Should Bush be impeached

[Gorgo]

I think it has been established that George 'W' Bush is a criminal, but the Democrats have not had what it takes to stand up to the Republican majority and start impeachment proceedings.

In my opinion, they ought to begin anyway. That would then deter the next occupant of the White House to so arrogantly defy international and domestic law.

http://www.democracynow.org/article....4/06/16/151222

[dotcoma]

It's a slippery slop. If we lock up Bush we'd have to lock up Clinton as well...

I think it has been established that George 'W' Bush is a criminal

Only in your dreams, son.

[dotcoma]

Only in your dreams, son.

Ummmm, no not really. Seeing as there are these things called statutes and this little thing called history that if you deviate from watching Fear Factor and FOXNEWS for two minutes, you might be able to pick up on this little thing called reality. You may not want to realize you're a slave but to deny reality is, well, pretty unAmerican.

How is it "extablished" that W. is a criminal?

[Gorgo]

I really don't think prisons help. I think we just need to put someone in the White House that can apologize for past crimes and pledge to act like a responsible human being.

Originally posted by roxdog, It's a slippery slop. If we lock up Bush we'd have to lock up Clinton as well...

[Milton Bradley]

Originally posted by dave654, How is it "extablished" that W. is a criminal?

Lets see here, unconstitutional Executive Orders, war without Congressional consent, violating the constitution with the Patriot Act, illegal use of the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other three letter agencies, well, thats enough for now, but I think its pretty clear that NONE of the founding fathers would be GWB fans.

[dotcoma]

That's why they will eventually be replaced on our currency by the great actor, Ronald Reagan. I think he's gonna go on the ten and the twenty and Bill Paxton is going on the dollar.

[alex]

Originally posted by Milton Bradley,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Milton Bradley,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-dave654, How is it "extablished" that W. is a criminal?

Lets see here, unconstitutional Executive Orders, war without Congressional consent, violating the constitution with the Patriot Act, illegal use of the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other three letter agencies, well, thats enough for now, but I think its pretty clear that NONE of the founding fathers would be GWB fans.[/b][/quote]

There's a great expression (whose etymology I was unable to discover):

His mouth is writing checks that his body can't cash.

See, I hear this a lot. I've never heard the facts that back it. Because these are very tall claims. The PATRIOT act, while I don't like it, is now law. Nobody seems to particularly care when the constitution is in spirit or directly violated or contradicted. Take the 2nd amendment for example. You may not understand this, having not worked for one of these three letter agencies, but these people are professionals, and simply don't go running around doing the president's bidding. POTUS is actually pretty removed from the actual acting of the agencies. He may set policies, but the actual "doing" is "done" by the people on site. Abu Ghraib is an example of this.

I find it pretty comical how people seem to think that if the country or government does something, that POTUS must be directly responsible for that. The economy is another example of this fallacy. "Bush has wrecked the economy." Ladies and gentlemen, it takes more than a single presidental term to wreck an economy the size of the US.

So anyways, one of the rules of the volconvo forum is that you be prepared to provide sources.

Pony up, kiddo.

alex

[Osborn F Enready]

Well, before I provide the link for the actual petition, check out this link, especially those who haven't known of it. It is a link to all of President Bush's Executive Orders, from the "official site".

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/orders/

Now, proof about him being a criminal, and ripe for impeachment?

Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and
Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial
executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law;
carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting
in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of U.S. G.I.s.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

4) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

4) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

5) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain
weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

6) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an
attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United
Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

7) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."

8) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

9) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

10) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

11) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

12) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

13) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

14) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

15) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and
political activity.

16) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

17) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without
consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

(copied from this site, which is a small part of the system that helped to gather over 400,000 signatures.)

I hope this sums up your questions, but if not please ask specificly and I will try to provide info for proof of any article above.

[alex]

Before we go any further, let's clear something up immediately. These are in fact allegations, and not proof of anything. There is a distinct difference between "proof" and "allegation". I would have expected you to understand that.

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of U.S. G.I.s.

Vladimir Putin recently reported to the press that the Russians gave the Bush administration credible evidence that Iraq was funding terrorist attacks against the United States. Mohammad Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Germany before the attack on the US.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

Allegation. I'm sure of course that you're referring to the testimony regarding Iraq. First and foremost, he believed it was true. The fact that it hasn't been proved true (or false) does not make his testimony a lie.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

Allegation. This is actually two statements. "direct attacks on civilians" followed by "collateral damage." The former is reprehensible and untrue; the latter is part of war. Deal.

4) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

Iraq is now goverened by Iraqi's. If you can believe that. Saddam took over Iraq througha military coup. He was trained by Egypt and the United States as an insurgent force. He was never a legitimate ruler of Iraq.

4) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Whoooooa there. That's a mouthful. More allegations. Where's the proof?

5) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

Propaganda is not illegal. Radio Free America has been in operation for many decades now, and is nothing more than propaganda. Nobody is calling that illegal. "Manipulating the media" is downright comical. Exactly how does anyone manipulate the media?

6) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

What crimes against humanity? Bribery? Since when is that a crime against national law? Since when is the United Nations sovereign over anything? To what treaties was compliance frustrated which resulted in the destruction of international law enforcement? Did you even read this?

And since when is Iraq the "international community"? What on earth are you smoking?

7) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."

You have congress to blame for this. Dubya can't write laws nor pass them. You voted for your politicians, now you get to deal with the policies in office.

Additionally, the people at Guantanamo are NOT US citizens. Had you been following the Supreme Court case of Jose Padilla, you would understand that.

8) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

That is in fact not illegal. Well, the Supreme Court will probably rule on it sooner or later, but until then, it isn't illegal, and certainly isn't grounds for impeachment or removal from office.

9) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

What? "INS jurisdiction"? Since when does the INS take precedence over the Commander-in-Chief? Do you realize that is his job? I mean, that's why he is in office. That's what he does.

10) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

Military Tribunals are always kept away from the public. The military is a very private organization. Court martials have no reporters nor civilians. I still don't see how this is illegal.

11) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

How is this illegal?

12) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

And, what? Arresting people is illegal? Doing so secretly is illegal? Because they were in the US? What?? Not all trials are public. There still isn't a shred of evidence here, this is an allegation.

13) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

What?!!!

14) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

Oh, what, like Mike Hawash? Surely they're all innocent. Maybe you should take a look at DEA forfeiture laws. That's been legal for decades.

15) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.

Laughable. Racial profiling has been in use, again, for decades. Spend some time in LA sometime.

16) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

I don't even see a sentence here. There's a predicate, but no subject. Moving right along...

17) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

Like the Kobe accord? Ruling against eco-wackos is a treaty protective of peace and human rights? Do you even know what "abrogation" means??

I hope this sums up your questions, but if not please ask specificly and I will try to provide info for proof of any article above.

All you've done is copied and pasted without any understanding of the content. You've provided allegations and no proof. You've misconstrued and taken out of context all facts in the light of the allegations to make a point. It's despicable and misleading.

You've shown that you're very good at repeating what you're told. You'll make a very good democrat. Until then, please try to provide well formed, concise, and fact-based allegations.

Now, before you sling another piece of mud, realize that the burden of proof is not on me. You need a lot more than "he called me a stinker" to impeach a president. You had better come up with something better than namecalling and hollow accusations. You're waaaaaaay out of your league here.

Alex

[Osborn F Enready]

"I hope this sums up your questions, but if not please ask specificly and I will try to provide info for proof of any article above."

Alex, do you recognize that? I said it at the bottom of my last post, before you came back with an opinion of the petition that was signed by over 400,000 people.

I do not have to provide what is obvious. You are claiming things that are "legal" by todays standards are legal. You would be wrong. Have you read the Constitution? Did you read and comprehend the Declaration of Independence?

Stick to one issue at a time, and lets talk about proof.

[alex]

Originally posted by Osborn F Enready, Alex, do you recognize that? I said it at the bottom of my last post, before you came back with an opinion of the petition that was signed by over 400,000 people.

Since the masses can never be wrong, I guess I am truly and thoroughly defeated here by their superiority in numbers.

I do not have to provide what is obvious.

That is where you are wrong. You may blather on all you like, but cannot claim to be right until you substantiate those claims.

You are claiming things that are "legal" by todays standards are legal. You would be wrong. Have you read the Constitution? Did you read and comprehend the Declaration of Independence?

Yes. No. Yes. Yes.

Stick to one issue at a time, and lets talk about proof.

It isn't my responsibility to rebuke you one issue at a time. Put up, or shut up.

Alex

[PatrickHenry]

Apparently some of the establishment elite think impeachment may be appropriate:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2004/06/16...gressletter.php

[b]Harvard Law Professors Urge Congress to Review Interrogation Policy and Hold Executive Branch Accountable Post Date: June 16, 2004 A group of more than 450 professors of law, international relations, and public policy--led by Harvard Law School faculty members--today sent a letter calling on Congress to hold accountable, through impeachment and removal if appropriate, civilian officials from the top of the Executive Branch on down for policies developed at high levels that have facilitated the recent abuses at Abu Ghraib. The letter also calls on Congress to take primary responsibility for any policy on coercive interrogation employed by the United States. In asking Congress to assess Executive Branch accountability, the letter says: "a growing body of evidence indicates that the abuses practiced on detainees under American control are the consequence of policies developed at the highest levels in the months and years immediately preceding the scandal." It argues that prosecution of lower level personnel "while necessary, is clearly insufficient." In asking Congress to take responsibility for reviewing coercive interrogation policies and practices, the letter notes that "official U.S. policy now involves use of coercive methods that are morally questionable and that may violate international and domestic law." It further states: "....any decision to adopt a coercive interrogation policy and the definition of any such policy, if adopted, should be made within the strict confines of a democratic process.... asic principles and policies regarding human rights must be defined by a representative and accountable body acting in transparent and deliberative fashion." <snip> U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy will hold a press conference in Washington, D.C. today to demonstrate his support for its demands. "The soldiers responsible for these atrocities need to be held accountable. But they were not responsible for setting the policy," said Kennedy. "We need to know what orders and guidelines they were given, and where those policies originated. No one should be immune to questions, including the President." The letter has been signed by 56 law teachers at Harvard Law School, including former Dean Robert C. Clark, and Professors Laurence Tribe, Alan Dershowitz, Lani Guinier, Detlev Vagts and Frank Michelman. It has also been signed by leading experts on international relations, public policy and constitutional law across the nation, including Yale University Professor Bruce Ackerman; Professor Philip Alston, director of NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice; Jose Alvarez, director of the Center on Global Legal Problems at Columbia Law School; Duke Law School Professor Paul Carrington; Georgetown Law School Professor David Cole; Princeton Professor Richard Falk; Columbia Law School Professor Jack Greenberg; Kennedy School of Government Professor Christopher Jencks; UCLA Law School Professor Kenneth Karst; Juliette Kayyem of the Kennedy School of Government; University of Texas Law School Professor Sanford Levinson; David Scheffer, former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues; and Harvard University Professor William Julius Wilson. The letter has also been signed by members of the Faculty of the Tufts University Fletcher School. It has been signed by a total of 481 members of university faculties across the nation, from more than 110 schools in 40 different states. It has been sent to all members of Congress and of the relevant Congressional committees.

[Gorgo]

I have to agree that passing unconstitutional laws are not criminal. Maybe they should be but they're not. It's up to the Supreme Court to strike down such laws.

The greatest impeachable offense, of course, is attacking Afghanistan and Iraq.

http://www.lcnp.org/global/iraqstatement3.htm

"The United Nations Charter is a treaty of the United States, and as such forms part of the "supreme law of the land" under the Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2. The UN Charter is the highest treaty in the world, superseding states’ conflicting obligations under any other international agreement. (Art. 103, UN Charter)

Under the UN Charter, there are only two circumstances in which the use of force is permissible: in collective or individual self-defense against an actual or imminent armed attack; and when the Security Council has directed or authorized use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security. Neither of those circumstances now exist. Absent one of them, U.S. use of force against Iraq is unlawful."

Neither of those circumstances now exist.

Not NOW, no, because we eliminated the threats through military action.

Duh.

[dotcoma]

eliminated the threats through military action

Tell that to Berg and Johnson. DUH.....

[sixmillman]

Let me tell you a story about Vietnam. My friend lives with it every day.
He was on leave in Saigon walking down the street with a friend in uniform. There attention was caught when a man started running away from them. Someone yelled in English, a couple of shots and a little kid falls bleeding maybe 10 feet in front of them.
Almost instanouesly the kid disapears in an explosion.
The man running had given the kid a live handgrenade to give to him.
The shots were from an American MP who saw the exchange. He made a split second decision that saved my friends life.
I can see the visible scars on his face. And because we were friends I know the phy. scars he carries seeing that child disentigrate.
If you attempt to carry your own morality from a American suburb into a war zone you will die. You can not expect the enemy to have more compassion for you than they have for their own children. Life and Death trumps Right and Wrong and the sooner you can accept this the better your chances of survival.

[dotcoma]

Here's another "good story"...


Ben Bradlee's Speech on Tonkin Gulf
Full text of his 1987 remarks about the lie that sold the Vietnam War.

[Posted 26 February 2003]

===========================================================

[ www.tenc.net ]

The Guardian (London) April 29, 1987

HEADLINE: Deceit and dishonesty - The first James Cameron Memorial Lecture

BYLINE: By BEN BRADLEE

I would like to talk about government lying. Calculated lies. The wilful deception of the public for political end, especially under the disguise of national security, and what an awful price we pay for such lies under any name: misinformation, disinformation, deceit, deception, or just plain dishonesty.

In America, the press is curiously shy, even embarrassed when faced with the need to use some form of the verb 'to lie' even now when public tolerance for the unexplained and for the unbelievable explanation is wearing thin. We seem to drop quickly into a defensive crouch, when even, as now, we are accused of abusing our power by not accepting explanations which often defy acceptance. We are, too often, close enough to the Establishment ourselves to be [un]comfortable in calling a lie, a lie. I am not talking about little lies as in Vice-Admiral Poindexter asked to give up his job as National Security Adviser to return to active duty in the Navy. Little lies as in we did not trade the Soviet spy TK Sakharov for the American journalist Nick Danilov. Little lies like Margaret Heckler has been promoted from Secretary of Health and Human Services to be Ambassador to Ireland. Little lies like that take forever to damage the bonds of confidence that link the people and the press and public policy.

Let us talk about the big lies, lies that change history. Two of them have to do with Vietnam, that war that so outraged Jimmy Cameron. Let me take you back to December 1963 and Tansonhut airport in Saigon. At the end of his first fact finding trip to Vietnam for the New American President Lyndon Johnson, the Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was holding a press conference. He told reporters that he was 'optimistic as to the progress that had been made and could be made during the coming year' in the fight against the Vietcong. This was duly reported to an anxious world on that night's television and in next day's newspapers.

Landing at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington next day, he told another press conference: 'We have every reason to believe that (US military plans for 1964) will be successful. ' And he disappeared into a helicopter for the White House lawn, and a one-on-one session with the President in the Oval Office. Also duly reported.

===========================================================

What McNamara really thought

===========================================================

For 7 1/2 years, there was no report of that conversation. Not until July, 1971 and then only after the Nixon administration took the New York Times and the Washington Post all the way to the Supreme Court in a vain effort to keep them from publishing the so-called Pentagon Papers, did we hear what McNamara really felt.

Buried in those Pentagon papers (which so few people ever read) lay the revelation that McNamara had told President Johnson exactly the opposite of what he had told the press and through us, the world, the Secretary of Defence returned from Vietnam 'laden with gloom ' according to documents in the Pentagon papers. 'Vietcong progress had been great,' he reported to the President, 'With my best guess being that the situation has in fact been deteriorating to a far greater extent than we realise. The situation is very disturbing. '

Think for a minute how history could have changed if those comments had been made at Tansonhut airport, if those lies had gone unspoken at Andrews Air Force Base. Reflect on one of the eternal verities of our profession - insufficiently understood by us or by our readers - that the truth, the whole truth, emerges over time, and that's the way its supposed to be, as Lippmann pointed out more than 60 years ago. We don't get it all, the first crack out of the box, for lots of reasons, including the fact that people occasionally lie. It can take a long time to get it all, and get it right.

Now let me ask you to jump ahead some eight months to August 1964, still more than 20 years ago, to an issue of Time magazine. 'Through the darkness, from the West and South, the intruders boldly sped. There were at least six of them, Russian-designed Swatow gunboats armed with 37-mm and 28-mm guns, and P-4's. At 9.52 they opened fire on the destroyers with automatic weapons, and this time from as close as 2,000 yards. The night glowed earily with the nightmarish glare of air dropped flares and boat's searchlights. Two of the enemy boats went down. '

That's the kind of vivid detail that the news magazines have made famous. I don't mean to single out Time. On the same date Life said almost the same thing and that week's issue of Newsweek had torpedoes whipping by, US ships blazing out salvo after salvo of shells. It had a PT boat bursting into flames.

===========================================================

Only one trouble...

===========================================================

There was only one trouble. There was no battle. There was not a single intruder, never mind six of them. Never mind Russian designed Swatow gunboats armed with 37mm and 28mm guns. They never opened fire. They never sank. They never fired torpedoes. They never were.

It has really taken 20 years for this truth to emerge. My authority is Admiral Jim Stockdale, who has written a fascinating book. In Love and War. Jim stockdale was shot down over Vietnam a few days later and was a prisoner of the Vietnamese for more than seven years.

But on the night in question he was in a Sabre jet fighter flying cover over the Maddox and the Turner Joy, and he scoured the seas for more than two hours; and he is as sure as man can be that they were fighting phantom blips on a radar screen.

In case the Vietnam years have blurred in your minds, or even disappeared from your screens, may I remind you that this so-called Battle of Tonkin Gulf was the sole basis of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which was the entire justification for the United States' war against Vietnam. This non-event happened on August 4, 1964. President Johnson went on television that very night to ask the country to support a Congressional resolution. The resolution went to Congress the next day. Two days later it was approved unanimously by the House and 88-2 by the Senate.

The 'facts' behind this critically important resolution were quite simply wrong. Misinformation? Disinformation? Deceit? Whatever! Lies.

© Guardian 1987 * Reprinted for Educational Use Only

http://www.channels.nl/knowledge/21850.html

The Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964 may rank with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as events that Dr. David Kaiser of the U.S. Naval War College describes as "controversies in American political history that dwarf all others."

Captain Ronnie E. Ford, U.S. Army, New Light on Gulf of Tonkin, With fresh evidence now available, claims that the Tonkin Gulf incident was deliberately provoked gain new plausibility.

[alex]

Originally posted by roxdog, Ben Bradlee's Speech on Tonkin Gulf Full text of his 1987 remarks about the lie that sold the Vietnam War.

I spent some time today reading about this. All I can find is one book -- and the corroboration of one James Stockdale -- who contend that the event never happened. While there are vivid depictions of what happened there by many people who were actually there. There was battle damage taken. I fail to see how one man's word against hundreds is supposed to be evidence. I could just as well say that we had used nuclear weapons in Viet Nam, and it would have the same veracity.

Next?

Alex