We've reached smoking gun fatigue. We have new memos and testimony on the war lies every week, and we've been collecting the evidence at www.afterdowningstreet.org.
But I'm not sure I need to tell you. The 27 Congress members currently co-sponsoring John Conyers' bill for an investigation into grounds for impeachment include a number of Californians, and not a single representative of my state - Virginia.
The Governor of Virginia has spoken up for impeachment, saying "Guilt wherever found ought to be punished." Sadly, that was Governor Edmund Randolph in 1787 arguing for making impeachment central to the system of checks and balances in the Constitution.
My neighbor Thomas Jefferson thought that impeachment was central to giving the legislative branch the power to check the executive and judicial branches.
The legislative branch, of course, writes laws. 322 times in American history, prior to Bush, presidents wrote signing statements stating what they thought a law meant as they signed it. Bush alone has done that 435 times. And in doing so he's rewritten the laws he's signed. As a result, torture is self defense, war is peace, and dictatorship is democracy.
To those who think we can end the war without impeaching Bush and Cheney, I would ask "What will you do when Congress ends the war and Bush signs a statement clarifying that the war will not end?"
Let me close by mentioning that we've created a political action committee called ImpeachPAC to fund congressional candidates who are committed to impeaching Bush and Cheney. Please go to www.impeachPAC.org. Thank you.
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Civil War and Ending the War
Remarks: March 3, 2006, at University of California - San Diego.
Fox News titled a recent segment "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" Presumably, it could from the point of view of the Bush-Cheney gang, if it gets in the way of all-out resistance to the occupation. That is, Bush almost certainly would prefer to see Sunnis fighting Shias than to see both fighting Americans and collaborators.
From the point of view of the Iraqi people, the people of the Middle East, and the people of the United States either type of civil war is just more very bad news. In either type of war, or a combination of the two, it makes sense to call it a CIVIL war, since Iraqis are doing most of the killing and dying - and most of those dying are civilians.
In any case, the war cannot be resolved without the US soldiers leaving. Only leaving provides the chance for a peaceful solution. Financial aid for reconstruction, combined with assistance from the United Nations, can increase the likelihood of a democratic and peaceful Iraq. There are no guarantees, except that the present course will make things worse.
The idea that the US occupation must continue because things would get worse if it ended is clearly not what the White House actually cares about behind closed doors. But, taking the claim on its own terms, it quickly falls apart. Things in Iraq have been getting steadily worse during the occupation, and the escalating violence is driven largely by anger at the occupation.
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