The nutroots are at it again: they are screaming for impeachment procedures against President Bush because of a not so good translation of a conversation between the President and Spanish President José María Aznar.
The transcript, it seems to me, provides a whole rack of smoking guns that could be a basis for impeaching George W. Bush. The transcript shows that Bush consciously intended to go to war without a United Nations Security Council resolution. The United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a treaty signatory (so that it has the force of American law), forbids any nation to launch an aggressive war on another country. The only two legal mechanisms for war are either that it came in response to a direct attack or that the attacker gained a UNSC authorization. The transcript shows Bush actively plotting to sidestep the UNSC if he could not, gangster-like, threaten its members into compliance.
Well, not really. Sister Toldjah has a very nice post shooting down (so to speak) Cole's arguments this time around for impeachment. She quotes Barcepundit's Jose Guardia who explains why the impeachment cry is both so sad and so lame.
For one thing, there's ample evidence in the transcript that President Bush was certain Saddam Hussein either had WMDs or was actively seeking them. This flies in the face of the BDS people who have claimed for years that BUSH LIED.
But more importantly--and not quoted by Cole--is a part of the exchange where President Bush says he doesn't want to go to war.
At one point Bush explicitly says: “I don’t want war. I know what wars are like. I know the death and destruction they bring. I am the one who has to comfort the mothers and wifes of the dead. Of course, for us [a diplomatic solution] would be the best one. Also, it would save 50 billion dollars.”
I don't expect the Impeachment Now! crowd to give up, even though they won't get what they are after. But even a botched transcript like this, fully intended to slime the President, does little but support his positions on Iraq and the decision to go to war.
|