[Peace-discuss] Re: Peace-discuss Digest, Vol 34, Issue 35

[Bill Strutz]

Mort's letter is excellent.

Layering my own opinions on the subject --

When I say that I am in favor of impeachment, I mean that I am in favor of having a number of thorough investigations, and I believe that those investigations will inevitably lead to impeachment.

Impeach, yes -- but make it an overwhelming popular wave by collecting objective evidence and presenting it first.

More importantly, investigations  will curb a lot of abuses that will otherwise continue. Putting a few heads on stakes won't necessarily do that.  Our purpose is not to punish Bush/Cheney out of hate, but to correct abuses (especially ongoing ones) and put controls in place.  FISA was meant to be one set of controls.  Better accounting is another.  Much oversight has been dismantled; we need a movement to "re-mantle" it.
 
 Bad things are happening in dark corners -- we need to shine a light on what is going on.

The US seriously needs to investigate the warrantless surveillance that has taken place, and if it turns out that journalists, political opponents, and dissenters have been targeted, it will then be important to find out precisely who authorized what, with a view to removing them from office.  Once the American people see the abuses that the government has inflicted, there will be a mandate to restore civil liberties; but without the results of an investigation, the whole subject seems too hypothetical to many people.

The US needs to track the money that has been mis-spent, and prosecute the guilty (both the companies and the federal employees who have broken laws).  Aside from stemming the outrush of wasted money, it is especially important because some people are pushing for larger military budgets, perhaps not realizing that the Pentagon has simply LOST billions of dollars.   Along the way, it will become apparent to what degree "privatization" of government functions is a bad idea.

The US also needs to investigate our detention and interrogation practices.  It is important to learn, and publicize, the ratio between totally-innocent detainees and possibly-guilty ones.  When the neocon establishment says "soft on terrorists," we must make the point, "soft on innocent people detained on weak evidence or on no evidence at all."

Interrogation is also an important subject of study, because the US has lost its moral superiority (if it had moral superiority to begin with), and we cannot claim to be a world leader in any moral sense until we have rooted out the evil.

I disagree with Pelosi when she says that impeachment is off the table.  I hope that she is only being strategic:  Don't alienate the "My country right or wrong" crowd.  If we are going to have INVESTIGATIONS, then I think that we will learn things that will put impeachment right back on the table, and she may be hoping for that to happen.
            -- Bill


                                William J Strutz People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them they came from Benjamin Franklin.
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."  -- Benj. Franklin

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