-raising scandal.

Three former Clinton administration officials have refused to give the U.S. Congress documents subpoenaed for investigations of Democrat fund-raising -- claiming a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The three are: former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, former Commerce Department political appointee John Huang and Mark Middleton, a former aide to the White House chief of staff. (Associated Press, 2/28/97)

Others have fled the country to evade indictments and answering questions.

John Huang was involved in fund-raising while he was a political appointee at the Commerce Department.

Huang, a former U.S. representative of the Asian conglomerate Lippo Group, despite assertions of having avoided any contact with any Commerce Department matters involving Lippo, apparently violated federal conflict-of-interest laws by joining the administration's Indonesia Advocacy-Financing Working Group which dealt with projects involving Lippo. Huang aggressively argued for a new U.S. trade policy toward Vietnam only one day after joining the Commerce Department in July 1994, and pushed the issue for 17 months while the Lippo Group sought to expand its business in Vietnam. (The Washington Times, 12/12/96; 11/27/96)
While still at the Commerce Department, Huang traveled coast to coast to raise money for the Democrat Party and brought in more than $150,000 in donations before he formally left his senior Commerce Department post, according to records obtained by House investigators. Political fund-raising by federal employees is prohibited by the Hatch Act. (The Washington Times, 2/19/97)
John Huang expressed a particular interest in gathering secret intelligence about China, according to testimony by a CIA officer who briefed Huang 37 times. His testimony was taken as part of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch on whether Democratic donors were rewarded with trips on trade missions.
EPA Administrator Carol Browner used the EPA to campaign against Republicans running on the Contract with America, an illegal use of the executive branch for political campaigning.

A bipartisan letter from the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs on March 21, 1995, charges the Environmental Protection Agency and its administrator, Carol M. Browner, with violating the federal Anti-Lobbying Act by faxing unsolicited material opposing the Republican-sponsored regulatory reform package to various corporations and public-interest groups.
Senior Advisor, Bruce Lensey, as treasurer for the Clinton gubernatorial campaign in 1990, signed withdrawals from Perry County Bank, the president of which has pled guilty to conspiring to conceal these withdrawals from the IRS and FEC.

TravelGate
William Kennedy, David Watkins, and Patsy Thomasson was accussed of fabricating charges against White House Travel Office personnel to have the business taken over by Clinton friends. They coerced FBI and IRS agents into complicity with this scheme. Kennedy and Watkins have resigned.

Travel Office employee, Catherine Cornelius removed documents from White House Travel Office. Because those documents later became the subject of a trial against Office Director Billy Dale, that could amount to obstruction of justice.

Filegate
On June 6, 1996, The Los Angeles Times reported that the White House sought confidential FBI background documents on fired White House Travel Office chief Billy Dale. The next day, the White House admits it ordered FBI files of more than 330 people, including dozens of Republican leaders, saying it was working off an "outdated list" of people who had applied for access to the White House. Eventually it is discovered that about 1,000 people's FBI files were obtained by Clinton officials.

One of those people whose FBI file was obtained by the White House was Linda Tripp, who blazed onto the national scene when she released to Independent Council, Ken Starr, secretly taped conversations she had with Monica Lewinsky about the sexual conduct of the President. Tripp's connection to FBI files also include her witnessing fellow employees copying FBI files onto White House computers when she worked in the Clinton White House. (The Washington Times, 9/4/98) Tripp is also at the center of conspiracy theories involving Vince Foster’s suicide. Tripp had worked in the early Clinton administration in 1992 as executive assistant to Bernie Nussbaum, then the White House counsel. Tripp first surfaced in the original report on Foster’s death by former independent counsel Robert Fiske. Fiske said in his report, that Tripp was the last person to speak to Foster before he committed suicide. It was also Tripp who provided testimony on what happened inside Foster’s office after word of his death surfaced, again leading to questions of impropriety.

Tripp also is the original source of information regarding Kathryn Willey’s reported claim that Clinton had kissed and fondled her, claiming to be the first person to talk to Willey after she left the Oval Office.

On the 9th, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta offers a public apology for the White House's obtaining the FBI files: "Mistakes were made. It is inexcusable."
President Clinton later offered a direct apology and calls the FBI files controversy a "completely honest bureaucratic snafu."
FBI Director Louis Freeh said on June 14, that he and his agency were "victimized." He also says that the White House acquisition of the files represented "egregious violations of privacy."
The Washington Post reports on the 16th, Secret Service officials say the tracking system they used for White House passholders could not have generated the supposedly outdated list that the White House claimed it used to request FBI files on the now more than 400 former passholders.
White House places personnel security office director Craig Livingstone, directly responsible for obtaining the FBI files, on administrative leave.
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee begins hearings on FBI file affair on June 19th. Livingstone tells officials that the office holding the files was often left unsecured and that people with the lowest level security clearance were allowed access to the room. ABC News reports that Livingstone himself did not get proper security clearance until more than a year after he began his job as head of security.
Attorney General Janet Reno calls on FBI to expand its probe to determine how and why White House obtained files on former Reagan and Bush administration staff members - later she reverses her earlier call for the FBI to lead the inquiry, and announces that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr should investigate how the White House acquired the FBI files in an improper manner.
New documents on June 25th, show that a total of more than 700 FBI background files were improperly obtained by the White House.
Craig Livingstone resigns from the White House staff on June 26th.
Anthony Marceca informs the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 28th, that he is taking the Fifth Amendment and will not answer any more questions concerning the White House acquisition of FBI background files.
The diaries of the Dick Morris' call girl, Sherry Rowlands, noted that Mr Morris described Mrs Clinton as the prime mover in the scandal when confidential FBI personnel files on leading Republicans were taken to the White House and scrutinised by political fixers. "It was Hillary," Mr Morris replied when Miss Rowlands asked who was to blame for the scandal. "She ordered them. She's a paranoid lady; she did it."

Wow--what a list and Bush's admin is called corrupt??????:rolleyes:

Lee

[Electrophil]

Whoa Lee. I hope that was a cut and paste.

Where you are forced to find some right wing slander editorial, it's easier for us on the other side. We just link a current unbiased news report.

Uhhhh... Let me pick one out of the blue. How about... uhhhh... lessee... Iraqi at the brink of civil war due to our bungling administration? Nah... Lets go with treason this time.

Pick one... ahh.. here we go!! The Treason couple: Cheney and Rove (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060712/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_novak)

[WGJ]

your finger at another kid in the class who smoked cigerettes in the bathroom too, but wasn't caught, to somehow justify your bad behavior, is really juvenile and pathetic. That was then, this is now. It's your ox that's being gored. This time it's a Republican crook, who is doing immeaserably greater long term damage to this country and the world than any other American in history. Whining about "Slick Willy" is just as stupid as it would be for me to start b*tching about what an azzhole Reagen was. Completely irrelevent.

Infinitely more important is the fact that Bush and the other criminals in charge are the people screwing us NOW. The difference is I consider the screwing I'm getting NOW as RAPE and you think it's good sex. The problem is that you live in denial and will likely not live long enough to see the dire implications and disasterous results of the Bush admin's monumental malfeasance fully unfold. You may live long enough to find out you have been given the clap and you'll know who gave it to you, but by then it'll be too late.

You have provided a profound insight as to how deperate the few remaining fools are who cling to the belief that Bush is not a monumental azzhole who is going to leave the country in vastly worse condition than he found it. Again you attack Clinton and ignore the crushing amount of evidence of wrong doing in both the Republican party and the Bush gov't. You ignore the issues of Bush criminality because if only 10% of what is documented is true, you know Bush should be IMPEACHED!

I have made my position on crooks quite clear...they should go to jail. Dubya is a crook and so are Rummy, Cheney, and Rove. I really don't care what party they're from. They should be removed from office and prosecuted. And it wouldn't take anywhere near $40 MILLION to put them away...there's way way too much evidence.

WGJ

[Electrophil]

It just boggles my mind everytime I hear 40 million for an investigation on something so trivial. This batch of modern republicans are the worse money managers in history.

Conservative? I want to puke when I hear them refer to themselves as conservatives. The modern day republicans are the liberals. Oil hugging far right liberals wanting laws against breathing in public, and spending our money like a 17 year old with Dad's American Express card.

When did it fade into this reversal of roles? Now it's the democrats wanting less federal laws and a balanced budget.

[WGJ]

Everyone's pal, Tom Delay

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13803.htm

WGJ

[1320boy]

WoW:confused:
Look bottom line.....

..... All these polotitions, repubicans, democrats, and what everelse there is are all liers. Everyone of them. All of these bastards have to bring in the bible slash religion, kids, iraq,(or war in general) gays, and anything else that has to deal with what people are naturally afraid of. Lets face it its a never ending situation were all going to hate, disagree, or find some small thing that we dont like about any president and attack it.

I hate Bush and his dad and dont like anything about them.
Gdub started a war to make daddy proud and finish what his father could not do on his own. So i hope they die. (ignorant and stupid of me to say) It was a BIG MISTAKE to not only elect a stupid a$$ once... but twice.
However.... I dont blame people for there mistakes..

But i do ask that they pay for them

[Electrophil]

However.... I dont blame people for there mistakes..

But i do ask that they pay for them

Applauding loudly. Exactly!!

[lhopp77]

Seems I struck a nerve or two. People seem to forget so easily and just need to be reminded periodically. I admit there was some over reaction in the past----JUST LIKE THERE IS NOW!!! The only difference is I will admit it and most of you lefters won't. :eek: :cool: ;) :p :D

Lee

[mohrds]

...We just link a current unbiased news report.

Uhhhh... Let me pick one out of the blue. How about... uhhhh... lessee... Iraqi at the brink of civil war due to our bungling administration? Nah... Lets go with treason this time.

Pick one... ahh.. here we go!! The Treason couple: Cheney and Rove (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060712/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_novak)



Unbiased???:confused:

Unbiased???:confused: :confused:

Unbiased???:confused: :confused: :confused:

Associated Press Unbiased. Hah! Dude, you made me spray milk out of my nose!

[mohrds]

It just boggles my mind everytime I hear 40 million for an investigation on something so trivial. This batch of modern republicans are the worse money managers in history.

Trivial? Last time I checked, perjuring one's self in a federal case is quite serious. At least that's what the left-wingers were going after during the Iran Contra hearings.

When you adjust for inflation and the "projected surplus" math, you will see that Clinton's 2nd year through his last year were the worst money managers.

Bill: We have balanced the budget!
Dick Morris: Um Bill, I noticed that you emptied the out the Social Security accounts and included a doubling of tax revenue to get it to balance.
Bill: Shut up or I'll make it look like you committed suicide too.!

:D

[Electrophil]

Unbiased???:confused:

Unbiased???:confused: :confused:

Unbiased???:confused: :confused: :confused:

Associated Press Unbiased. Hah! Dude, you made me spray milk out of my nose!

They are unbiased. This isn't some rinky dink Fox News organization here. These guys have been around for a while. The only one calling them unbiased is the hand full of Bush hold outs.

[mohrds]

They are unbiased. This isn't some rinky dink Fox News organization here. These guys have been around for a while. The only one calling them unbiased is the hand full of Bush hold outs.

:D :D :D ROTFL :D :D :D

You never cease to entertain me.

AP unbiased. That's a good one. I'll have to use that one at the pub tonight. Should be good for a round of laughs.

[lhopp77]

:D :D :D ROTFL :D :D :D

You never cease to entertain me.

AP unbiased. That's a good one. I'll have to use that one at the pub tonight. Should be good for a round of laughs.

Robert will never admit that Fox is much more objective and fair by providing spokesman from both sides of the issue at the same time.

He just can't handle actual FAIR reporting. :D :rolleyes:

Lee

[WGJ]

Fox "News" is INTERNATIONALLY recognized as the Bush administration's lap dog. If you are foolish enough to rely on Fox for info you are not even close to getting accurate data. If they were any further to the right they'd be speaking Chinese.

WGJ

[lhopp77]

Fox "News" is INTERNATIONALLY recognized as the Bush administration's lap dog. If you are foolish enough to rely on Fox for info you are not even close to getting accurate data. If they were any further to the right they'd be speaking Chinese.

WGJ

With your great grasp of the concept of logic---just how do you arrive at the conclusion that you get "accurate" data when you only get one side that is often editorializing and not factual reporting??? Or if not editorializing, it is only reporting part of the story or some of the news leaving out stories with which the network or news editor do not necessarily agree. FOX presents BOTH sides---just how can that be so inaccurate????:rolleyes:

Lee

[lhopp77]

This isn't some rinky dink Fox News organization here.

Can you explain why Fox News has such high viewer ratings then and the network news channels are losing viewers in droves???? Just like the liberal newspapers are losing subscribers. :)

Lee

[WGJ]

The United States is bound by customary law and international laws of war, by The Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the United Nations December 11, 1945—all of which set limits beyond which, by common consent, decent peoples will not go. Under the Constitution, all treaties are part of the supreme law of the land. Humanitarian law rests on a simple principle; that human rights are measured by one yardstick. Without that principle, all jurisprudence descends into mere piety and power.
When laws of war were codified, military necessity ceased to be the final arbiter of human rights and civility. Nor do violations of the laws of war by one belligerent vindicate the war crimes of another.
While George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are guilty of breaking almost every established agreement for standards of human decency in times of war, we do not refer to incidental transgressions of humanitarian law.
We can even bypass war crimes of desperate infantrymen in the heat of battle or the chaos of occupation—like soldiers who recently fired bullets into crowds of anti-occupation demonstrators in Iraq—follies committed out of fear, confusion, and the hatred that all war evokes. It is not crimes of passion, but the crimes of calculation that require moral reappraisal.
For the policy-making officials who planned and supervised military operations in Iraq, the "shock-and-awe" campaign encompasses three major types of war crimes, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949:
· The "wanton destruction of cities, towns, and villages" in violation of the Nuremberg principles.
· The premeditated use of weapons known to cause unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate destruction.
· The use of depleted uranium, the poison of radiation that is destroying the lives of untold numbers of civilians and soldiers, including American personnel.
WAR CRIMES FROM THE AIR
"The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or destruction not justified by military necessity." Nuremberg conventions, Principle VI
Combatants "shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and, accordingly, shall direct their operations only against military objectives." Geneva Conventions, part IV, Article 48
Under the Geneva Conventions and customary law, it is a war crime to launch indiscriminate attacks affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attacks will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects. The distinction between combatants and non-combatants is fundamental to all humanitarian law.
No Iraqi citizen who survived the air war in Iraq, especially the sustained six-day bombing of Baghdad, a city of 5 million people, will ever forget the devastation and terror of the "shock-and-awe" campaign against Iraq.
According to Peter Ford of the Christian Science Monitor, the air war over Iraq was "the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that U.S. forces have fought since Vietnam." Reports gathered from hospitals, homes, mosques and morgues show a level of civilian casualties that far exceeds the First Gulf War, which cost about 5,000 civilian lives. Nearly 100 villagers, for example, "were killed by U.S. bombing and strafing on April 5, including 43 in one house. 'There was no military base here,' said Hamadia. 'This is just a peasant village.'" (Christian Science Monitor, May 22) The Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict (CIVIC) deployed 150 surveyors and carried out detailed interviews with victims. CIVIC recorded more than 1,000 civilian deaths in Nasariya alone.
In early April, Agence France Presse reported that "twenty people, including 11 children, were killed Saturday when a nighttime air raid hit a farm in the AlJanabin suburb on the edge of Baghdad." The next day Al Jazeera TV showed footage of Bartallah, a predominately Christian town north of Monsul, suffering heavy civilian casualties after a night of intense bombing. According to the chief surgeon at the local hospital, 120 dead and wounded civilians were brought into the hospital in one week. Commenting on the Iraqi toll, a representative of the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad said, "It is a big disaster. Thousands are dead; thousands are missing."
The Christian Science Monitor estimates that 30 civilians die for every U.S.military casualty, a ratio that manifests criminality of military operations under Bush and Rumsfeld.
Writing for the INDEPENDENT (U.K.) Robert Fisk, an unembedded international reporter known for his impassioned dispatches, wrote: "On April 8 three weeks into the invasion, the Americans dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on the Baghdad residential area of Mansur. They knew they would kill civilians because it was not a 'risk-free- venture'.
They killed 14 civilians in Mansur, most of them members of a Christian family. No American officers have apologized for this appalling killing, and I can promise them that the baby I saw being placed under a sheet of black plastic was very definitely not Saddam Hussein."
Day after day, Robert Fisk describes the bombs that fail to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, the "wanton destruction of cities."
"It was an outrage," Fisk writes, "an obscenity...the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still-smoldering car. Two missiles from an American jet killed them all—by my estimate, more than 20 Iraqi civilians torn to pieces...Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm....Everyone I spoke to heard the plane.
"Abu Hassan and Malek Hammond were preparing lunch for customers at the Nasser restaurant on the north side of Abu Taleb Street. The missile that killed them landed near to the carriage way, its blast tearing away the roof of the cafe and cutting the two men to pieces. A fellow worker led me through the rubble. At least 15 cars burst into flames, burning many of their occupants to death."
DEPLETED URANIUM
"It is especially forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army, to employ arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." Hague Convention IV, Article 23
Eleven miles north of the Kuwaiti border on the "Highway of Death," disabled tanks, armored personnel carriers, gutted public vehicles—the mangled metals of Desert Storm—are resting in the desert radiating nuclear energy. American soldiers who lived for three months in the toxic wasteland now suffer from fatigue, joint and muscle pain, respiratory ailments—a host of maladies often known as the Gulf War Syndrome.
Ever since the end of Desert Storm, where the Pentagon unloaded 350 tons of depleted uranium, American officials were well aware of the health hazards of the residue that is collected from the processing of nuclear fuel. When the Pentagon authorized new use of depleted uranium for the preemptive invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration not only committed a war crime against Iraq, it demonstrated reckless disregard for the health and safety of American troops.
Of all the violations of the laws of war by the highest officials of the country, none is more alarming or portentous than the widespread, premeditated use of depleted uranium in Iraq. What if other countries follow Bush's example?
The use of depleted uranium is a war crime. Article 23 of the Geneva Convention IV is clear: "It is forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army, to employ arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." the Geneva Protocol of 1925 explicitly prohibits "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gasses, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices."
The radiation produced by depleted uranium in battle is a poison, a carcinogenic material that causes birth defects, lung disease, kidney disease, leukemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, bone cancer, and neurological disabilities.
Depleted uranium is much denser than lead and enables U.S. weapons to penetrate steel, a great advantage in modern war. But under the Geneva Conventions, "the means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited." When DU munitions explode, the air is bathed in a fine radioactive dust, which carries on the wind, is easily inhaled, and eventually enters the soil, pollutes ground water, and enters the food chain. Unexploded casings gradually oxidize, releasing more uranium into the environment.
Handlers of depleted uranium in the U.S. are required to wear masks and protective clothing—a requirement that Iraqi and American soldiers, not to mention civilians, are unable to fulfill.
After the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi hospitals recorded a surge in cancer and birth defects. Hospital statistics from Basra show that in 1988 there were 11 cancer cases per 100,000 people. By 2001, after schools, homes, and entire neighborhoods were leveled from the air, the number increased to 116 per 100,000. Breast and lung cancer and leukemia showed up in all areas contaminated by depleted uranium. Dr. Jawad al-Ali, cancer specialist at the Basra Training Hospital, noted that "The only factor that has changed here since the 1991 war is radiation." Thirteen members of his staff, all present when the hospital area was bombed, are now cancer patients.
The Christian Science Monitor recently sent reporters to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. The families who survived the tragic decade of sanctions, even the children who recently survived the bombing of Baghdad, may not survive the radiated aftermath of military profligacy. Uranium remains radioactive for two billion years. That's a long time for reconstruction.
According to Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist who led the first clean-up of depleted uranium after the Gulf War, "Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity." Rokke's own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy," he said. After performing clean-up operations in the dessert (mistakenly without protective gear), thirty members of his staff died, and most others—including Rokke himself—developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems. "We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension."
The growing outcry against the use of depleted uranium is not a matter of minor legal technicalities. The laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes. The use of depleted uranium is a crime whose horrific consequences have yet to run their course.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush said that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa. Bush lied. Authorized by the Pentagon, 2,000 tons of depleted uranium in Iraq —and the inevitable tragedies of radiation sickness—came from U.S. merchants of death, not Africa. The epitaph for the Punic wars is quite appropriate for the U.S. in Iraq: "They made a wasteland and called it peace."
CLUSTER BOMBS ARE INDISCRIMINATE
It is a war crime to launch "an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population in the knowledge that such an attack will cause an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians." Geneva Conventions, Article 85
"It is especially forbidden to kill treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army." Hague Conventions, Article 23
"The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited" Hague Conventions, Article 22
The formal war in Iraq has ended, and most of the big guns have fallen silent. Yet the death toll continues to rise, not merely because of the brutality of occupation and the resistance, but because of one of the most heinous, unpredictable weapons of modern war—the cluster bomb.
All over Iraq, unexploded cluster bombs, originally dropped by U.S. troops in populated areas, are still killing and maiming civilians, farm animals, wildlife—any living thing that touches them by accident.
A cluster bomb is a 14-foot weapon that weighs about 1,000 pounds. When it explodes it sprays hundreds of smaller bomblets over an area the size of two or three football fields. The bomblets are bright yellow and look like beer cans. And because they look like playthings, thousands of children have been killed by dormant bomblets in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq. Each bomblet sprays flying shards of metal that can tear through a quarter inch of steel.
The failure rate, the unexploded rate, is very high, often around 15 to 20 percent. When bomblets fail to detonate on the first round, they become land mines that explode on simple touch at any time. Human Rights Watch reports that 1600 Kuwaiti and Iraqi civilians have been killed, many more injured, by explosive duds following the Persian Gulf war.
Under the Geneva Conventions, cluster bombs are criminal weapons because it is impossible to use them in significant numbers without indiscriminate effects. It is a war crime to use weapons in the knowledge that they "will cause an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians."
In the war in Bosnia in 1995, Major General Michael Ryan recognized the inherent danger to civilians and, out of respect for the laws of war, prohibited the use of cluster bombs in the European theatre. According to Air Force reports, "The problem was that the fragmentation pattern was too large to sufficiently limit collateral damage and there was also the further problem of potential unexploded ordinance." A U.N. clearance expert said that "our experience in Kosovo showed us that children and youths are highly susceptible to the submunitions."
There is a humanitarian crisis in every country where the U.S. dropped cluster bombs—in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Under Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions on Civilians, the Occupying Power has a responsibility to return evacuated personnel to their homes at the end of hostilities—a responsibility which live cluster bombs make impossible to fulfill. Thousands of displaced persons in Afghanistan cannot return to their homes because their farms, houses and villages are replete with unexploded bomblets.
Before the invasion of Iraq, Human Rights Watch called for a moratorium on the use of cluster bombs. Human Rights director Steve Close predicted that "Iraqi civilians will be paying the price with their lives and limbs for many years." A U.N. weapons commission described cluster bombs as "weapons of indiscriminate effects."
In defiance of U.N. reports, Air Force studies, and repeated warnings from Human Rights Watch, Rumsfeld reauthorized the expanded use of cluster bombs with full knowledge of their indiscriminate and treacherous results. The consequences of his war crime, as reported by international journalists and photographers, are appalling.
On April 10th Asia Times described the carnage of U.S. cluster bombs. "All over Baghdad, the city's five main hospitals simply cannot cope with an avalanche of civilian casualties. Doctors can't get to the hospitals because of the bombing. Dr. Osama Saleh-al-Deleimi at the al-Kindi hospital confirms the absolute majority of patients are women and children, victims of...shrapnel and most of all, fragments of cluster bombs. 'They are all civilians, ' he said. 'The International Committee of the Red Cross is in a state of almost desperation...casualties arriving at hospitals at a rate of as many as 100 per hour and at least 100 per day.'"
Anton Antonowicz reported in The Mirror (U.K.) from a hospital in Hillah: "Among the 168 patients I counted, not one was being treated for bullet wounds. All of them, men, women, children, bore the wounds of bomb shrapnel. It peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed heads. Tore limbs. A doctor reported that 'All the injuries you see were caused by cluster bombs...The majority of the victims were children who died because they were outside.'"
Reporting from Baghdad March 27th, Doug Johnson wrote: "I'm overwhelmed and tired. For three days now I've concentrated on visiting injured civilians in hospitals and seeing bombed sites. This morning we interviewed an extended family of 25 that had been living in six houses together on one farm just outside of Baghdad. At 6:00 p.m. yesterday, B-52s dropped cluster bombs on their farm destroying all six houses, killing four and severely injuring many others. Even the farm animals were killed. We were told that the yellow cylinders landed in their yard, and when they and the animals crept closer to investigate, the bombs detonated."
During the invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld lauded the accuracy of stealth bombers and missiles—a boast met with mockery in the streets of Baghdad. But whatever we think about Rumsfeld's humanitarian missiles, he cannot plead ignorance about the traits and effects of cluster bombs.
Ever since the Vietnam catastrophe, from the hospitals of Saigon to the clinics of Afghanistan, into the wailing hospitals of Iraq, doctors have been digging shrapnel out of the maimed bodies of once-playful children all around the world. Cluster bombs were always known for their inaccuracy, their indiscriminate and unpredictable nature.
A BACKWARD GLANCE
Even before the U.S. invasion began, as Bush prepared to shock and awe a country crippled by sanctions, Iraqis feared for their lives, for their farms and small businesses, and for the safety of their children.
Anticipation itself is a kind of terror. Thousands of citizens fled the city of Baghdad in search of safety, if not peace. No one knew what structures would be targeted, or when the rain of death would commence, but well-educated Iraqis knew all about U.S. air power—the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the B-52 carpet bombing in Vietnam, the indiscriminate use of napalm and cluster bombs, the infamy of agent Orange.
Gross violations of the laws of war in Iraq did not begin with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. The path from the first Gulf War to the current Occupation is filled with horrific episodes.
Every major city in Iraq has stories to tell about civilian casualties, the chaos caused by fire storms from the skies. The entire Arab world remembers the infamous bombing of the civilian bomb shelter in Amariyah, where two fire-bombs burned more than a thousand civilians to death in the early morning hours of February 13th, 1991. While the story of Amariyah spread by word of mouth throughout Iraq, Western journalists acquired a video-tape of the catastrophe. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, "the unedited Baghdad video feeds showed scenes of incredible carnage. Nearly all the bodies were charred into blackness. Rescue workers collapsed in grief."
After the first Gulf War, hundreds of soldiers and veterans, including active duty troops and reservists, came together and signed a call-to-conscience: "We are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. In the last Gulf War, as troops we were ordered to murder from a safe distance. We remember the road to Basra—the Highway of Death—where we were ordered to kill fleeing Iraqis. We bulldozed trenches, burying people alive."
While the mass burial in the sand, the raw images of death, never appeared on national TV—owing to rigorous censorship of the sordid realities of Desert Storm—the soldiers themselves will never forget what took place on the road to Basra, when thousands of disabled Iraqi troops, seeking to surrender, were mowed down by fuel air explosives, napalm bombs, and even super-bombs nearly equivalent to low-yield short-range nuclear missiles.
The U.S. Army Field Manual, the GI's authoritative guide on the laws of war that contains extensive passages from the Geneva Conventions, states: "Members of the armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for."
Article 23 of the Hague Conventions is unequivocal: "It is especially forbidden to kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defense, has surrendered at discretion."
At the March-April European Parliament hearings at the end of the Gulf War, Mike Erlich, member of the Military Counseling Network, described the execution of defeated soldiers: "Hundreds, possibly thousands of Iraqi soldiers began walking toward the U.S. position unarmed, with their arms raised in an attempt to surrender. However, the orders for this unit were not to take any prisoners...the commander of the unit began firing. At this point, everybody in the unit began shooting. Quite simply it was a slaughter."
Portions of the desert story did appear in the print media, after Newsday reporters got to see Pentagon video tapes of the deadly assault on defenseless units. According to Newsday (September 12, 1991) entire units of the Iraqi Army did not want to fight. Vehicles with white flags of surrender were destroyed, and pilots in attack planes likened the campaign to "shooting fish in a barrel." Veterans of Desert Storm describe the massacre on the road to Basra as "the turkey shoot".
The slaughter of helpless troops was followed by a second war crime: mass burial of Iraqi soldiers, some dead, some still living. Mounting ploughs on their tanks, U.S. soldiers were ordered to bulldoze Iraqi bodies into trenches, soon covered with sand.
Burial of the dead weighs heavily on religious people, and military authorities know the importance of proper burial to the morale of the survivors. The Geneva Conventions not only prohibit desecration of the dead, they require belligerents "to search for the dead and prevent them from being despoiled."
The televised and sanitized triumph of technology in Desert Storm will never eclipse the soldiers' memory of human carnage. Soldiers who are forced to act against the laws of war, against their religious faith and conscience, must live with their acts for the rest of their lives.
STILL WE HOLD OUR TONGUES
The invasion and occupation of Iraq is a story about industrial warfare and computerized violence, a story that goes beyond the Air Force and the Pentagon, even beyond the unlicensed acts of a President and his Secretary of Defense. From the beginning it is a tale of masterful propaganda refined into Machiavellian science. It is also a story of lawless individuals and collective complicity. The story of U.S. war crimes in Iraq also includes the scientists who invent new ways to kill.
It is about pilots and arms merchants, decent folk "just doing their job." The story also includes millions of employees, decent, hardworking bureaucrats and assembly line technicians who manufacture new weapons in order to make a living, to send their kids to college and drive SUV's. It's a story, in the words of Hannah Arendt, about the banality of evil.
Years ago in the midst of France's brutal war in Algeria, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre admonished the French intelligentsia: "It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold your tongues."
Paul Rockwell

Good night and good luck,
WGJ

[Duckie]

You guys always give me a good lol and make me watch the flash about lolerskates and roflcopters.

Since when was there a difference between a republican and a democrate? They always have been the same party for the majority of history.