Who thinks Downing Memo is more serious then Watergate?

Who truly believes it is an impeachable offense that needs/must be addressed?

nt

NIXON'S TREASON: He Stopped an Early Peace in Vietnam
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3621

by sandbagging Humphrey in 1968. 20,000 dead later in 1973 we made it out.

Then the military -- by way of the CIA in their covert efforts during Watergate (Robert F. Bennett with the Mullen & Co., along with Woodward's own naval intell ties to the Adm Moorer spy ring with Yeoman Chuck Radford)-- helped push Nixon out. But it was too late for those 20K.

Now we have an identical situation. The military, and it's covert helpers domestic spies with the CIA, can once again rise to the occasion and push out an Imperial Presidency.

If the GOP stands for lies, they are once again proving it ! Let's get them on the record.

Depose in the legal sense, and then depose in the political sense...IT'S TIME PEOPLE...RISE UP !

And we let OBL go free.

whereabouts of OBL because he (Bush) made an agreement with OBL not to attack America until after he leaves office, and if OBL complies, Bush will only pretend to pursue OBL. Remember the Bush family and the Bin Laden family had business ties in the past.

and none of them is the child of a Senator, Rep or administration official!

But in no way does it reduce the importance of Watergate. Nixon's criminal interference in free elections was treasonous.

Not just "impeachable" -- prosecutable as a war crime.

9-11,and the Valerie Plame affair! It is unconcievable that no one cares, yet that seems to be the case!

is when they lose their house, their job or don't receive their Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.

Downing Street minutes are the proof for a charge of war crimes and an act against the Constitution of the United States.

Nixon could have dispelled the whole Watergate affair if he would have fired a couple of aids who later spent time in jail.
Clinton could have spared himself if he would have said hell yes she sucked my #$#@. They only got him because he denied it.
Bu$h can't simply make this go away without a little help from his whoring friends in the media.

Johnny, tell the man what he has won.

...taken by the Bush Administration to force a war that Americans would never have backed had the real facts been known about the Bush lies and falsified intelligence and Blair's cover-up and support of Bush in these efforts to begin a war, those activities are extremely serious and Bush should be impeached. But, we need actually documents and testimony to make it stick.

I'd love to see what John Dean thinks of this!

The North Vietnamese in order to win an election.

I think that would be 0.

Thousands are dying because of this war. Watergate was very serious, but this Downing Street Memo is much much worse. And where the hell is Bin Laden? That should get bush impeached as well. But there are so many things that are impeachable offenses in this administration, who knows where to start? Downing Street Minutes is as good of place as any.

no one died by the break-in. The Downing Street memo is the 21st century equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.

Unless my memory is failing me, no one died as a result of Watergate. If the Iraq war was plotted and THEN justified, Shrub's got to go . . . and Cheney . . . and anyone else connected to a lie that cost so many lives and suffering. And when they're convicted of war crimes, we should stick 'em in a cage at Gitmo.

And Dean didn't even know about the Downing Street Minutes when he named his book.

Most Americans who support(ed) the war on the basis that there was a good faith belief Saddam had WMD. The fact that Bush* et al fixed the evidence around their determination to go to war will make most of those folks blanch - particularly as the war gets worse, deaths grow greater, cost increases.

On edit: I believe the issue is whether and when people will take the time to focus on the DSM and how bad things are going in Iraq. I remember as a teen watching the Watergate hearings with my mom, who was a stay at home mom, former teacher. What kids (never mind adults) will have the time to focus on the details on the DSM and the current situation in Iraq to realize what it all means?

nt

Lying this country into a WAR?

This is the Mother of all conspiracies and just about the most justifiable reason for impeacment I've seen or read about

:hi:

if they were alive....

I'll be shocked, though, if the puke-controlled Congress does anything about it.

Only far more extensive and criminal in scope than Watergate.

I never thought I'd say anything like this ... but ... I miss Nixon and his bunch! This bunch is much, much worse than Nixon and his cronies ever were!

but I must say he was far more intelligent than Bush. (Of course I had a dog that was far more intelligent Bush and his old man put together.)

Big difference.

The actions of Bush et al are not only impeachable, but war crimes. The scale of the deception and the sheer magnitude of the destruction dwarf Watergate.

In fact the Belgians under US pressure have dropped war crimes charges against Bush et al. Now WE , the US people, must press it ourselves. We need foreign support and demonstrations and make sure it is known that those foreigners are against the administration and not US troops, who are doing their duties and following orders.

The Repubs will then bring their "Treason" charges, but we'll be able to respond, since when has lying to go to war been "THE AMERICAN WAY ?" It goes "TRUTH , justice, and the American Way". We need to remind them and the rest of the world that that's what we're all about.

is that impeachment is only while he is in office.

...by any definition.

Not to take anything away from Nixon, who was the biggest pre-Chimp thug ever to sit in the White House, but even Tricky Dick wouldn't have had the gall to lie us in to a war.

"Nixon was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad."
-Hunter S. Thompson

edited for punctuation

This whole Iraq thing (and dumbya's subsequent reelection) has really shaken my faith in everything I thought America stood for, and is mostly responsible for my current interest in politics (is it a surprise folks like me are the only good thing to come out of this administration?).

In my opinion we've already done too much too horrible for any sort of national atonement. If the Bush administration is made to pay we can at least look back and say, "We make mistakes like any other nation or people or person, and horrible things that should never have happened in the first place and should never be repeated occurred because of these mistakes. We'll learn from them, teach others by being an example, and maybe at least something good can come out of this for the future."

"And if rich white guys from wealthy families can afford immortality in the near future...that's the only way Bush and Cheney will ever live out their jail sentences and get a chance to see it."

One of these days I'm going to take the time to put everything I hate about this administration down on paper, and maybe...just maybe...if 7 or 8 of the bigger DUers can help me move all the boxes...I'll do something with it.

So are you feeling me or am I way out there on this?

-personman

for Shrub unless there's another Woodward/Bernstein out there somewhere with a boss who will give a free reign to investigete.

I think what we're seeing in the media is that each group has eliminated their investigative reporters. They were too expensive! Now, you have a lot of people researching archives, internet sources, etc,, but nobody out there using shoe leather to really get the inside scoop.

what DSM is to bunkerbuster MOAB (mother of all bombs).

I don't think they have those questions any more

But you're right

Jackass is to nitwit as Bush II is to _______.

a. Bush I
b. Bush I
c. Bush I
d. Bush I

and scaring the shit out of your own citizens to accomplish it is inexcusable. Much bigger than watergate.

if, under a LIHOP or MIHOP scenario, the attacks of Sept. 11 were all part of the same scheme to bring the US into a state of permanent war.

The only scandal even close to this is the continuing outrage of our stolen elections.

Watergate is WAY down the list of top U.S. scandals.

WAY, WAY, WAY down the list is the Clinton/Monica scandal.

....much worse and absolute grounds for impeachment.

The least serious 'impeachable offense' over the last few presidencies was "The Blowjob".

Next was Watergate.

Next was Iran-Contra

The biggest is LYING to get the whole FUCKING COUNTRY into an illegal WAR.

So .... worse than Watergate? You betcha!

I was only a teen during Watergate, but remember, Watergate wasn't only about some dumb burglary or about the coverup.

It was about the subversion of our electoral process and about the hijacking of Federal agencies by an out of control Executive.

Maybe what we call "Watergate" was the primer for this misAdministration.

It may be a stretch but afterall Clinton was impeached over a BJ.

More then 100,000 lives lost. More then 1600 Americans dead. Tens of thousands of Americans wounded. Torture, rape, BILLIONS of dollars spent. All based on lies. GW is not a crook, he is a mass murder. How can we send this man to the Hague?

Repeat what you wrote to at least 5 diferent people EVERY DAY

for its sheer scope (international) and audacity. Did Nixon lie to Congress to get their votes on a matter of war?

and should be prosecuted for war crimes immediately.

If it is an impeachable offense for a sitting president to give false testimony in a civil case that was later dismissed, then lying to the entire world about the offensive capability of a country in order to justify a US invasion is clearly impeachable. The GOP lowered the impeachment bar and thus they should live by it. It's only fair and balanced. :rofl:

These fat cats know that if the sh*t hits the fan with Bush carries over into 06 they'll dump -- timing is key here I think..

If they can impeach Clinton, they should and must impeach Bush.

won't tell america the truth

they do sell newspapers...

impeachable

Does this really need to be asked?

Nixon had operatives burglarize his rival's offices and engage in other skulduggery, and his REAL offense was the coverup.

Reagan had his operatives steal munitions and weapons from the American people, SELL them to a foreign power with whom all Americans were forbidden to do business, then took that money, and more stolen death instruments and gave them to an entity (the Contras) that wasn't to be dealt with by any American Citizen. This was repeatedly illegal step by step, and was covered up at the highest levels. Reagan should have been impeached and convicted for this ugly thuggery on behalf of EXTREMELY RICH private interests.

Bad as all this was, the Bush calumny is on a plane of sheer nefariousness unparalleled by either operations. Bush literally lied to congress, hid facts, misrepresented facts, bullied, stalled and used the might of the American Military to settle a petty personal feud and attempt to steal massive amounts of natural resources from a trampled people. The sheer ugliness and deceit of the Iraq War dwarfs all of the other uglinesses of this country's history: it's much worse than overthrowing Mossadeg, Arbenz or Allende. It's much worse than the colonial crushing of Haiti and other Caribbean countries for the last century. It makes our mailed fist in the Philippines seem gentle and kind. Even the ultimate ugly land-grab of the Mexican-American War takes a back seat to the complete naked aggression of the Iraq War.

Does that suffice for an answer? These assholes are worse than any of the the McKinleys, Polks, Reagans and other cynical murderous thieves who've populated our history. They are so much worse that jaws flap in the breeze with disbelief and inability to characterize the sheer selfish ugliness.

We are the bad guys now. There is no mitigation or qualification to be had with this pronouncement: we are extremely selfish, bad and ugly. We demand others to be held to account, and demand that we be exempted from international law. All that was good about this country has been subverted and made a mockery; as the old homilies get voiced, the sheer hypocrisy makes all who hear them or intone them become part of the deep, deep lying of the soul that has become the face of this country. As an American whose ancestry traces to the early 1630s that I know about, the vicious greedy onslaught of our worst characteristics make me sick.

Bush's crimes are much worse than Iran-Contra, and those crimes were much worse than Watergate. Something one must remember is that the Evangelicals and Fundy maniacs helped bring Nixon down (due to his social liberalism) and helped shield Reagan and Bush. Keep this in your mind; it makes much of what we see make sense.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY OF OUR NATIONAL TREASURE AND HIGHWAY ROBBERY OF A SOVERIEGN NATIONS' RESOURCES.

compared to a break-in in a dc hotel.

And the longer this unecessary, we were deceived into fear to accept it war goes on the more obvious that will be.

The trust and goodwill of the US has been ruined for generations. How do you measure that?

The next president that needs allies? Ha ha ha. Those Americans are liars and can't be trusted. Has anybody ever heard of the country that cried wolf?

Watergate was just a family dispute in comparison.

I think DSM is a smoking gun, but not enough to impeach. It is one giant brick in a needed wall of evidence to bring Bush down, but I don't think it is enough in and of itself.

is corroborrated up the yin- yang. After Clinton's impeachment, the bar for impeachment has been set pretty low.

A "wall of evidence"? Not that we need it, but we actually have plenty of evidence to show that this scumbucket perpetrated high crimes and misdemeanors.

He should be thrown out of office, then put on criminal trial.

Let me elaborate on my "wall of evidence" statement...

For better or worse, an impeachment is a political process instead of a judicial process. Votes will be made on political lines, instead of in response to the weight of the evidence.

Republicans are in the majority now. And even if we hope that in the near future they will lose that majority, they will still hold a substantial fraction of the congress. It takes two-thirds to convict an impeachment.

Most of these Republicans will not vote against bush - unless their constituents demand it. And the DSM is not enough to create that demand. If the DSM becomes a big enough problem for Bush, the administration will attack it with FUD and doublespeak. If the DSM is the sole fact in front of the public eye that threatens them with an impeachment, they will make it a non-factor.

That is why I say we need a "wall of evidence". There needs to be an overwhelming amount of evidence, in full view of the public, to create a groundswell of demand for impeachment. The DSM may infuriate the faithful, but it won't do it for Ma and Pa, especially once the Bushies tear into it.

but as you say it is not enough to impeach. Bush would have to pull a Bill Clinton to get impeached. The Republican right-wing would insist on it. They can tolerate an unnecessary war but never a president who likes to screw around.

Bush got a LOT of people killed.

:hi:

(Can't we just have a simple :raisehand: emoticon?)

Watergate was enough to get Nixon impeached, but it wasn't a war crime by any stretch of the imagination.

that showed the DoD KNEW it couldn't win in Vietnam, but went in anyway on the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident. Nixon dithered for another four years and 20,000 dead. See post #64 above.

DSM is proof that before this war even started the DoD either didn't care that they were violating the Powell Doctrine

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/iraq/powelldoctrine_short.html

"Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.

Powell based this strategy for warfare in part on the views held by his former boss in the Reagan administration, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and also on his own experience as a major in Vietnam. That protracted campaign, in Powell's view, was representative of a war in which public support was flimsy, the military objectives were not clear, overwhelming force was not used consistently, and an exit strategy was ill defined."

With apologies to Colin Powell, lying to justify going into a war without national security risks, without strong support and without an exit strategy is BULLSHIT ! You fell on your sword Colin and skulked away, but the rest of the crew needs to do likewise.

It has been said that a war is won or lost before the first shot is even fired. Has Bush's actions lost this war for us already ? We won the 'war' in less than a month, this occupation can't be won by the US but must be won by the Iraqis themselves.

Iraq-nam indeed !

There were larger issues here, 30 years and people do forget. You're right there were elements here that were a big deal.

Watergate was not directly related to the war in Vietnam. It was related in part to Nixon's anxiety about anti-war protests, of which he saw any and all political opposition as a part; that the Democrats were poised to nominate Senator McGovern, one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam war, underscored that. Also related to that are Nixon's roots as a McCarty-era demagogue. This was a political tradition that saw any left-of-center politician, including placid liberals, as un-American.

The burglary was directed at Democrats because they opposed Nixon and supported New Deal and Great Society programs, not because of McGovern's stance on the Vietnam War.

So, how do the Pentagon Papers fit in to that? They don't.

I see the Downing Street document is something like the Pentagon Papers, although much more brief. It confirms that the government (or, in the latter-day case, two governments) was saying one thing was an established fact when it knew the truth of this so-called fact was dubious as best. Johnson and McNamara didn't really know whether or not American destroyers were fired on in the Tonkin Gulf; Bush and his people didn't know whether or not Saddam actually possessed biochemical weapons, but Blair was willing to play along. In neither case did the political leadership concern itself with the truth. It saw the assertion of a unproved fact as truth as a good excuse for a war they wanted and stuck to it for that reason and kept sticking to it even when the facts turned out to be something else.

The reason I consider Iraq a more serious crime than Vietnam is simply that all LBJ wanted in Vietnam was to contain Communism, which had been an established US objective for almost twenty years at that time, while Bush was simply pushing a classic colonial war, something the US has never openly embraced. Even if it was thought Saddam had WMDs, and there were better reasons to think he did not than to think he did, there was still no reason to think he had a working relationship with al Qaida. Both would have to be shown to make US action justified. Neither was true. There was insufficient reason even at the time of the invasion to believe either was true. The case was, as the Downing Street document says, "thin". The facts were fixed because to make a thin case look sinewed. This was done not because a threat to US safety was perceived, but because it presented an opportunity to US corporations, something that was never present in Vietnam.

was behind McGovern, namely Howard Hughes, because Nixon got the word that Hughes wanted to back a presidential candidate and it was meaningless which party that would end up being. Enter the "plumbers club"...

Where did you hear that one? It's pretty wild.

Frankly, I don't think these guys needed anything specific for which to look. They were sticking it to the Democrats and that was reason enough for them. As far they were concerned, loyal opposition is an oxymoron and democracy be damned.

It was ALL about Vietnam.

By 1971 Adm Moorer and Adm Zumwalt were frozen out on Nixon's plans and the NSC under Kissinger was calling all shots. Pages 246-247 Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag/Chris & Annette Drew shows us how bad Dr K screwed up in the SALT talks pre '72 by giving away a class of Delta subs with long range missiles to the Soviets. In addition POWs out-of-uniform taken in Laos were potentially being left behind (Kiss The Boys Goodbye, by Monica Jensen-Stevenson).

Most of the domestic spying that Nixon's Huston Plan would have stripped those tasks from CIA and FBI, who were both looking into war protesters...denial by CIA but Felt's own background shows it.

The difference NOW is that our CIA is now complicit for the most part with Bush & Co. specifically in order to "fix" the facts for DSM.

Jack Rabbit

Certainly both are crimes but Johnson had every intention of leading America into a war in Vietnam in 1963. In Stanley Karnow's book, Vietnam, he points out that on Christmas Eve in '63' Johnson had a party at the White House. He mentions that Johnson told members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that if he (Johnson) could count on their support in the coming election, he would give them their war if re-elected! While Karnow dismisses this as Johnson's attempt to gather support, I think that from what we know now we can infer that Johnson had every intention to initiate the gathering war clouds. After the '64' election, Goldwater, who was a Senator from Arizona, publicly stated that he knew Johnson was sending Air Force bombers to the Pacific and preparing for war but being a Senator at the time and knowing full well that the briefing he received on the movement of American armed forces was top secret and could say nothing during the campaign.

The bit about stopping Communism was nothing more than claptrap. It's intent was to mask any attempted foreign adventure by our government as a crusade to protect our country and all the other nonsense while generating little or no protest at home. It was akin to the European practice of calling for a 'jihad' (crusade) whenever there was political advantage to be gained. It's the same claptrap as today's hysteria about terrorism. Just as the word 'terrorism' invokes shutters today, so did the word 'Communism' in days gone by. Today we deal with the largest Communist country in the world, China, because it is a source of cheap labor and a huge potential market. That's why today the threat of Communism is so unimportant to our propagandists in Washington. That's why we are such good friends with China - the holy terror of a few years ago is now a fountain of riches for corporate Capitalists here in the good old USA!

You mention that the US never openly embraced colonial war. In fact it did. Just look at the numerous interventions over the years into Central America. In 1965 the US intervened in the Dominican Republic on the grounds that Communists were involved in the fracas down there. The fact is that the major export of the Dominican Republic was sugar. Many major American political figures of the time were closely associated with various sugar companies that dealt extensively with the Dominican Republic. For instance, Ellsworth Bunker, former ambassador to Vietnam; Joseph Farland, former ambassador to the Dominican Republic; Abe Fortas, former crooked Supreme Court Justice, and others. The only American concern was to protect the crooked government in the Dominican Republic in order to make the country safe for further American exploitation.

You infer that Vietnam never presented an opportunity to US corporations. Well, the intent of US intervention was to secure the rest of Southeast Asia and its wealth in raw materials by creating a strong presence in Vietnam. Why do you think England, France and other European countries spent so much time and money to invade these countries? The French thought it so important that right after WW II (1946) they tried to retake their former colonies, which included Vietnam! They held out until 1954 when they had no choice whatsoever but to sue for peace.

All said and done, I hope you agree that both wars are/were horrendous undertakings by two misanthropic presidents that should have never been born.

And the public watched believing that if we didn't, as they used to say then 'stop Communism', then we would have to stop it in California or Montana. Can you believe it that many people really believed this hysterical tripe back then? The politicians know that the best and easiest way to control the people is through FEAR.

They need to go to the Hague.

Bush's cabal have acted with total impunity to take down
our country while enriching themselves--this is just not about ideology, but greed, and the lust for power. It is truly frightening that it is happening and even more horrifying that so many citizens are duped by these evil bastards, or believe in their exceptional bullshit.

NoFederales

"I" word, "I" word, "I" word... :evilgrin: :bounce:

You used a '*' instead of a 'u'.

which have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and maiming are downright hanging offenses. Maybe when he swings the media will play chimp mocking karla fay tucker and we all can see the light of justice finally shine through. course this will never happen.

Watergate was a domestic case. The Downing Minutes is an international scandal. All parties should be tried in the Hague.

are revealed. The denials yesterday of Bush and Blair regarding the DSM should not be accepted as the official response is... especially after impeaching Clinton about lying about a BJ.

Watergate was a high crime against the people of the United States by subverting the democratic process for political gain. Nixon used government agencies in the way that Stalin or Hitler would by using them for political attacks against his opponents.

Iraqgate is demonstrably impeachable. The Downing Street Memo is smoking gun proof that joins with tons of testimony of government insiders and circumstantial evidence that President Bush LIED to Congress and the American people, just like Nixon.

The results of Watergate was a democracy perverted by dirty tricks.

The results of Iraqgate are the killing of scores of innocent people, a crushing national debt (coupled with tax cuts of course), and not to mention, kickstarting a new age of Islamic Terrorism against the United States that will most definitely take more civilian lives. Impeach. Impeach. Impeach.

Me.

Aucun doute.
No doubt.

Le Watergate: peu de personnes (ou aucune?) n'en sont mortes.
Watergate: very few (or none?) died because of it.

Les mensonges de Bush, Blair, et du PNAC: des milliers de gens sont morts.
Bush, Blair, and the PNAC: thousands have died.

Et combien d'autres vont en mourir si ces criminels de guerre s'en sortent?
And how many others will die if these war criminals get away with it?

Bonne question...
Good question...

:hangover:

People are dying for the Neo-cons power/oil grab. :cry:

At least I have yet to see any of them on TV talking about it.

You're damn right it's more serious than Watergate!