Impeachment will be heard Friday

A message from Congressman Dennis Kucinich......

Thanks to you, impeachment will be heard Friday



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http://kucinich.us/


Witness list: Bush-Cheney Administration continues along its destructive path-in documented violation of national and international law. Democracy Now!

Who Will Hold the War Criminals Accountable?


A year after hundreds of people marched on John Conyer's office demanding impeachment;

15 months after impeachment advocates gathered outside Congress to demand it start, supporting Dennis Kucinich's articles of impeachment on VP "Dick" Cheney;

30 months after illegal spying by the Bush regime became public;

4+ years after the whole world learned about the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib;

5+ years after Iraq was invaded on the basis of lies, leading to the deaths of more than one million people;

6+ years after Guantanamo opened; and almost 7 years after the Bush Justice Department's USA PATRIOT Act made a mockery of Constitutional protections for the people....

...there will be a two hour hearing tomorrow in the House Judiciary Committee on Kucinich's latest article of impeachment against George Bush for lying about Iraq.

While you have to say to yourself that after 7 years, it's about time for a big fight over the crimes of the Bush regime, I'm not impressed, nor do I think we should be congratulating ourselves.

In the New York Times today, in a story about pardons Bush may issue: "As the administration wrestles with the cascade of petitions, some lawyers and law professors are raising a related question: Will Mr. Bush grant pre-emptive pardons to officials involved in controversial counterterrorism programs?"

As passionate as the arguments of impeachment advocates in and out of Congress, any openings this provides will come to something only with a determined movement of the people who reject the whole direction under the Bush regime.

So, let's keep going out among the people living in this country with truth about this criminal regime. Real hope comes in resisting, and through that resistance, forcing the powers that be to accede to our just demands.

Call in to talk shows, write your newspapers, talk to everyone you know. Hell yes, Bush & Cheney should be impeached, tried, and held to account for the crimes their administration carried out in our names.

TODAY a billboard goes up on University Avenue in Berkeley, near Boalt Hall Law School where John Yoo teaches constitutional law. Fittingly, it says "SILENCE + TORTURE + COMPLICITY". We hope it is hugely controversial, and that members of the university community are challenged to reject the torture state and its apologist, John Yoo, in their midst. Photos soon!

Related:

Condoleezza Rice: girl power? US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today told enthralled schoolgirls how she loves shopping - and has no presidential ambitions. Asked by Year 12 student Patrice when she got to go shopping, Rice said she had to rely on friends to shop for her, but hoped to have more time for shopping when she stepped down from her post in January next year. She said President George W. Bush was a great boss “because be has a great sense of humour” but she had no ambition to be president and would happily resume her career as an academic at the end of her tenure.

Rice greeted by protesters in Perth


Condoleezza Rice is finished as a Black political asset of the White Man’s (War) Party. Image (The Black Commentator)

United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has touched down in Perth.

[But Rice's complete and abject identification with her master leaves her with nothing of her own to claim.]

Rice has been forced to enter a dinner hosted in Perth in her honour through a back entrance, because of a group of anti-war protesters camped outside.

[Rice will always have a job with the Bush family (she served the father, too) or with Chevron-Texaco Oil (where she worked between Bushes).


Rice’s selfless renderings to the white and wealthy have earned her a lifetime of…more of the same. Should she crack under the weight of her own and her masters’ lies – as sometimes seems imminent – there is a commodious attic in one of the Bush domiciles where “Condi” can be safely stored.]

Rice's whirlwind journey to Western Australia is allegedly not an official diplomatic visit, but has been described as a personal trip to Mr Smith's home town.

The Secretary of State was greeted on the tarmac by Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter, Minister for Immigration Chris Evans and US Ambassador Robert McCallum.

Outlived usefulness

[In the false glow of their delusions, Republicans truly believed that Condoleezza Rice was the ultimate political asset – a Black woman who could by her presence wash them clean of racist stench, and then perform the same ablution the next day, and the next. Rice made it easy for the super-privileged to love themselves.]

However, [Rice did not bargain or seek her own space, but settled into the very fabric of Bushness. In so doing, however, Rice lost all power of personal agency. Having surrendered everything to the Bushes, her Blackness gradually lost its value as a cloak for her patrons’ racism. The affirmative action opinions of a loyal Black servant carry little weight. That’s when the talk of high office, stopped.]

[Rice’s rich white admirers hugged and squeezed her too tightly – until there was nothing left but them all over her. It is common in African American circles to speak of “lost” Black souls, but in Rice’s case it is almost literally true that she doesn’t know where she stands and to whom she is speaking.]

Rice greeted by protesters

The party went on its way to a dinner at the University of Western Australia with 100 guests. But about two dozen protesters from the Socialist Alliance, brandishing anti-war placards were waiting for Rice outside the dinner.

She was ushered into the function through a back entrance.

Today Rice will visit private girls school Mercedes College in Perth and the Swanbourne Barracks to lay a wreath at the Kings Park War Memorial.

She is also expected to speak to the media with Mr Smith tomorrow.

Updated: Fri 12:20pm (AEST)

NZ students offer reward for Rice's arrest

After her brief visit to Perth, the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, will fly to New Zealand tonight.

Rice will fly into Auckland tonight and her minders will need to be on alert after a student group announced a reward for anyone who could arrest her.

Auckland University's Student Association is offering $5,000 to anyone who can make a citizen's arrest.

Association president David Do says Ms Rice should be ashamed of her role in the Iraq war.

"I think New Zealanders have an inherent sense of fairness and justice and they understand why we are doing it," he said.

"They see the link between what the US has done to the people of Iraq."

He says while the New Zealand Government opposed the war in Iraq, he doubts he would have Prime Minister Helen Clark's support if a citizens arrest actually happens.

Source: The Black Commentator, ABC Justin Online

The Forgotten War: Sonali Kolhatkar on Why Afghanistan is "Just as Bad as Iraq"

Coming on the heels of Barack Obama’s highly publicized visit to Afghanistan—what he calls a central front in the so-called war on terror—we play an address by Pacifica radio host Sonali Kolhatkar, one of this country’s leading voices against the occupation of Afghanistan and co-author of the book Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords and the Propaganda of Silence. She spoke last month at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis about what she called widespread misconceptions about the occupation of Afghanistan.

International warships gather off Darwin The Defence [Military] Department says international warships are sailing into waters around Darwin in preparation for major maritime wargames next week. The Australian Defence [Military] Force is hosting the offshore simulated war exercise, dubbed Kakadu IX.

Australian SAS soldier 'killed' in Afghanistan Casualties: SAS special forces, killers and thieves in Afghanistan digging holes to bury their dead with reports that one Australian soldier has been killed. The reported death of the soldier in Afghanistan would be the second loss Australia has experienced in the attack on the sovereign nation state this year, and brings the nation's death toll from the war to six.

No combat deaths for the quiet imperialists DESPITE a five-year commitment that has involved almost 14,000 soldiers, Australia will end its war in Iraq without a combat fatality. In contrast, the Americans have lost more than 4000 soldiers; the British have lost almost 180. In Vietnam, about 50,000 Australians served and 520 died; in Afghanistan, where about 8000 soldiers have served, five have been killed.

Iraq oil output, exports hit post-war high


Oil production has climbed to a post-war high of more than 2.5 million barrels-per-day.

Iraq has raised oil exports to a post-war high, earning billions of dollars to fund reconstruction after Baghdad cracked down on sabotage of its strategic pipelines, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani says he expects 2008 oil revenues to reach $70 billion if oil prices stay high and there are no output disruptions. Mr Shahristani was optimistic Iraqi forces would be able to sustain tight security at oil facilities. That could raise the confidence of [foreign] investors who have been discouraged by [resistance to; the pre-emptive strikes on Iraq by the coalition of the killing, false flag operations by them, to encourage civil war, sectarian violence, Al Qaeda and powerful Shiite militants who had a tight grip on Basra, home to Iraq's biggest oilfields.

"In May, we have exceeded for the first time 2 million barrels-per-day (bpd) as an export rate," Mr Shahristani said. Production had also climbed to a post-war high of more than 2.5 million bpd, he said. Mr Shahristani was confident Iraq could pump up to 2.9 million bpd by the end of 2008. He declined to comment on export levels for June, but senior Iraqi oil officials said last month shipments would run slightly higher because of extra Kirkuk sales from the north.

Unknown News
"News that's not known, or not known enough."

-- IN IRAQ --

30,000 IRAQI TROOPS KILLED
and 90,000 SERIOUSLY INJURED Aug. 2003

785,957 IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED
and 1,414,723 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

3,615 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 50,677 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

287 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 861 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

160 U.S. CIVILIANS KILLED
and 288 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

251 OTHER COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and 452 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

-- IN AFGHANISTAN --

8,587 AFGHAN TROOPS KILLED
and 25,761 SERIOUSLY INJURED July 2004

3,485 AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED
and 6,273 SERIOUSLY INJURED July 2004

342 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 1,026 SERIOUSLY INJURED Jan. 2007

278 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 834 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007

? U.S. and COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and ? SERIOUSLY INJURED

Army chief admits morale concerns over lack of combat Lieutenant General Leahy was responding to public criticism from two infantry officers who have written in the Australian Army Journal. The officers claim that some soldiers are sometimes ashamed to wear the Australian uniform and have been treated with "near contempt" by allies in Iraq and Afghanistan because they are involved in such low-risk missions.

Memorial Day Special…Winter Soldier on the Hill: War Vets Testify Before Congress War veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan came to Capitol Hill this month to testify before Congress and give an eyewitness account about the horrors of war. Like the Winter Soldier hearings in March, when more than 200 service members gathered for four days in Silver Spring, Maryland to give their eyewitness accounts of the injustices occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, “Winter Soldier on the Hill” was designed to drive home the human cost of the war and occupation—this time, to the very people in charge of doing something about it. The name, Winter Soldier, comes from a similar event in 1971, when hundreds of Vietnam veterans gathered in Detroit, and is derived from the opening line of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, “The Crisis,” published in 1776: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” In a packed public hearing this month, the soldiers testified before a panel of lawmakers from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Today we spend the hour hearing their testimony.

US dockers strike over Iraq war Union officials say about 10,000 longshore workers who handle cargo along the west coast of the United States have stayed away from work in a one-day protest against the war in Iraq.

Thousands take part in anti-war protests Thousands of anti-war protesters have marched in Britain and the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

'Charge Howard with war crimes' FORMER Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has called for ex-prime minister John Howard and other Western leaders to be charged with war crimes over the conflict in Iraq.

IT'S ALL ABOUT OIL! In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan.