Impeachment, all down the line

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6669

Impeachment, all down the line
by Robert Jensen | Apr 10 2007

A speech delivered to the "Impeachment: Our Right, Our Duty" rally in Houston, TX, April 9, 2007.

Whether one believes the impeachment of George W. Bush is a realistic possibility or is simply a vehicle for expressing outrage and educating the public about the crimes of the powerful, any such talk starts with the U.S. Constitution and Article II, Section 4, which speaks of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

Few suggest that Bush is guilty of treason, nor is there evidence of bribery -- unless weíre speaking of the routine way in which campaign contributions are a kind of bribery, but thatís hardly unique to Bush. That leaves us to ponder the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors," which somehow seems inadequate to describe this administration. "High crimes," yes, but these are not "misdemeanors." Weíre talking about repeat felony offenders.

Scholars debate what the category of "high crimes" might include, but it certainly must include the violation of one of the central tenets of international law -- that no nation-state can attack another unless in self-defense or with authorization from the U.N. Security Council. Bush is guilty of this -- a "crime against peace" in the language of the Nuremberg Principles -- not once but twice, first in Afghanistan and next in Iraq.

That seems simple enough, but it also seems a bit unfair to pick on Bush alone. After all, no single person -- not even the president of the United States -- can undertake such massive crimes alone. Remember that the constitution also includes in the category of impeachable persons the "Vice President and all civil officers of the United States." How deep into the bench of the Bush administration might we go? Cheney and Rice seem like obvious choices; Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Armitage would have been on the list before they left their posts. You all may have specific favorites you would want to add.

But I suggest we not stop with Bush and his cronies. If we want to truly change the direction of this country, we should widen the discussion. Who else might deserve to be impeached?

more...

Well then let me be among the first....

Al Qaeda leaders? Isn't that treason? Don't the Bushies claim that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S.? If so, isn't it treasonous to support the government that hides them? Isn't that giving comfort to the enemy?

Odd, isn't it that Bush won't talk to Syria's leaders but is in cahoots with the leadership in Pakistan.

Am I the only one who thinks OBL is actually kicking back in a palace in S.A. with a Cuban cigar and a mojito?

war of aggression, that creates spying against the American people, that establishes policies in contradiction of all our history holds dear, such as torture and rendition, that attempts to take over all the branches of the US government in direct defiance of our Contitution, that declares the Geneva Convention quaint, that separates the US from all the important treaties and documents that former presidents and congresses have supported, and the etcs. grow every single day.

While admirable, the speech reflects a basic problem that undermines our efforts to make impeachment a reality. Namely, reference to a panoply of crimes that are the purview of the Courts, not Congress.

The problem is also reflected in the overly legalistic and complex cases for impeachment we see in many of the published compilations. Certainly, justice demands that the many crimes being committed by the occupants of this WH and their minions be prosecuted, but the Congressional duty to defend the Constitution by removing officials who subvert it or otherwise violate the pubic trust is a political, not a legal/judicial process.

To be effective champions of the Constitution and the People's Government, Members of Congress need to make a simple case for impeachment that is grounded in the broad principles that define who we are, not complex, legalistic arguments that invoke letter of the law.

Bush and Cheney make the Unconstitutional and Un-American claim that the Office of the President has "inherent" unitary authoritarian power to violate our Constitution and U.S. Code at will to "protect us." That claim is the most devastating of all their offenses against our constitutional democracy. It is a violation of the principle of consent -- the sole moral principle on which our Constitution and therefore the nation is founded. They have convicted themselves of this offense with their own words and actions. Both Bush and Cheney must be impeached because they both invoke the fig leaf of unitary authoritarian power.

To prove their intolerable claim to unlimited power Bush and Cheney openly violate the inviolate dictates of our Constitution and U.S. Code. The simplest case for impeachment would cite just one of the violations for which they invoked the fascist fantasy of absolute power. Any one of the following five would fit the bill:

• violating Title 18 section 2441 (War Crimes)
  1) declaring Guantanamo a "Geneva-free" zone¹
  2) the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program
  3) abusing signing statements to nullify McCain's anti-torture amendment


• violating Title 18, Section 844 paragraph e. (Bomb Threat)
  4) "mushroom clouds in 45 min"


• violating of Title 50, Section 1805(Issuance of order)
  5) spying under color of law w/o warrant

Sometimes the simplest answer is the hardest to see, particularly for those on "our side" who tend to defer action as they seek all there is to know when they already know all they need to know. Although we can cite the many other crimes and call for prosecutions, when we are lobbying for impeachment, we must keep it simple because it IS simple.

Related:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/pat_k/22


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1. February 7, 2002, the Office of the President published http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020207-13.html">Fact Sheet: Status of Detainees at Guantanamo, in which they declared "The President has determined that the Geneva Convention applies to the Taliban detainees, but not to the al-Qaida detainees."
   
   There was never any doubt the conventions applied to the abductees/detainees held by the USA, whether on or off shore. In Hamdan, even a Supreme Court stacked with their fascist minions couldn't escape that inescapable reality when they ruled that the conventions applied (and with that ruling, declared that three years of War Crimes had already been committed -- something that had been self-evident all along).
   
   There is a reason that violators of Geneva are subject to the death penalty -- to give those with the power to inflict torture or wage a criminal war of aggression a compelling motive not to step anywhere near "the line." And to give those with the power to stop the crimes a compelling motive to do everything in their power to do so.
   
   Under the Geneva conventions, Parties to the treaty must enact and enforce the conventions under domestic law. To this end we enacted U.S. Code Title 18 section 2441 (War Crimes). When the Office of the President asserted the power to arbitrarily dictate which groups are, and are not, subject to the Geneva conventions, they gutted our War Crimes statute, an act that is in itself a War Crime. We know J.T.F-170 employs "harsh interrogation" (torture), but there is no need to argue or prove the point because, whether or not they actually engaged in torture, they committed a War Crime when they gutted the law.

that engaged in voter supression and other crimes.