Residents Thank Hinchey For Signing Impeachment Bill

By Danielle Winterton, Ithaca Times

Last Tuesday, a group of local activists held a friendly demonstration of gratitude outside of Congressman Maurice Hinchey's (D-NY, 22) office at Cayuga and Green Streets, thanking Hinchey for being the seventh representative to sign on to and co-sponsor Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich's impeachment bill.

"Our main focus was to thank Hinchey," said resident John Hamilton. It's very clear it was the right thing to do. We're delighted. Politically, it's a big step. Democratic leadership is trying to brush all the crimes of this administration under the table. This is a courageous step for Hinchey to take, and we want to show our support."

Hamilton and other demonstrators stood on the four corners near Hinchey's office and held up signs. They also displayed the Mother Ithaca puppet, created and operated by the Puppetistas, and brought a cake and strawberries up to Hinchey's office.

While the call for impeachment has been culturally marginalized up until now, momentum seems to be building on both a local and national stage for George Bush and his administration to be held responsible for the 35 articles on the impeachment bill, which include staging pre-emptive war against Iraq without cause, violating the agreements of the UN Charter and Geneva Convention, failing to help victims of Katrina, allowing Valerie Plame to be outed, and finally, failing to defend the country from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"There's never been any doubt in my mind about the impeachability of this administration," Hinchey said, "primarily because they knowingly and intentionally falsified information to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq, and before that, they displayed incompetence in not adhering to the information and recommendations they were given by intelligence operations, specifically in early August 2001, about the upcoming attacks by Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and specifically, their failure to prevent those attacks."

The call for impeachment in Ithaca goes back several years, Hamilton said, under a slew of different names and different projects, including the Impeachment Group and Peace Now Ithaca. Last year, a group of Ithacans got 3,000 signatures and petitioned the Tompkins County Legislature and the City of Ithaca to pass a resolution to begin an investigation leading to impeachment. Ulster County, another area in Hinchey's district, quickly got involved, and in mid-June, Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, defied his party leadership and introduced the bill to Congress.

He accused Bush of executing a "calculated and wide-ranging strategy" to deceive citizens and Congress into believing that Iraq was an immediate and urgent threat to the United States, according to the AP wire.

"Clearly, momentum is building," Hamilton said, and noted that a lot of their work is being done with Iraq Veterans Against the War, who just presented 25,000 signatures to Rep. John Conyers (D-MI, 14th) last week.
Why impeach Bush in the final moments of his presidency? Both Hamilton and Hinchey asserted two reasons: first, to keep the investigation into the Bush administration open and active even after he's out of office, and second, to make it clear to any incoming or future president that the actions of the Bush administration were unacceptable and intolerable.
"It needs to be made clear that the laws apply to everyone," Hamilton said. "If we do nothing, we're basically saying it's OK for our president to break any law or treaty. He's broken the two most important agreements we have in the world, the UN charter and the Geneva convention. If he is allowed to get away with starting the war against Iraq, he might feel it's OK to attack Iran next. That's what motivates me."
"It's very serious," he added. "I think any of us could agree that any future we have on this planet as human beings will require that we're able to make agreements and honor them. We have to strengthen, not abandon, international law. If we can't, our future is shaky. If we can, our future looks better."

"There needs to be ongoing investigation into the criminal actions taken by this administration, which I believe are quite clear" Hinchey said, "and that information needs to be made public. This will include pressure that will be put on the next administration coming into office next year. There are legal ways to hold people responsible."

"The energy crisis we're facing now is in large part due to the military action in Iraq and the potential of it in Iran, which has driven up speculation on the price of oil," Hinchey added. "We need to make it very difficult for this kind of corruption to be engaged in again. All these people were doing things for their own corrupt reasons at the expense of the people of our country. This has undermined and damaged the democratic principles of this country."

What would the bill need to move ahead? Simply put, more signatures, more mass, more show of support from the public.

"Congress needs to be reinvigorated," Hinchey said. "They have not done a good job on this at all. Their actions, overall, aren't based on leadership, but what they think people want and believe. Very few people are willing to stand out ahead of the situation."

Hamilton, a local carpenter who works particularly on farms, said his mother was present at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, and that he learned to value the country's ideals through his parents, who met in Hawaii.

"They didn't fight World War II so that we could become the biggest bully in the world," Hamilton said. "All that sacrifice of their generation is being tossed out the window, and it's very sad."