Kucinich’s Impeachment Quest May Hurt Obama’s White House Bid

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. But his quest to remove the President from office may hurt presumed Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s own quest to win the 2008 election.

What was the reaction by his fellow Democrats? They pretty much opposed the former presidential candidate’s futile efforts. In fact, Democratic leaders are expected to table the resolution by referring it to the Judiciary Committee, where they hope it will be buried and forgotten.

The articles deals with such things as the Iraq war, global warming, allegedly holding American citizens and “foreign captives” (let’s call them terrorists) illegally, voting rights, and President Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, just to name a few. But let’s focus on the Iraq war.

Now, let’s forget a few things about why the impeachment will fail, such as how the U.N. never enforced its own resolutions against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, so no one knew if he really had his weapons of mass destruction. Or that the U.N. voted in agreement to the resolution that Saddam still had WMD.

Or how former President Bill Clinton ordered Operation Desert Fox to deal with Saddam’s weapons programs, after Iraq failed, again, to provide U.N. weapons inspectors with an honest account of them. Or how there were reports that Saddam shipped his WMD to Syria before the 2003 war.

But let’s remember that a great number of Democrats who said many times during the buildup of the war that Saddam was a danger to America and the world with his deadly weapons. Did they lie too? They saw the same information that the President saw. So, does that mean there will be an impeachment for Bush and the Democrats?

And more importantly, this will not only shatter Obama’s chances for the White House, but the Democrat’s as well. Why?

Obama was strongly against going into Iraq from the very start. And here is a speech he gave in October 2002 at an anti-war rally that will probably come back to haunt him:

“(Saddam) has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him,” the possible future president said nearly six years ago.

Now, if Kucinich’s goal is to get rid of President Bush from the White House, it could also rid the Democrats’ goal from getting into it.

This is why House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and fellow Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said that they would not pursue impeachment charges against the President. Because not only will it air the Democrat’s dirty laundry that a good number of them voted to give President Bush the power to go to war, but it will show how they are not unified if their presumed nominee was against going to war.

And more importantly, Obama’s speech is a huge weapon against him. He said that Saddam had WMD and knew that Saddam was a threat to the world and that U.N. resolutions were useless against the bloody dictator. But he didn’t think removing him was important enough for America’s safety.

Wow. What a thing to say. Because the Republicans can highlight this speech and point to Obama’s global inexperience and how he should not be the one to answer the phone about a national security threat at 3 a.m.

Granted, the President should have handled the war better. He should have given the U.N. weapons inspectors a lot more time before considering military use. His administration should not have allowed retired generals and other former military leaders to sell the war to TV networks. But it still boils down to one thing: At the time, we found ourselves in a global terror war and we needed to know once and for all whether or not Saddam had those weapons. And because Kucinich opened up this can of worms, the Democrats are going to have a hard time putting the lid back on.

Kucinich is the little engine that shouldn’t. He either does not realize or care that he is sabotaging his party’s chances for the White House. And Kucinich is showing how ineffective Obama will be as a Commander-In-Chief.

Kucinich’s impeachment crusade is like Don Quixote’s battle with the windmill: There is nothing there that warrants these charges.

Who Says There’s No Smoking Gun Between Saddam, al-Qaeda?

Many Democrats and liberals have been hell bent to say that President Bush lied about his alleged claims that former Iraqi President and dictator Saddam Hussein had connections with terrorist group al-Qaeda may want to take a peek at a recently released report.

“The Iraqi Perspectives Project Primary Source Materials for Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents,” was recently released and while it stated that there were no direct links (or smoking gun) between Saddam and the terror group, which claims responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, there sure does seem to be enough dots to show that the bloody dictator had Sunday Tea with a few members of al-Qaeda.

For example, it has been known for a long time, and this report mentions it, that Saddam had a long relationship with terrorist organizations and supplied them with training grounds, funds and equipment. What many Bush critics don’t want to acknowledge is that al-Qaeda and Iraq’s former dictator had common objectives and a limited working relationship.

“At times, these organizations (Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network) would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust,” stated on page 559 of the report.

And then there is the liaison with Ayman al-Zawahiri, prominent leader of al-Qaeda and leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

“Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al-Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives,” stated on page 62 of the report.

So, just using those two passages alone, the report does state that there was a strong link to Saddam and al-Qaeda. Granted, no one is saying that Saddam had bin Laden over for poker night but there was a type of link there. And that is just al-Qaeda.

At the moment, there is no proof that both parties worked on the 9/11 attacks and President Bush never stated such a thing. But the fact that Saddam Hussein was a loose cannon who already had an established history of lying to the U.N. and breaking resolutions, among other things, America could not stand quietly by, waiting to be attacked again.

Going into Iraq to determine if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was the right course of action. Taking military action so soon after U.N. weapons inspectors went in there is up for debate, as mentioned before in The Times Observer.

But the job of any American president is to protect the people and to ensure their safety. And that is what the president was doing. We may not agree with how President Bush went about it but it was something that had to be done to finally determine how much of a threat Saddam actually posed to America.

To read the complete report, please click here.

What’s The Point Of The Timetable Bill?

I’m sorry but I just don’t get what the House and the Senate have done. As we all know, today the Senate rebelliously passed a bill calling for U.S. combat forces to withdraw from Iraq next year.

Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and other senior defense officials went to Capital Hill on the day the House voted on the bill to tell legislators to reconsider the timetable, saying that progress is being made but it will take time. And let’s not forget what many have been saying for a long time now: A withdraw will give the insurgents enough time to regroup and wait for the pullout and then take over Iraq in a bloody battle. And let’s not forget that we will be giving al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups a victory that will inspire them to continue their bloody Jihad against the world.

And the president has already said he will veto the bill, so what is the point of acting defiant? To send a message to the president, America and the world that they want the troops home? Big hairy deal, for years now Democrats and few Republicans have called for troop withdraw. They don’t need a bill to make that point. It’s time to stop playing politics with our troops lives and the safety of this nation and others.

But the Democrats, sadly, have made a good point as to why President Bush won in the last election. They are not showing the foresight that is needed to deal with terrorists and the safety of this country. What do they expect to happen if there is a timetable that would withdraw our troops before Iraq is ready to deal with the insurgents and terrorists? How will this affect the U.S. and Iraq and the rest of the world if Iraq is taken over by people who have vowed to kill those who do not share their views?

Because they are not asking these questions or listening to the consequences that military experts are warning of, they are not showing the interests of this country or Iraq but they are showing a way for them to win the White House in 2008.

And within those four years in office, how will that Democratic president explain to America that we need to go back into Iraq and deal with a war machine bent on supporting terrorism and destroying lives? How will that president, who voted for this bill, look Americans in the eye and tell us that it will be a harder, bloodier war because the enemy had years of preparation, planning and support? And what kind of answer will this future Democratic president give when someone asks: Why didn’t you want to deal with this when it was far more manageable than it is now?

And if it doesn’t seem manageable now, wait until the insurgents take over Iraq, and they provide funds for terrorist black markets, training grounds and attacks. And while this is only speculation but a good educated guess by what has been reported on, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will get the nuclear weapons/components he is seeking, as a payback for funding the insurgents. (Let’s not forget that there is strong evidence that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had sent his WMDs to Syria long before the war started. An insurgent-controlled Iraq in four years will certainly have them shipped back.)

It’s not a pretty picture and it’s far from being finished but it is something that supporters of the bill fail to see or consider. Is it a possible scenario? After the 9/11 attacks, we simply can’t afford to see the glass as half full when innocent lives are on the line.

Impeaching Bush For WMD Misleading?

More than 30 Vermont towns the other day voted to have President Bush impeached because, besides other things, he allegedly misled the country and the world about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, according to a Reuter’s article, published Wednesday, March 7, 2007.

Apparently, this is nothing new. Vermont holds an annual, colonial-era meeting to talk about all types of issues. And it’s also nothing new that a few towns in Vermont had similar resolutions of impeaching the president last year. And let’s face it, nothing is going to happen.

One of the biggest things that many Bush critics love to throw around is that he lied to Americans about Saddam’s WMDs. But if one has really paid attention to the lead up to the war, the real question that should be asked is this: If Bush lied about a dictator’s weapons; does that mean that all of Congress, including other global governments and organizations lied as well?

What many do not know, and a good many Bush critics do not want to acknowledge, is that it just wasn’t our own government who made these claims against Saddam. We had intelligence information from European and Middle Eastern countries, as well as the United Nations, and it came down to the same thing: Saddam had WMDs.

Our Congress saw this information, and just like Bush, they came to the same conclusions as the president: Saddam had these weapons as well. In fact, many Web sites love to feature quotes from politicians who at the time said that Saddam is a threat. Now, many of them are singing a different tune.

But the fact remains that many different governments had the same information. So, did they lie as well? Not likely. Let’s take a brief trip down memory lane. In 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered Operation Desert Fox because Saddam was not following the resolutions placed by him by the U.N. In fact, he was making things difficult for the weapons inspectors by not complying with them. The operation was to destroy known plants, factories and holding areas of these weapons.

When the operation was over, the U. N. asked Saddam if they could go in and see if the operation was a success. Saddam said no and they walked away with their tails between their legs. Never mind the fact that they had resolutions that allowed them to go in and check things out. And never mind the fact that no one blasts the U.N. for not enforcing its own resolutions against a man who had a huge history of lying about his weapons.

So, after 9/11, it was only natural to find out once and for all if Saddam had these weapons. Plus, there was so much intelligence information from different, global sources saying that Saddam never got rid of these weapons, that that was enough to warrant a search. And once the weapons inspectors were back in Iraq, Saddam gave them the same runaround as last time. But that’s where I have to part ways with the President’s plan.

There was nothing wrong with sending the U.N. in there and finding out what Saddam actually had. I always felt they should have had at least a year of searching before military action was even considered, much less acted on.

But let’s look at what has been found in Iraq. Granted, the huge stock piles of WMDs were not there. There were rumors before the war that there were huge shipments to Syria and according to Saddam Hussein's No. 2 Air Force officer, Georges Sada, that actually happened. Again, something to consider.

What was discovered was that Saddam lied about having terrorists training camps and a huge black market for terrorists.

So, if the good people really want to impeach Bush for misleading the world about those weapons, they better impeach the world governments as well.