6/21/08
We owe it to history to demand accountability from our leaders, in the face of the administration's bald-faced disrespect for our Constitution. No remedy can possibly suffice except impeachment.
Congressman Kucinich recently introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. I think all of his articles are worth considering, and should be heard in Rep. John Conyers's Judiciary Committee. But to simplify it in my own mind, I've boiled it down to just 4 basic impeachable offenses, all of which have considerable bodies of evidence supporting them:
THE TOP REASONS TO IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY
FRAUD: misleading the public about the need for war vs. Iraq
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The administration deliberately and systematically manipulated the intelligence process to come up with pre-ordained conclusions; they conflated Saddam Hussein with the tragedy of 9/11/01 to build support for the war; and they made false statements regarding known intelligence (e.g. Bush's "16 words"). They misled the country into a war that is both disastrous to our national interests and illegal under international law. I have a hard time imagining a more impeachable crime.
AUTHORIZING THE USE OF TORTURE against detainees and sending suspects to foreign countries to be tortured
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By employing torturous techniques like waterboarding, and encouraging abuses including sexual humiliation, the administration has broken with the Geneva Conventions and sullied the name of America.
VIOLATING FISA by wiretapping without court approval
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By not seeking the FISA court's approval for wiretapping and other surveillance, the administration clearly violated the 1979 FISA law. Under this accomodating statute, approval could be sought up to 72 hours AFTER an operation began, from a secret court that approved nearly every request in its history. For some reason, the administration chose to go outside the law.
PERVERTING THE JUSTICE DEPT. by pressuring federal attorneys to work on politically motivated prosecutions
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Federal prosecutions must be independent of politics if justice is to be fair and even-handed. But the administration clearly ignored this need to serve their own political interests.
For more information, a good place to start is at Wikipedia's page on the impeachment movement .
What can YOU do? Call or write to your representatives in the House or Senate . And spread the word... be as loud as you can.
Thanks,
Dan