ACTS OF WAR

Local activist Jimmy Leas sent me an email with an attached article by Scott Ritter who [Truthdig] provides important information about current military acts against Iran, the weak pretexts used for the massive attack planned, and the sham "diplomacy" being conducted in the lead up, all with strong bipartisan support and facilitated by the corporate media.

A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
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Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.

Jimmy wrote: Though not explicitly mentioned in the article, the reader comes away with an understanding of the real reason the Congressional leadership opposes impeachment. Representatives may say it has to do with politics or the elections. (They do not seem to mind being accused of putting politics ahead of their oaths of office). The congressional leadership actually keeps impeachment off the table because they support the Bush/Cheney wars of aggression and all the unfortunate violations that go with them, including setting up the apparatus to dissuade dissent at home, such as spying on Americans, detention without trial, and cruel and unusual punishment. The congressional leadership has demonstrated its support by funding the wars. They want impeachment off the table because they don't want to stop the impeachable offenses. And they are united in wanting to do it all again in Iran. They are just waiting for a way to persuade the American people that Iran is to blame before moving forward. They put impeachment off the table because the wars of aggression and the rest of the impeachable offenses are a bipartisan policy.