Stern, Worm and Pombo - Democratic Control of Congress By Bill Henderson

Stern, Worm and Pombo - Democratic Control of Congress

By Bill Henderson

Al-Jazeerah, November 12, 2006

The Democrats have won control of Congress and can now use their executive oversight committee powers to check into the many problematic policies and actions of the Bush Administration.

Which unconstitutional and illegal Bush Admin action should have priority:

inflating a Big Brother WAR ON TERROR;

deceiving the American people about their cynical plans for Iraq;

or refusing and greenwashing the urgent need for leadership in recognizing environmental and resource depletion problems, especially climate change and peak oil?

(Or clandestine spying on Americans? Out of control defense spending? Or more evidence of incompetence in New Orleans? Etc)

Is there evidence, Bush Admin inner-circle documents, for example, detailing an intention to use 9/11 to facilitate Bush Admin domestic politic or ideological ends? President Bush didn't have to declare a war on terror. He could have taken advantage of the world's sympathy and let international policing bring the small band of criminal conspirators to justice. Did Karl Rove and the neocons argue in favor of US over reaction in order to position the president as commander in chief and to begin the campaign in Iraq?

" The entire Iraq debate hangs on one central question - were the facts manipulated to suit a predetermined policy?" Will Congress investigate the run up to war? Will the Democrats risk digging up smoking guns that could lead to impeachment?

Has there been industry/government collusion to greenwash climate change? Of course, there has been, but will the Democrats choose to show Americans how science is routinely marginalized by business as usual?

Could a Congressional committee subpoena Dick Cheney's energy planning portfolio and all White House industry communications in order to investigate to what degree Bush Admin's oil industry appreciation of the end of cheap oil led to the manipulation of 9/11, the seizing of Iraq and climate change denial?

Two new reports - one by an economist looking at climate change and the other by fisheries scientists looking at declining biodiversity in the world's oceans - have both captured the world's attention predicting humanity threatening disaster by mid-century without an immediate change of human behavior. Of all of the many ways that the Bush Admin has endangered America, does the rising probability of human extinction within a half century (along with most of the flora and fauna we now recognize as nature) trump the risk of a final nuclear world war because of neocon fantasists?

The Stern and Worm reports, the daily drip of info-mation on the drying Amazon, melting polar bears or burning forests, the latest IEA report dropping it's normal confident optimism to recognize peak oil and burgeoning global CO2 emissions - there is no shortage of dire environmental news, but are the American people waking up to the need for government to be much better informed, much better prepared for leadership, much more competent at dealing with America's real problems?

Investigating Bush could be an opportunity to learn from mistakes and clear the decks so that the American government can be the global leader again within a multilateral consensus which is our only hope in dealing with potentially catastrophic emerging global scale problems like climate change and biodiversity extinction.

bill(at)pacificfringe.net

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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