Happy Impeachment Day! The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been playing a leading role in battling the Bush administration's attacks on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and international law, has declared today to be Impeachment Day, with teach-ins scheduled around the country.
Seems like a great occasion to offer up 10 reasons for impeaching the president, as presented in Barbara Olshansky's and my new book The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office.
The case for impeachment just grew much stronger, with the US Supreme Court's powerful decision in Hamdan v Rumsfeld. In that decision, the justices didn't simply say that the President was wrong and in violation of U.S. and the international law in arbitrarily claiming that the Guantanamo detainees were not subject to the Geneva Convention on Treatment of Prisoners of War. The five-justice majority, which included conservative Anthony Kennedy, declared the President's bogus claim to have "special powers" as commander in chief in "time of war" to be just that--bogus.
What has been missed in almost all the mainstream media coverage of this important ruling is that this slap-down of Bush's justification for his Guantanamo decision also undermines his justification for many other of his constitutional violations.
Let's first look at the list of the president's High Crimes and Misdemeanors. They are:
1. "A Crime Against Peace." Initiating a war of aggression against a nation that posed no immediate threat to the U.S.--a war that has needlessly killed 2550 Americans and maimed and damaged over 20,000 more, while killing over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children, is the number one war crime according to the Nuremberg Charter, a document which was largely drawn up by American lawyers after World War II.
2. Lying and organizing a conspiracy to trick the American people and the U.S. Congress into approving an unnecessary and illegal war. This is defined as "A Conspiracy to Commit a Crime Against Peace" in the Nuremberg Charter, to which the U.S. is a signatory.
3. Approving and encouraging, in violation of U.S. and international law, the use of torture, kidnapping and rendering of prisoners of war captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the course of the so-called War on Terror. Note that the Hamdan decision actually declares Bush to have violated the Third Geneva Convention on Treatment of Prisoners of War, which means the justices are in effect calling the president a war criminal. Under U.S. and international law, if prisoners have died because of such a violation--and many have died in illegal US captivity because of torture authorized by this president--the penalty is death (a point made to the president in a warning memo written by his then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the text of which is published in full in the appendix of our book).
4. Illegally stripping the right of citizenship and the protections of the Constitution from American citizens, denying them the fundamental right to have their cases heard in a court, to hear the charges against them, to be judged in a public court by a jury of their peers, and to have access to a lawyer.
5. Authorizing the spying on American citizens and their communications by the National Security Agency and other U.S. police and intelligence agencies, in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
6. Obstructing investigation into and covering up knowledge of the deliberate exposing of the identity of a U.S. CIA undercover operative, and possibly conspiring in that initial outing itself.
7. Obstructing the investigation into the 9-11 attacks and lying to investigators from the Congress and the bi-partisan 9-11 Commission--actions that come perilously close to treason. (Former Florida Senator Bob Graham, who headed the Senate Intelligence Committee until his retirement at the end of 2002, has called this the president's most impeachable crime.)
8. Violating the due process and other constitutional rights of thousands of citizens and legal residents by rounding them up and disappearing or deporting them without hearings.
9. Abuse of power, undermining of the Constitution and violating the presidential oath of office by deliberately refusing to administer over 750 acts duly passed into law by the Congress--actions with if left unchallenged would make the Congress a vestigial body, and the president a dictator.
10. Criminal negligence in failing to provide American troops with adequate armor before sending them into a war of choice, criminal negligence in going to war against a weak, third-world nation without any planning for post war occupation and reconstruction, criminal negligence in failing to respond to a known and growing crisis in the storm-blasted city of New Orleans, and criminal negligence in failing to act, and in fact in actively obstructing efforts by other countries and American state governments, to deal with the looming crisis of global warming.
Crimes 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9, and possibly crimes 1, 2 and 6 have all been justified by the president using the claim of "special powers" in his role as commander in chief, the claim that was ruled invalid by the High Court, in relation to crime number 3.
Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His (more...)
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This is a well thought out assessment of the ""Great accomplishments this Administration has brought about. I'm sure , if you had set your mind to it, you could easily come up with at least a dozen more ( Right off the top of your Head ) With NO Problem ! What I can't understand is.. What Is This bunch of Republican [ and Democrat ] House Members Thinking ? Don't they realize that even one or two of these reasons for Impeachment would be Amply enough to Get The Ball Rolling Towards Impeachment ? And the Longer they Sit on it, the Worse they look to the American Public because of their Inaction..when it is so Critically Called FOR..And Needed ?? Your Constituents are running out of Patience with you. Don't you sense it ? With Bush and cheney and KRove and Rumsfeldt Chomping at their Bits to Jump onto Syria...then Iran >>Eventho It is a fact our Troops are spread out all over the world.. Eventho He has put this Country into a Bankruptcy State..That does not appear enough to deter the madman from what he is determined to do. You know what he thinks about Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. ( Not even good enough to wipe his royal butt on..or Something like that. ) Yet, You Do nothing to Rid our White House of his Kind of Vermin. To wait is to invite upon our country Another 9 /11 to be instigated here. It is Past due time to act. I'm sure that any day now, we will be hearing more " Code Orange' Warnings of impending doom ( from the White House. ) More scare tactics that , if ignored.. may get turned into the Real Thing. Just to Keep him feeling like a war- commander-in-chief !! If I sound Cynical, it is because I Am. Don't you know we are depending on you People we Voted in to Congress to Do What you all Swore You Would DO... Protect this country from within AND from Without.. From any and All Who Connive to Destroy our Nation ? VGF
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VGFlick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 76 comments) on Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006 at 10:55:07 PM
The number one reason that these so called leaders sit on there arses is because BUSH and his Illeagal spying has got something on the whole bunch.
You see Bush has been spying on everybody since 9/11 and these so called Senators are doing things that must be very, very bad for none of them to act on these IMPORTANT CRIMES.
During the Hitler and Stalin Regimes many important members of the Intelligentisa were imprisioned or killed because of the power they had. Of course all dictators run a police state.
This important decision by the Supreme Court will only slow the Regime down. Bush was already looking for ways around the courts decision after it came againist him.
I think it was Fredrick the Great that said first I act and then I find lawyers to fix any problems I have with the government.
This country according to recent web sites says we will become the North American Free Trade Assocation, the borders are coming down and Canada and Mexcio will be included as one big so called country, that will compete with Europe and China and the rest of the world.
I think its on the Presidents own web site where it explains exactly what will become of the three Countries.
So let us pray that their is a United States, and a Constitution left before this happens.
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anthny (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 39 comments) on Thursday, Jul 20, 2006 at 11:53:49 AM
It's astounding to believe that with all this, the man is still walking about free. I sure hope the Democrats can rise to the standard of bravery that Conyers, Feingold, and Gore (except in his lousy concession behaviors) have set, for a few examples.
To paraphrase a song I heard once on someone's radio Where Have All the Cojónes Gone?
Thanks for laying it all out.
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Nezua (42 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 93 comments) on Saturday, Jul 22, 2006 at 7:22:23 AM
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