imprisonbush.com

The world now knows the real picture of what happened at Haditha. A group of American soldiers belonging to the Marine Corps planned and executed a massacre. The military told us all at the time of the massacre that the victims had been killed by Iraqi insurgents. That was a bald-faced lie.

It turns out that the US Marines broke into the homes of Iraqi civilians, pulled men, women and children out into the street, and shot them, execution-style. Over two dozen civilians were killed by the Marines in this manner.

There was no battle going on. There was no way that the Marines could have mistaken the civilians for enemy combatants. This was a cold-blooded war crime.

This was a cover-up.

The military had photographs and at least one videotape showing evidence of the massacre, but the Pentagon chose not to investigate. Instead, the military conducted a phony inquiry designed to hush it all up. Then, they lied to us, giving us the phony story about a bombing by Iraqi insurgents. The military did not start a real investigation until Time Magazine showed Pentagon officials a video tape of evidence of the massacre it had been given by anonymous sources.

How many other supposed “insurgent attacks” in Iraq have actually been massacres by American troops?

The American people must now ask the difficult questions, as it has become clear that military investigators will not do so on their own.

The most important question of all is this: How high up the chain of command does the Haditha coverup go? Certainly, the coverup includes officers of high rank in the military. Does the coverup also include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld? Does it include George W. Bush?

A non-partisan, independent investigation commissioned by Congress, with the power to subpoena, made up of civilian lawyers and experts not currently serving in Congress or the Bush Administration will be the only kind of body that can provide us with a credible answer.

No more lies. No more coverups. No more sham investigations.

Above all else, no more war crimes. America has been shamed by a pattern of rampant acts of brutality, from torture in Guantanamo and gulags like Abu Ghraib to battlefield desecreations, and now, massacres.

It is time for this shameful war to end, and it is time for the Commander-In-Chief to be impeached.

A few days back, we reported to you the news that a newspaper article about Joseph Wilson, with notes in Vice President Dick Cheney’s handwriting on it, was being entered as a piece of evidence into the trial of Dick Cheney’s top aide, Lewis Libby, on charges of obstructing justice by helping the Bush Administration to cover up its role in the leak of the identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA agent. This morning, there are additional signs that Dick Cheney is being dragged into the center of the criminal prosecution, and may soon be testifying under oath at Libby’s trial.

A recently revealed document from the office of Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald reads,

“Contrary to defendant’s assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the Vice President as a witness at trial.”

Andrew Cohen at the Washington Post writes that Cheney “has personal information about a material part of a criminal case and it would malpractice on the part of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald not to consider him as a potential witness.”

Once Dick Cheney is under oath, who knows what kinds of questions might be asked about the White House’s deceptive preparations for war. Their back is to the wall, and it’s only a matter of time before the bloodletting begins.

The more time we spend under the criminal regime of George W. Bush and his Republican followers, the more clear it becomes that Bush and the Republicans are not the only problem. No, in addition to the Republican problem, there is a serious Democrat problem as well.

Right now, Democrats in the House and Senate should be standing up to denounce the crimes of George W. Bush. Some, like Russ Feingold, are doing so. But, far too many Democrats are still simpering and cowering at the feet of President Bush. They’re acting more like Republicans than Democrats.

Yesterday, we saw a shameful example of this. There are seven Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but four of these seven Democrats voted to help George W. Bush instead of bringing him to justice. The following four Democrats voted to recommend the confirmation of General Michael Hayden, in spite of the undisputed fact that General Hayden helped Bush set up secret programs to eavesdrop on and gather information about the personal telephone calls of huge numbers of innocent Americans. These programs were illegal and unconstitutional, but the following four Democrats didn’t care:

Carl Levin
Dianne Feinstein
John Rockefeller
Barbara Mikulski

These senators ought to be ashamed of themselves for helping George W. Bush continue to break the law. We ought to have impeachment hearings in full swing by now, but these four Democratic senators seem to agree with President Bush that the White House is above the law.

If Democrats like these continue to sit comfortably in their offices on Capitol Hill, America will remain unprotected from the opportunistic attacks against liberty by the Homeland Security scoundrels.

As of this morning, Imprison Bush has joined Bloggers Against Torture, a new group dedicated to speaking out against torture everywhere, and especially as practiced by the Bush Administration in the name of the United States. You’ll see a blogroll of other bloggers against torture in the lower part of the right hand column on this page. Check out the other anti-torture writers listed there.

Torture is plainly a crime. It’s against United States law for any member of the government to commit or facilitate torture – within the United States or overseas. George W. Bush has created a global network for systematic torture of prisoners. Bush has broken the law. He must be impeached if the United States is to regain its international reputation as a nation that values liberty and the rule of law.

June is Torture Awareness Month. Please use this upcoming opportunity to speak out about torture and help to create a collective voice within America that makes it plain that we will not stand to have torture committed in the name of our security any longer. Torture is the enemy of true security.

Republicans are finally joining progressive Americans in a movement to censure the President of the United States! The only problem is that they’re trying to censure the wrong president – President Carter.

This is a sign of how out of touch the Republicans have become. In response to the huge number of crimes and attacks against liberty by George W. Bush, the current President of the United States, the Republicans are thrashing around in desperation, reaching back 30 years into the past, to blame Jimmy Carter for all our problems.

Jimmy Carter? It was a generation ago that Carter was in the White House. What’s their problem with Carter?

Well, President Carter is daring to speak out against the shameful policies of George W. Bush. The Republicans think that merits censure. I think that merits our thanks.

The following limerick comes from Poets for Kerry, celebrating Senator John Kerry’s late, but welcome, support for the resolution introduced by Senator Russ Feingold to censure President George W. Bush for his many crimes against the law, the American people, and the United States Constitution:

Russ Feingold will get in the way
of Kerry on a later day
but the moment is pure
for Bush’s censure
over crimes for which now he must pay.

This week, the United Nations Committee on Torture has sent a report to the United States calling upon the Bush Administration to close its prisons at Guantanamo Bay, where widespread use of torture against prisoners has been reported.

American officials are refusing to comment on the report.

Will American citizens please comment in their stead?

Every day that we allow our government to torture prisoners is another day that the reputation of the United States of America descends further into the muck.

It is the duty of the Bush White House to stop torture. It is our duty as citizens to make sure that our government does its duty. We are all to blame for the shameful and illegal torture at Guantamo Bay and America’s other secret prisons around the world.

The blogs are buzzing with the news that National Security Agency staff member Russell Tice will be testifying before a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee next week, revealing to senators the details of three additional, previously unknown programs the National Security Agency is using to spy against American citizens. These three programs include, rumors say, a program to spy on Americans using satellites in outer space.

I’ve learned to be suspicious of such rumors. Remember last week’s gush from Truthout that Karl Rove had been indicted on Friday?

Still, I’m sick and tired of not knowing what the government is doing to track my private information. If there really are three more programs that the NSA is engaged in to spy on Americans, I don’t care what the national security implications are. I deserve to know about them. No little shred of security that might, theoretically be lost can compensate for the liberty that America is already losing.

This government of secrecy needs to end, and we need to start by impeaching and imprisoning George W. Bush.