Time for Congress to Stand Up in Its Own Defense: Impeach Bush and Cheney Now!
By Dave Lindorff
The last couple of weeks have brought confirmation—as if it were needed—even in the corporate media, that President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the gang of thugs and sycophants around them in the White House, engaged in a massive conspiracy to lie the country into a war in Iraq.
The release of a confessional book by former White House press spokesman Scott McClellan and the subsequent release of a long blocked report by the Senate Intelligence Committee make it clear that Bush, Cheney & Company deliberately lied to Congress and the American public back in 2002 and early 2003 about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein (there was none). McClellan also states that Bush and Cheney conspired to “out” CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame Wilson, as part of a compaign to prevent her husband from exposing a major part of that campaign of lies: the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons.
It would be hard to overstate the extent of or the damage caused by these crimes that are now exposed to the light of day.
Beginning in 2001, making the most cynical use of the tragic killing of nearly 3000 Americans in the 9-11 attacks, Bush and Cheney moved to aggrandize as much power as possible in the executive, and then, to consolidate that power grab, engineered a full-scale war against Iraq, enabling them to claim that any opponent of their dictatorial usurpation of power was a traitor to the nation.
It was all a lie.
Saddam Hussein had no links to Al Qaeda, and he had no nuclear program. He had no weapons of mass destruction. His country was broken, thanks to years of international sanctions and war.
As a result of these lies, we have a country that no longer even remotely resembles what the Founders had intended. The Congress has been shorn of its once exclusive authority to legislate, and even its Constitutional power to investigate the executive branch has been successfully defied. It is now an atrophied relic. The federal judiciary, right up to the Supreme Court, has been packed with administration sycophants and Federalist Society advocates of unfettered executive power.
We also have been saddled with an unwinnable war in the Middle East that has claimed the lives of 4500 Americans, destroyed the lives of another 30,000—or perhaps several hundred thousand, if we add in all those suffering psychological damage, or genetic damage from exposure to depleted uranium weapons. That war has also killed over 1 million innocent Iraqis, including countless chiildren, destroyed their country, bankrupted this nation, and made the US a pariah and a rogue state in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Most Americans long since came to the conclusion that the Bush administration was a gang of idiots. Just watching their handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster unfold was enough to make that clear. But the new reports from McClellan and from the Senate Intelligence Committee should make it clear that this was not just stupidity. The disasters that have befallen this nation, or that it has brought on the rest of the world, over the past eight years have been the result of deliberate lying and deceit and of the conspiratorial policies of a cabal of leaders whose goal from day one was undoing the Constitution and establishing the presidency as a kind of dictatorship.
Most of the corporate media have been unable to bring themselves to state this clearly. They edge around the issue by talking about the White House having been “misleading” or “untruthful.” And little is said about the lasting damage that has been done to the Republic and the Constitution, or about what is to be done about a still bloody war that never should have been fought in the first place.
The answer is clear. Impeachment proceedings should be initiated against both Bush and Cheney. These two arch criminals must not be permitted to leave office with their titles intact. They need to be tossed out in disgrace, and then indicted for war crimes and for crimes like perjury, conspiracy and perhaps treason.
We are already seeing the long-term damage that has been wrought. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, is saying that the president’s use of the National Security Agency to spy, without any court order, on tens or hundreds of thousants, or perhaps millions of Americans, is legal, and would continue under a McCain administration. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said that he would continue Bush’s use of “signing statements” to ignore Congressional legislation that he felt impaired his Constitutional powers as president.
The nation is at a dangerous crossroad. Either Congress reasserts its authority now, via impeachment, drawing a Constitutional line in the stand in defense of Article I of the Constitution—the article that defines the power of Congress as absolute in terms of passing legisation—or it forever surrenders that role, leaving us with what can only be called a dictatorship.
We clearly cannot count on the next president, whoever that may be, to surrender powers usurped by the current one. What leader in history has willingly and voluntarily surrendered authority, after all?
Such power must be wrested back by Congress, and the only way for that to happen is impeachment—a course laid out clearly by the authors of the Constitution for just such a crisis.
__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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Bush Guilty of Murder?
George W. Guilty of Murder?
A prominent lawyer lays out a compelling case in THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER. Staggering evidence is collected against the president in a startling new book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRlJk1qhWVw&eurl=http://www.afterdownings...
Amazon.com: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder: Vincent Bugliosi: Books
Concerned citizens may urge their respective State Attorney Generals and District Attorneys to conduct murder investigations, and if warranted, indict and prosecute George W. on murder charges.
Only two Reasons
Our democrats are spinless and are scare of losing their jobs and control or they are republican Bush followers.
No democrat by now can possible not know that our constitution and laws have been broken and destroyed many times and not to punish them is just as much of a crime as the crimes they have committed.
They believe that the voters will still support and vote for them because they are democrats , but we have to weed them out at election time with real democrats and break this corrupted democrat leaders which are destroying out country.
YOU Must Threaten the Re-election of Democratic Congressmen
I agree, BUT
the only way that will every happen is IF
all of We Anti-War types all across America immediately start to put public, rude, nasty, and confrontational pressure on the Democratic Congressmen in your State to call for Impeachment Hearings.
You and I must threaten their re-election. Don't kid yourself, Nothing else will cause Impeachment Hearings.
Want to stop the Iraq War. Want the Democrats in Congress to stop the funding for the war? Want accountability.
Our group firmly believes the war will go on for years regardless of which party wins the White House. We also believe that the Democrats will after the election do absolutely nothing about accountability.
FACT: The Democrats will win majorities in the House and Senate regardless of what any activists do or don't do.
The public is so disgusted with what the Republicans have done to our Country that indeed a donkey could get elected simply because the beast is Not a Republican.
So quit worrying about the House or Senate going Republican again. That is not going to happen.
Instead, Worry about having a President in the near future who commits much worse crimes against the Constitution. It will probably be too late at that point to protect the Constitution and our rights.
If you and I do not rein in future Presidents by forcing Congress to deal with the Cheney/Bush crimes now by holding Impeachment Hearings prior to the Election we run a huge risk that the pattern of Presidential crimes against our Constitution will be beyond the voter's control.
Once the Establishment bends the Constitution far enough away from what the Founders intended, it will take a second civil war to get it back. Given the wealth and political power of Corporate America, common Americans will lose that war. So fight the easy war now. Put ruthless pressure on selected individual Democrats in close races to honor their oath and hold impeachment hearings, Now!
The Battle To Save Our Constitution must be fought and won this summer. Otherwise, get ready for more wars fought soley for the benefit of huge Corporations. And fewer liberties and rights for you and I.
To have Impeachment Hearings BEFORE NOVEMBER,
WE have to create Fear In The Minds Of
Individual Democratic Congressmen that They themselves may Not Be re-elected and may not be a part of that historic change.
They are only concerned with they themselves getting re-elected or (as in the case of our Colorado Rep. Udall) getting elected to the Senate).
The fact that they are ignoring the well known Cheney/Bush crimes and are ignoring the voters begging them to stop funding the Iraq War is evidence of that. Democratic Congressmen are gambling that the Party will win such complete and overwhelming majorities that they individually will not have to take any political risks in the near future.
To make impeachment hearings happen WE have to create doubt that They Will be part of the next Congress.
WE also have to create doubt in the minds of the voters in their districts that they are honest (if they didn't intend to honor their oath, they aren't). Voters have an inherent distrust in all politicians and believe that politicians as a class are not to be trusted. The common knowledge that Congressmen may have lied when they took their oath is easy to work with.
This method of getting the attention of Congressmen seems to be working in Colorado.
We know we are creating doubt in the minds of the voters about Udall here in Colorado, and we know that the Campaign is worried about it.
We have had feedback from them asking us to back off. If we can get a just few more Coloradoans across Colorado to join us and protest Udall at his every public appearance, We Can Change the Outcome Of Colorado's Senatorial Race. If Udall wants to ignore us and take the chance of losing by a few votes, that is his problem not ours. The Democrats will still win control of the Senate, but Udall won't be with them.
It does not take many people to disrupt Democratic campaign events and create doubt in the minds of voters about any Democratic candidates.
It does not take very many people writing negative comments on newspaper articles about Candidates to create doubt. We, you and I just need to step up and do it every day until the election.
Congress has had positive poll ratings of as low as 11% so voters are receptive to reasoned criticism.
Keeping the criticism focused only on the one topic that even uneducated voters can identify with will strengthen our negative campaigns. Every worker believes "keeping your word" is basic.
The theme to be used is simply the failure of our Congressmen to keep their word, they took an oath, they are breaking their word. All voters, even the most dense can identify with that fact.
If Congressmen lied when they took their oath to defend Our Constitution, they will lie about anything to keep their job. If they are vague about support for single payer healthcare, their version looks more like a huge subsidy for the health care industry and you know they lied about their oath, are they lying about health care?
Our Congressman Udall now says his refusing to even discuss holding impeachment hearings is just an "honest difference of opinion". That is Baloney!! The Constitution says "shall" impeach. His opinion is pure arrogance.
Udall cannot avoid at least holding impeachment hearings if he knows the people Know that Cheney and Bush broke Federal Laws, Treaties, and Our Constitution, No congressman can. The fact that they are all pretending they can doesn't change that fact. They lied when they took the oath or they have since decided to disregard their oath, or they have decided to subvert Our Constitution.
The public knows what Cheney and Bush did and they want accountability and they know the Democrats Will Do Nothing After The Election. No investigations, no trials in the US, no war crimes trials in the Hague. Nothing! Period!
Oppose them now, Or Lose All. It is Your choice.
See also these earlier posts:
John H Kennedy, Denver CO,
43 yr Democratic voter and organizer of
Impeach Colorado Coalition http://ImpeachCO.com
..
I couldn't agree more...
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/cowards-liars-and-fucking-thi...