Congress Poised To Give
Bush Administration Authority To Hide Evil Deeds
By James Donahue
It is called the fight
over FISA, a crusade by the Bush Administration to push a law through Congress designed to protect the telecommunication companies
for opening their books in the so-called war on terror.
What few people realize,
however, is that concealed within that bill is a special protection for the Bush Administration. If passed . . . and it looks
as if there could be action as early as tomorrow . . . it just may be possible for the crooks in Washington to cover their
tracks and protect themselves from not only impeachment proceedings, but future criminal prosecution for warrantless, illegal
domestic spying committed since 2001, when they took over our government.
Ironically, it was the
embattled vice-president who pitched the bill before congress on Wednesday. He warned that failure to pass this legislation
will force the telephone and communication companies to return once more to protecting the privacy of the American people
by refusing to turn over records of our telephone calls without first obtaining a court order.
Duhhhhhhhhh. And does
anybody see anything wrong with that argument?
It is an old formula,
utilized by the Bush Administration effectively in the days after 9-11, that draws upon the fear factor to force legislators
too submit to whatever the executive office wanted. Cheney, a much more polished public speaker than our country-bumpkin president,
pitched the fear story one more time when he stood before congressional leaders.
He warned that Congress
must act now to “protect our nation” by passing the FISA legislation. He said the “September 11th
danger to our country remains very real, terrorists are still determined, fanatical, hatred, violence, determined . . . “
and so-on and so-on. He reminded everyone how the events of 9-11 claimed 3,000 American lives and turned 16 acres of New York City
into ashes. “We are at war,” said Cheney.
But are we really?
The wars we created are
in our own minds. We sent troops into Afghanistan and Iraq without true provocation, and consequently made ourselves
the terrorists in the eyes of the people within those countries. We bombed, shot and ruined their world. And since 9-11, which
was the handiwork of a small handful of fanatical Islamic terrorists who still remain at large, there has not been a single
successful assault on United States soil.
That is not to say it
will not happen again. In fact, many worry that the very actions by the Bush Administration since 2001 have instilled so much
hatred against us among the Islamic people, that another attack is almost inevitable.
But protecting telephone
companies from prosecution for disclosing phone records without a court order is not going to solve anything. If anything,
it amounts to further erosion of American personal freedoms, the very thing that made this nation great. And allowing President
Bush and Vice-President Cheney, and all of the cronies who have served them to continue to hide under a cloak of secrecy because
we are allegedly a nation at war, is wrong.
If this bill is passed,
we believe every congressman and woman, and every senator who votes for such a bill should be held accountable for covering
up criminal violations of constitutional rights. They should someday stand before the same courts that should try Bush and
Cheney for the infringement of human rights in America.
Bush and Cheney also
should be tried before a war tribunal for the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq.
