www.democrats.com/files/amomentoftruth.pdf


filed by Dennis Kucinich

__________________
Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

I think Mr. Kucinich has wasted a lot of taxpayer-paid time on that lengthy document. Surely the district he is supposed to be representing has something he can focus his time on. We're roughly 100 days away from an election and to even remotely conceive that congress is of a mind to get embroiled in something that hefty right now is foolhardy, IMHO.

The only thing I can come up with is that he hopes such a thing would negatively impact McCain's chances.

Kucinich is a joke anyway. If I were in his district, I'd be telling him to be trying to find ways to save the taxpayers some money instead of wasting his time on a 65 page document of useless words.

Inever thought of the constitution as something not worthy of protection. Many crimes have been committed by this administration, but the most grevious are the war crimes.

I applaud Kucinich for taking a stand and not accepting the status quo. He understands the constitution and how it has been used as toilet paper for the last 7 years. I don't think it is fool hardy at all. Too many people think the stammering little Napoleon will soon be gone so why bother. Will Bush be impeached? No. But to defend the Constitution of the United States of America is far more noble than stomping on it whenever you feel like it.

C-span is covering this today

C-SPAN | Capitol Hill, The White House and National Politics - C-SPAN

"Limits of Executive Power" link still ongoing.

ITA!! If nothing else, it will stand as an historical record and proof that we aren't all cowardly idiots. IMO, the present CIC is prepared to issue blanket pardons for all his co-conspirators but if there are no charges pending for specific crimes before he leaves office I'm hoping that his pardons will be moot and many will still be prosecuted including Mr. Bush himself.

Ford didn't address anything specific when he pardoned Nixon. If Nixon had been impeached, perhaps the "unitary executive" theory wouldn't exist now.

We owe it to future generations.

I've been listening to the hearings since the link was posted above. So far I've not heard anything new. They are discussing the fact that 550 metric tons of yellow cake uranium was transferred from Iraq to Canada. There were then reports that in '02 Albright said S.H. clearly had biological weapons of destructions. Kennedy and Kerry and Clinton in Oct. 02 all made clear statements saying that it was clear that S.H. had 'significant' quantities of WMD's of various kinds.

The question is whether or not it was known or believed at the time of the invasion that they posed a threat. Numerous individuals on both sides believed it to be true outside any prompting or misleading statements by the White House.

They all - the White House and Congress - believed the WMD intel to be true at the time. Therefore, it is unimpeachable.

Has anyone ever pondered what the Middle East would look like today had we not gone in there? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Were S.H. still there and in power, I fully believe the terrorist cells in Afghanistan would've found refuge in Iraq and we wouldn't have been able to touch them.

I totally agree with you. Iraq was a 'holding port' for terrorists.

I also believe that the White House and Congress went on the information they had at that time. Sure, people can look back now and say the information was wrong, yada, yada, yada. But they were going on information given AT THAT TIME. As the old saying goes "Hindsight is always 20/20."

There is no reason for impeachment. As soon as President Bush took on the job as president, both his administrations have been plagued with assaults from all sides. I truly believe that he and his administration has saved the United States from further 9/11's.

There was news coverage on our local news a few weeks ago from someone who lived in Iraq (or Afghanistan) and now lives in our area and our local reporter interviewed him. He and his family had really gone thru a lot. He said he was thankful for the invasion by the United States and our allies. He also stated that the terrorists were hoping that Obama is elected our next president. If I can find the interview, I'll post it.

If we had concentrated on defeating the terrorists and capturing Osama bi Laden in Afghanistan rather then going into Iraq IMO there wouldn't have been any terrorists to defeat in Iraq. SH was an evil man but he had no interest in sheltering terrorists, especially those aligned with OBL, a religious extremist/terrorist, when he was in power.

You make it sound so, so simple.

We took control of Afghanistan very, very quickly.

I believe that if OBL is alive, we know where he is and have known all along.

We certainly did take control of Afghanistan very quickly then, for the most part, we left to invade Iraq. Now Afghanistan is falling apart again and we're faced with increasing our presence there and essentially fighting that war all over again.

Interesting about OBL -- does your theory answer why, if we know where he is, we don't go get him?

Which is precisely why we need to remain in Iraq until we can know the same thing won't happen there. Can I ask if you know who all advocated decreasing the number of troops in Afghanistan the first time around?


It does. I believe that we know exactly where he is and are monitoring his communications. I believe that had we gone in and gotten him immediately that we would have had a much more difficult time locating all the randomly-placed terrorist cells around the world with whom he had contact, but that by keeping him alive, we allow him to have channels of communication that we can intercept, and that once we're confident that we've located as many of his 'outside' groups/contacts that we possibly can, we'll take him and them out simultaneously.

He's the hub of the wheel and as long as we know where that hub is, we can follow the spokes.

I'm not so blinded by Bush as to think it might not happen just before the election to give McCain an edge.

The Iraqi government and people want us to leave. To my knowledge the government/people of Afghanistan made no such request. We cannot continue to bankrupt our country in the hope that at some point in the next "100 years" the Iraqi government and people will be strong enough to defend their own country. They either will defend it or not, We can, if necessary go back in, but they need to sink or swim themselves and to repeat, that is what they want to do.

I don't know of any particular political figure or group who advocated taking troops out of Afganistan to fight in Iraq except, of course, the current administration which did exactly that.


Interesting theory but to my knowledge we have claimed none or very little credit for taking down any terrorists cells whether linked to OBL or not since 9/11. Well, on second thought there was that band of hoodlums in Florida who were willing to commit terrorist acts for new tennis shoes. I'm sure there are things going on that we never hear about but I'm also willing to bet that if we knew where OBL was that devil would be in custody.

And isn't that a truly sad state of affairs.

Please cite your sources....

Speaking as a person who has a friend working w/ the Iraqi police force (he's helping them train them)--I don't know that's been his experience.

__________________
Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

On June 5, 2008 was the first time that members of the Iraqi Parliament have been in front of Congress.
Youtube video also at the link so that you can hear it.
Ron Paul Questions Iraqi Lawmakers | Ron Paul .com

What the lawmakers and govt. officials of any given country want does not always reflect what the people of said country want.....

Personally? I would love to see the war end. I want my friend home! But, I also want him to be able to do the job that he does so very well...I want the region to be as stable as possible.

__________________
Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

At what cost to our country should we continue in Iraq. When does "our" opinion as citizens of the US come into play. What for gosh sake are we accomplishing in Iraq that the citizens of that country can't accomplish on their own under the timetable Malaki has suggested. I'm truly grateful to your friend and all our troops in Iraq but what more do we hope to accomplish that can't be done in a year or so as Malaki wants. How many police does your friend need to train before they can take over the training themselves?

You just proved my point...the American people have been screaming to get the troops out of Iraq, but, our govt. leaders haven't listened.

I don't disagree with you. I do think that saying the citizens of Iraq want our troops out is a misrepresentation of their general opinion.

They are training police as fast as they are being killed by insurgents and IEDs.

__________________
Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

Maybe they will have the referendum that Nadeem Al-Jaberi talked about. The people of Iraq should decide along with their government what is best for them.

Here are some Iraqi citizen opinion polls that may be of interest.

Opinion Polls in Iraq - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum

Kucinich is an idiot. Instead of finding a cheaper fuel alternative, a way to lower our tax bill, a solution to this housing mess, etc.. he's writing stuff that's not even worth using as toilet paper. People should be outraged our tax dollars are going to a person that's not doing his job...

Without the hub, the wheel collapses.

And for the Iraqis, it's past time for that favorite right wing phrase. Where is their "personal responsibility"? If the poor here can be told to take care of themselves, then surely we can tell the Iraqis to do the same. Let them eat cake!

The war got Bush his second term, so why wouldn't it, with the proper terrorist action, get McCain his first term? The public has proved itself to be susceptible to being frightened so it's easy enough to pull off.

Actually, that's not what we were led to believe early on - and not just from the White House. There were hints that certain occurances were to trigger other events of 9-11 magnitude. If Bin Laden's capture or death were the queue for cells to enact certain plans, unless and until we knew where those planted cells were - all around the world - to take him out could've been catastrophic.

And while I absolutlely understand about the 'personal resonsibility' thing, we see now what has happened in Afghanistan without a strong military presence. Is Iraq ripe for the same breakdown if we depart too early?

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say we were led to believe?? what?? I never believed any of the stuff that was put out at the time. I believe then and still do, that most of what was put out was to make the general public afraid and willing to go along with anything Bush and gang wanted to do.

As far as Iraq goes, we simply can not afford to stay there. We don't have the manpower or the money. Afghanistan is falling apart and needs shoring up and if we know where OBL is we need to take care of business. That was the original mandate and it needs to be dealt with. The reason we took down Russia was because we outspent them and they collapsed. That same thing can happen here and we will have done it to ourselves. We are spending ourselves into oblivion.

Thank you, President Reagan!

Never going to happen Dennis...DREAM ON!!!!!!!!!!!! Sherri

__________________
"It isn't that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan