http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8684The True Spirit Of Bush Style Freedom: Lawlessness
by Matthew Hubbard | Jul 13 2007
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thieves have stolen nearly $300 million from a bank in Baghdad, police and a bank official said Thursday, in what is probably one of the biggest thefts in Iraq since the 2003 war to topple Saddam Hussein.
Probably? This isn't obviously, clearly without question the number one bank robbery in the world this decade, let alone Iraq? If a quarter of a billion dollars walked out of a bank anywhere in the world, whether in New York City or Outer Mongolia, it would be worldwide news.
Ah, but the writer of this piece said thefts, and therein lies the rub. The news from Iraq day after day is about the dead bodies. The general lawlessness created by our stewardship goes unreported until it hits OhMyGod proportions. The first major incident was the looting of the museums. That was an act camera crews could capture, and we saw it over and over again until Rumsfeld mewled like a baby about how unfair the coverage was. Then there were the billions of dollars in cash sent to Iraq, literally tons of greenbacks loaded onto pallettes, 70% of which cannot be accounted for. Who knows? Maybe there were no crimes here, just bad accounting practices.
Yeah, right. And maybe I'll start dating Salman Rushdie's ex-wife once the divorce is final.
Technically, both of those earlier crimes were looting by multiple free agent criminals, where this week's bank robbery is a single team of criminals sharing the profit among themselves. Don't be surprised if it turns out to be Al Qaeda, which we are told is now as operational as it was in 2001, BEFORE the September 11 attacks, no matter how Our President will lie about the new report.
This is lawlessness at its most primal, the law of People With Guns. Bush style lawlessness here in our country doesn't create the same dramatic headlines, but it may be creating opportunities for even greater theft and corruption on a widespread scale, like a slow motion looting. The pattern is clear. There are laws and the Bush administration ignores them. Sometimes it's just bending the law or skirting the law, other times the laws are clearly broken. But who enforces these laws? The Justice Department under Alberto Gonzalez. When they don't want to enforce them, who will force them? The courts, stacked with Bush appointees. Just as the law has now become a game of How Does Anthony Kennedy Feel This Week?, the laws that hold this administration in check come down to whether or not this lawless, unprincipled gang of thugs put enough unpricipled thugs in black robes.
Speaker Pelosi, we beg you! Every tool the Constitution gave your branch of government may not be enough to stop these criminals. But if impeachment is truly "off the table", we the people can only look forward to eighteen more months of this ongoing crime spree, with justice, if any, only coming well after the fact, when these people are out of office and a Democrat is in the White House. Even that weak justice will only happen if the people investigating show a lot more spine than you have since you were given your position of power.