U.S. Officials Sell Nuclear Secrets to Israel, Turkey

It never ends with this "moral" crew, does it? From Raw Story (and mind you, Bushies happily slip two countries "not supposed to have" nukes such secrets, while everytime a doctor in Iran orders a chest x-ray, Bush claims Ahmadinejad's about to nuke The Mickey Mouse Club, Chucky Cheese, and other vital symbols of American uh... brilliance, superiority, and patriotism). Want to bet NONE of these officials is charged, much less convicted, of treason - which is WHAT this act would mean to anyone else.

The Sunday Times has obtained a document that confirms that a file, which the FBI denied existed, could contain information about American officials stealing nuclear secrets for Turkish and Israeli spies, who would then sell the secrets to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, 37, approached the Times about "explosive" communications she discovered between high-up American officials and Turkish and Israeli spies. A FOIA request to the FBI, for case number 203A-WF-210023, was answered with a claim that the case number did not exist.

"I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002," says Edmonds.

One high-ranking official, identified by RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna as Marc Grossman, Ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997. Grossman is said to have warned his cohorts not to do business with Brewster Jennings, a front company set up by the CIA. Brewster Jennings was also the "employer" of CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose cover, with Grossman's help, was blown in what is widely believed to be a political hit job by the Bush Administration on her husband, Ambassador and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson.

The entire Sunday Times article can be read HERE.

Strange that, if completely accurate, American media ignores the story while a paper most Americans have never heard of, much less read reports on it.

Is treason no longer a punishable offense? Only, under Bush, could THAT happen. And the GOP crew angling for his job sure won't guard "the flame" any better. Some, quite terrifyingly, could be much worse.

George McGovern Gets It Right: Impeach

I salute George McGovern for coming out for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

We can't - not if we hold the principles we SAY we hold dear - just wait out the rest of the 378 or so days for these dangerous clowns to retire from office. They are criminals in every sense of the word.

Will Impeachment Resistance Cost Nancy Pelosi Her House Leadership Seat?

As Anonymous points us to in comments, there is an effort underway to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from her leadership role due to her resistance (and she's hardly the only one) to bringing impeachment proceedings against either Bush, Cheney, or the entire Bush Administration.

Considering recent polls say that about 70% of Americans believe the Bush Administration has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" and more than 50% believe they warrant impeachment proceedings, it's harder and harder to understand why the Dem leadership in Washington is so desperate to keep votes like Dennis Kucinich's impeachment motion against Cheney off the floor.

American Lawyers Vote To Impeach Bush-Cheney

The members of the National Lawyers Guild have voted to request (demand would be nice) the House of Representatives open impeachment proceedings against BOTH Bush and Cheney.

Bush and Iran: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid But STOP Him

Insane and megalomaniacal simply do not begin to describe Bush anymore.

Our military is broken, our coffers are empty, and yet the Bushies say Iran is not just in their sights, but a definite strike zone.

Support our troops in the best way possible: demand treason charges be leveled against the Bush Administration not next week, not next month. NOW.

Vermont Impeachment Movement Showing Its Cracks?

As even semi-regulars here know, I'm way beyond wanting Bush and Company impeached. After all, their crimes LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY crossed the threshold of treasonous acts and they're still racing to do far worse!

After reading this by Odum, who runs the Daily Kos-Vermont version Green Mountain Daily, I'm worried about the impeachment efforts myself. However, as Anon tells us here in Comments, all hope is not lost (600 more days of Bush, God help us all). Namely:

Hi. Yes, there is something that can be done. Two links VT/Odum at GMD may be interested in: When impeachment is not an option/off the table, a sitting President may be prosecuted outside Congress, outside impeachment.

1. Blogswarm: Visit these links, and let others know Bush can be prosecuted outside impeachment/Congress:http://www.haloscan.com/
   comments...a=13945#2389359
2. Commentary/discussion at the end of this blog thread [See the links in the end-comments/blog responses]:http://indictdickcheney.blogspot...comey-
   only.html

If the State/Federal legislators refuse to act -- as they have done with the House Rule 603/impeachment proclamations -- any one of the State Attorney Generals or District Attorneys may prosecute a sitting President. Congress and the states legislators have had their chance, and refused. Prosecution is the only option and remains on the table.

Missing Rove Emails Show How The Bushies Hijacked American Democracy And Accountability to Citizens

Here's the piece at Truthout, but I'd call it more like treason that a mere violation of the records act.

Three years ago, Robert Luskin, the attorney who defended White House Political Adviser Karl Rove in the CIA leak case, made a startling discovery: a July 2003 email Rove sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley that proved Rove was far more involved in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and the campaign to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, than he had let on during interviews with federal investigators and in testimony before a federal grand jury.

Curiously, the email Rove sent to Hadley that Luskin had found never turned up during an exhaustive document search ordered a year earlier, in September 2003, by Alberto Gonzales. At the time, Gonzales, who was White House counsel, enjoined all White House staff members to turn over any communications pertaining to Plame Wilson and her husband, a vocal critic of the Iraq war, who had accused the Bush administration of twisting pre-war Iraq intelligence. Gonzales's order to turn over documents and emails came 12 hours after former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card had informed him that the Justice Department was launching an investigation into the leak.

The order Gonzales sent to Karl Rove and other administration officials demanded "documents that relate in any way to a contact with any member or representative of the news media about Joseph C. Wilson, his trip to Niger in February 2002, or his wife's purported relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency."

The Rove/Hadley email was not included in the thousands of pages of documents turned over to the FBI. The reason? Apparently the "right search words weren't used," Luskin told Newsweek in October 2005. The email Rove sent to Hadley in July 2003 has never been released publicly. It's unclear whether the email was sent via the White House computer system or from Rove's email account maintained by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which, according to the National Journal, is what Rove uses to conduct 90 percent of his White House business, in what would appear to be a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

Vermont's Lone House Rep, Pete Welch, Takes Heat Over His Non-Impeachment Pursuits

Today (the 12th), the newly-elected (he replaced Bernie Sanders who went to the U.S. Senate to replace Jim Jeffords) Peter Welch (Dem), Vermont's only House Rep, took serious heat in a public hearing in Hartford, VT because he will not support impeachment efforts against Bush and/or the entire Bush Administration.

People here are NOT happy about Welch (or Sanders, who has also refused to take up the impeachment gauntlet) and statements like, "Impeachment would get in the way of more important things" (I guess a functioning democracy is a bit too much to ask for anymore) and "Impeachment will just drag out the Iraq War longer" (as if Bush is just racing us out of there as it stands now).

As regular readers know, I am NOT a fan of impeachment. However, there are genuine and very legitimate reasons why the Bush Administration should be removed compared with the whole "blue dress" debacle the GOP perpetrated against Bill Clinton in the latter 1990s.

I continue to feel that the charges to be leveled against the Bushies do not spell impeachment, but treason.

The New York Times: "Al Qaeda Resurgent" (More Proof Bushies Should Be Charged with Treason)

I meant to post this Times op/ed (from Sunday 2-25-07) on Sunday:

Almost five and a half years ago, America — united by the shock of 9/11 — understood exactly what it needed to do. It had to find, thwart and take down the command structure of Al Qaeda, which was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 innocent people on American soil. Despite years of costly warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, America today is not significantly closer to that essential goal.

At a crucial moment, the Bush administration diverted America’s military strength, political attention and foreign aid dollars from a necessary, winnable war in Afghanistan to an unnecessary, and by now unwinnable, war in Iraq. Al Qaeda took full advantage of these blunders to survive and rebuild. Now it seems to be back in business.

As our colleagues Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde reported last week, American intelligence and counterterrorism officials believe that Al Qaeda has rebuilt its notorious training camps, this time in Pakistan’s loosely governed tribal regions near the Afghan border. Camp graduates are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq — and may well be plotting new terrorist strikes in the West.

The same officials point to more frequent and more current videos as evidence that Al Qaeda’s top leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri — once on the run for their lives and unable to maintain timely communications with their followers — now feel more secure. Al Qaeda is not as strong as it was when its Taliban allies ruled Afghanistan. But, the officials warn, it is getting there.

Al Qaeda’s comeback didn’t have to happen. And it must not be allowed to continue. The new Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan do not operate with the blessing of the Pakistani government. But Pakistan’s military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has not tried very hard to drive them out. In recent months he has virtually conceded the tribal areas to local leaders sympathetic to Al Qaeda. President Bush needs to warn him that continued American backing depends on his doing more to rid his country of people being trained to kill Americans.

Washington also has to enlist more support on the Afghan side of the border. NATO allies need to drop restrictions that hobble their troops’ ability to fight a resurgent Taliban. Afghan leaders need to wage a more aggressive campaign against corruption and drug trafficking. And Washington needs to pour significantly more money into rural development, to give Afghan farmers alternatives to drug cultivation. One reason General Musharraf has been hedging his bets with the Taliban and Al Qaeda is his growing doubt that Washington is determined to succeed in Afghanistan.

Having failed to finish off Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Washington now finds itself fighting Qaeda-affiliated groups on multiple fronts, most recently in Somalia. Al Qaeda’s comeback in Pakistan is a devastating indictment of Mr. Bush’s grievously flawed strategies and misplaced Iraq obsession. Unless the president changes course, the dangers to America and its friends will continue to multiply.

Seymour Hersh's Latest Absolute Must Read: "The Redirection"

You must read this from Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker (March 5, 2007th edition) and then imagine the Bushies are helping those (the Sunni jihadists, who Hersh says the Bushies are secretly arming) who would help al Qaeda:

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of Israel and his country’s right to pursue its nuclear program, and last week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on state television that “realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”

There is ever so much more here.