Fischer: Why Town Meeting should vote for the impeachment resolution

By Andrew Fischer/ Guest Columnist
http://www2.townonline.com (Brookline, Mass.)

In opposing the proposed Town Meeting resolution calling for President Bush’s impeachment, Anil Adyanthaya asked in the April 27 TAB, "Do Town Meeting members really want to tell Brookline’s schoolchildren that their president is a criminal and a liar who should be thrown out of office?"

No one wants to tell their children that the president is a criminal and a liar. Unfortunately, our president is a criminal and a liar. We can either tell our children the truth as we try to defend our democracy, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, or we can stand idly by, our heads in the sand, as more harm is done to the security of our nation and to our civil liberties.

This president has led us into a disastrous war through lies and deceit. He misled us with false tales of "weapons of mass destruction" that he knew did not exist. He told us that there were ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda when he knew of none. These were lies. It is a high crime and misdemeanor to lead a country into war through lies and deceit.

This would be true even if the war did not lead to thousands of American dead, tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths and disastrous consequences and the establishment, in a ruined Iraq, of a new breeding place to foment hatred and terrorism against the United States. This would be true even if this disastrous war did not make us less secure. This would be true even if this disastrous war did not harm our image and reputation through out the world. But this is only the beginning of the high crimes and misdemeanors.

This president, in the name of "security" has created a prison in Guantanamo where hundreds of prisoners have been held for four years now, in violation of the Geneva conventions and all concept of civil liberties. These prisoners have neither been treated as enemy combatants and prisoners of war, nor have they been charged with a crime and given their day in court. Instead, they are being held indefinitely, without being charged with any crime or given any opportunity to contest the basis for holding them. He has done this in the name of protecting us in the so-called "War on Terror."

This president has condoned torture of the Guantanamo prisoners and has presided over a system of similar prisons, where individuals are held without charge, often tortured and afforded none of the rights that our constitution, the Geneva Convention and rule of law should provide. He has done this in the name of protecting us in the so-called "War on Terror."

This president has allowed the "rendition," or the kidnapping of individuals, who are then spirited to prisons in other countries where they are held and tortured.

This president has seized and arrested American citizens and claimed the right to hold them indefinitely, without charging them with a crime or giving them any right to go to court and seek their release. He has done this in the name of protecting us in the so-called "War on Terror" and has argued before Congress and the media that this is acceptable conduct under the United States constitution.

Also in the name of protecting us in the so-called "War on Terror," this president has illegally wire-tapped thousands of telephone calls by American citizens, without warrants or any known reason to think that these Americans had violated any law or posed any security threat. In fact, we still do not know the full breadth and scope of this president’s illegal wiretap program, as he has deliberately concealed this program of illegal wiretapping from both Congress and the American people.

This president has reclassified thousands of de-classified documents and has classified huge numbers of documents in order to hide what he has done from both the Congress and the American people in what has become the most secret and the most unaccountable administration in the history of our democracy.

When asked to justify this conduct, this president has advanced an unprecedented theory of a "unitary presidency." This is an excuse for saying that because he is the president he need not abide by the law, but can decide what laws he wants to ignore. The front page of the April 30 Boston Globe reports that "President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office." This not only undermines our constitutional system of checks and balances: it is the foundation for dictatorship.

This conduct undermines the democracy we all hold dear and the protections of civil liberties afforded us in the Constitution. This also erodes our standing in the world as a nation of peace and as a nation that protects democratic values and civil rights.

The Founding Fathers were clear that impeachment was not to be used as a partisan cudgel to be wielded by a president’s opposition. Instead, it was reserved for the most serious high crimes and misdemeanors. Leading us into war through lies, spying on Americans and allowing Americans and others to be arrested, tortured and held indefinitely without being charged with a crime, or being given the opportunity to challenge the arrest in court, cannot be described as anything other than treason and high crimes and misdemeanors.

Moreover, the lies and crimes of this president directly affect the matters over which we Town Meeting members have oversight and responsibility. Federal housing funding for Brookline Housing Authority buildings, federal block grants, school funding and other sources of federal funding are diminishing as we waste billions and billions of dollars in a failed war that has not made us safer and appears have no plan or end. As this president spends billions more on his failed war, it directly affects our town’s ability to balance our budget. This is the business of town meeting.

More important to those of us who love our country, cherish our constitution and the democracy it has nurtured and value our freedom, we have a right and duty to stand up. It is painful to have to tell our children that we have a president who is a criminal and a liar. It would be much more painful to tell our grandchildren why we did nothing to stop a president that threatened our country’s freedom and democracy.