One of Dick Cheney's most preposterous comments amid a long political career of defying credibility and reality came before Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" attacks were unleashed and American forces occupied Iraq.

"Our troops will be greeted as liberators!" Cheney confidently proclaimed.

Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of Arab history knows that its people do not want to be occupied by outside forces.  

This was what confronted Turkey's Ottoman Empire when stern Arab resistance during World War One prompted one of history's leading figures in understanding the Arab mind, T.E. Lawrence, known as "the crown prince of Arabia" to achieve unity among warring tribes for the objective of freeing the Arabs from outside influence.

The above was the headline in the Seattle Times June 22.  The Associated press article by Robert H. Reid from Baghdad revealed the following:

"The White House said President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed the talks Thursday via secured video teleconference.

"Nevertheless the two sides remain fair apart on core issues including the number of bases where the United States will have a presence and U.S. demands for immunity from Iraqi law for American soldiers and contractors.  To detain suspects, fight battles without Iraqi permission and control of the country's air space."

Quickly the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds joined together in complaining about such an arrangement which would obviously leave almost all real power in the hands of the Americans.

The saying that has been appearing and re-appearing with such regularity recently is, "This is not the America I grew up in?  What is happening?"

This was the saying stated by Bill Moyers in a recent interview.  By no coincidence, Bill Moyers has been targeted for dismissal from Public Broadcasting System for years by Bill O'Reilly for "left wing bias" and falling outside the "fair and balanced" standard he has presumably operates under at Fox News.

O'Reilly and his allies are also upset over the numerous articles criticizing the Bush-Cheney neoconservative corporate enterprise.  

The more objective alternative would be to turn the Internet over to the tender mercies of Clear Channel, which has provided the broad perspective of Rush Limbaugh on the one hand all the way across the political spectrum to O'Reilly and Sean Hannity on the other.

Recent revelations from the upcoming book by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan cite the increasing need to confront the impeachment issue immediately.

Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida has vigilantly pursued the necessity of impeachment hearings and of holding government officials, beginning with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, accountable for potential "high crimes and misdemeanors" under mandate of no less than the U.S. Constitution.

As so many continue to point out, this duty to pursue commission of high crimes and misdemeanors by those charged with upholding the U.S. Constitution violates that document and deems it necessary for them to answer such charges.  There is a duty to pursue such acts of grievous misconduct and, when the facts warrant, remove the responsible parties from their positions of power.

McClellan reveals that Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney lied about their roles in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, actions constituting an obstruction of justice.  

How quick George W. Bush was to use the "appeaser" label on Barack Obama for his comment about speaking to those with whom one disagrees.

As Robert Parry was quick to point out, Bush's own family history should make him one of the last people to launch such an attack, given the record of his grandfather, banker and future U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, and his banking firm's helpful funding of the pig iron building element of Adolf Hitler Third Reich war machine.

There is another element to the latest throwing stones from his own glass house in this the latest huffing and puffing episode from Bush's pathetic fantasy land where confrontation with truth and logic result in swift banishment.

Bush, Cheney, Rove, Perle, Kristol and other members of the neocon Washington machine all believed that it was essential to secure victory in the Vietnam War if we were to keep the Asian wing of the vast Communist machine from America's front door.

As the right that has bellyached ad nauseum about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his comments need to be taken in context and analyzed in a way that they will never do.  They thrive on snippets and howls with no analysis.

One thing we do know.  Jeremiah Wright is responsible for no deaths.  If even such a possibility existed the Fox Fixed News hordes would have tumbled on the information by now, whether true or not.

One thing we do know and the mainstream media has run away from this simple and unavoidable truth in the same manner that they have pounced on virtually every snippet, comment or sigh emanating from Jeremiah Wright's career in the pulpit.

The media has run and run hard from discussing the tragic fact that the neoconservative administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is currently responsible for over one million deaths in Iraq.  Add to that a figure of another 2 and a half million refugees who have fled as a result of the conflict.

The answer to that question is simple!  War preparations are big business.  It involves billions in air defense.

Take Boeing's $40 billion air tanker aircraft, allowing the aircraft tanker to refuel in the air.  When the $40 billion contract went to a French company located in Toulouse, France, the Seattle based Boeing Company was outraged and demanded congressional hearings.  

Then there are two big war business giants - Halliburton and Bechtel.  Halliburton benefited in the Iraq War debacle to the tune of billions of dollars.  Cheney, the U.S. vice president, worked for Halliburton at one time and his services provided millions for his bank account.  

There was some superficial debate regarding the "conflict of interest" factor when after being a Halliburton CEO, and then when he became vice president Halliburton was provided with governmental contracts benefited by no-bid contractual deals, to show the company's loyalty to big bucks instead of the U.S.A.  The Halliburton Company fled to Darfur to cut their U.S. tax obligations.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal as well as The Wild Wild Left, the Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

Most Americans are eager to turn the page on the Bush years. Yet even as we elect a new president we're still coming to terms with an era that has both tarnished America's reputation and diminished its influence.

Fred Kaplan chronicles the folly of the Bush years in his new book, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power (John Wiley & Sons).

Kaplan writes that,

"Nearly all of America's blunders in war and peace these past few years stem from a single grand misconception: that the world changed after 9/11, when in fact it didn't.

Certainly, things about the world changed, not least Americans' sudden awareness that they were vulnerable. But the way the world works - the nature of power, warfare, and politics among nations - remained essentially the same."

Vermont has always been a state where citizens valued freedom and independent thought.

A compelling belief in freedom and the importance of following the U.S. Constitution have served as motivations for the citizens of Brattleboro, Vermont.  

A new proposal in the township of Brattleboro to authorize local law enforcement to arrest Bush and Cheney will be voted on in the coming weeks at a town hall meeting.

Yesterday, February 20, the New Hampshire State House held an impeachment hearing, which was flooded by activists and community members insisting that their state legislature take action.

The Republican attack machine has long featured the big lie technique that Joseph Goebbels used during the reign of terror of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

Under the Lee Atwater and latterly Karl Rove technique words, as exemplified in George Orwell's prescient masterwork "1984", are instruments to be used for selfish political gain.  Their meanings are essentially irrelevant but for their sword-like thrust in making political points.

For instance, while Senator John McCain becomes demagogue of the moment for the Republican Party attack machine in asserting that Democratic candidates seeking the presidency are advocating "surrender in the Iraq War" the first point to encounter is the definition of the word "surrender."  

In fact, McCain has asserted that America should remain in Iraq for perhaps "one hundred years" if necessary to complete its mission.

Is there any area of our government, over the span of the last seven years, any area, in domestic or foreign policy, national defense, public welfare, the economy, name it, where the average, reasonably informed American might point to success, to signs of progress, of improvement, something, anything, to point to with satisfaction, with pride?

Yesterday I read an article by Steve Benin on the resignation of Karen Hughes from her post as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, a mouthful there, and a job for which she was as ill suited and unqualified as the man who appointed her and in which, during her two year tenure, she accomplished little, if anything.

In truth, she accomplished nothing, unless you want to count convincing large portions of the world that all Americans must be as out of touch with reality, as clueless and unthinking as their current Commander in Chief, and at that she excelled, as anyone might, having been dispatched to the Middle East with the rank of Ambassador, but without knowledge of the language, culture, history, religions, and general pet peeves of the various states and peoples of the region.

But Karen Hughes was tapped for her office for the same reasons as all Bush appointees are chosen, not for expertise or experience, not for performance or integrity in public service but for loyalty, for unwavering belief in the Messianic delusions of neo conservatism, and a willingness to march in lockstep, nah, goose step, against all who might disagree or dissent.

Dennis Kucinich told a group organized by Progressive Democrats of America by        telephone on October 23 that he intends to introduce to the House of Representatives on a point of personal privilege a resolution of impeachment against Dick Cheney sometime before Thanksgiving.

Impeachment is imperative in the face of Cheney-Bush neoconservative actions in brutal defiance of the U.S. Constitution and international law.  A current point of international concern is the hot rhetoric coming from White House sources about Iran.  It is comparable to that delivered before the Iraq War.

Progressives need to coalesce around Kucinich's noble and courageous effort.  If an earnest investigation were to be undertaken the anger that would be generated throughout America would be considerable.  

Individuals who have been unaware of the depths of plotting toward war and the machinations flowing there from would receive a wakeup call like that so many Americans received when the particulars were revealed during Richard Nixon's tenure.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the horrifying mistakes made in the Bush Administration's awful reign of error is Bush's refusal to recognize his vast mistakes.

Of all the Ten Commandments, perhaps the most imperative one is "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

After World War One, President Woodrow Wilson worked vigorously for the League of Nations to insure there would never be another world war.  After World War Two, international statesmen recognized the necessity of the United Nations.

Having seen what the 50 million death toll of World War Two had brought about, it was glaringly apparent that the maniacs who brought this debacle about must not be allowed to plunge the world into such hell ever again.  

I am sick to death of all the pussyfooting around the subject that has occupied the media for the duration of this premeditated, illegal war of terror that we the people of the United States have allowed to be waged against the people of Iraq, in our name, for the last several years.

No matter how much lipstick and rouge we smear on the face of this war no matter how we attempt to  dress up the evil and bestial acts that have been performed in its unholy name, it still has the hideous countenance of an evil swine from hell.

It is an illegal war, begun and conducted under false pretenses, by a group of criminal liars and thieves in the United States Government, abetted by a cowardly congress who abrogated their constitutional duties in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and furthered by a complaisant press that ignored their obligation to remain independent from government, from their sponsors and report the facts. 

The members of the completely rogue executive department acted in their own self interest in a quest for personal power and wealth, in concert with the usual domestic and international corporate pirates who, in the depths of their insatiable greed, continually amplify human conflict to their own ends and bring poverty, war, suffering and death down upon the world.

There is no such animal as extraordinary rendition, nor do I know of the existence of any beasts called enhanced interrogation methods.

The first is kidnapping, it is illegal, a felony and the second word is torture, its meaning is clear:

NOUN:

  1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
  2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
  2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
  3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

Torture is illegal in this country, a felonious act, it is illegal in the world at large, according to several conventions that we are legally bound by. Anyone committing torture, causing it to be committed, directing its commission, or training others in its techniques is guilty, guilty of war crimes, of crimes against humanity and crimes against "Nature's God.

It is understandable why Fox News has become so preoccupied with showcasing O.J. Simpson.  The controversy-shrouded former running back's latest brushes with the law and impending trial offer a perfect opportunity.

Simpson's current legal difficulties afford an ideal distraction.  The Republican Party's neoconservative television propaganda arm can use Simpson to once more mesmerize its faithful by distancing them from the discomforting realities of the disasters confronting the neoconservative regime that Fox stridently touts.

Fox hopes that the masses are not paying attention to the U.S. Today story running in its September 24 edition.  

Matt Krantz offers a different picture from the rosy scenario George W. Bush depicted the other day when he told Americans to relax, that he received a B in the economics course he took at Harvard, and that the mortgage situation that economists are so concerned about will not affect the overall U.S. economic picture.