Monday, June 18, 2007

Impeach and Convict Bush and Cheney for High Treason


It is an extraordinary subversion of the [US] Constitution to send people to die...on the basis of a lie.

- Elizabeth Holtzman, Rep., NY

I can't improve on that. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the gang subverted the Constitution to carry out a war of naked aggression, itself a war crime, and, under US Criminal Codes punishable by death. But it's worse than that. It is an aggravated crime as Rep Elizabeth Holtzman makes abundantly clear.

This is a case of high treason. Treason is defined as a betrayal of one's sovereign. In time's past "sovereignty" was most often embodied in a person, a monarch, a king or queen. Louis XIV summed up the very concept succinctly: L’État, c’est moi! The various plotters against the life of Elizabeth I were accused of treason.

But what of a democratic, constitutional Democracy. In the US sovereignty resides with the people themselves, a principle established up front by the founders:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

-Preamble, US Constitution

Bush and Cheney have betrayed their "sovereign" by hoaxing the sovereign, lying to the sovereign, and, at last, betraying the sovereign by leading US troops into harm's way upon a pack of malicious lies. Lies known by Bush and Cheney to have been lies at the time the lies were told. In Elizabethan times, that would have gotten your head cut off.

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

Elizabeth Holtzman

Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so.

I can still remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach during those proceedings, when it became clear that the President had so systematically abused the powers of the presidency and so threatened the rule of law that he had to be removed from office.<

As a Democrat who opposed many of President Nixon's policies, I still found voting for his impeachment to be one of the most sobering and unpleasant tasks I ever had to undertake. None of the members of the committee took pleasure in voting for impeachment; after all, Democrat or Republican, Nixon was still our President.<

At the time, I hoped that our committee's work would send a strong signal to future Presidents that they had to obey the rule of law. I was wrong.
And, again, about a year later:

Impeachment: The Case in Favor

Elizabeth Holtzman

Approximately a year ago, I wrote in this magazine that President George W. Bush had committed high crimes and misdemeanors and should be impeached and removed from office. His impeachable offenses include using lies and deceptions to drive the country into war in Iraq, deliberately and repeatedly violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on wiretapping in the United States, and facilitating the mistreatment of US detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act of 1996.

Since then, the case against President Bush has, if anything, been strengthened by reports that he personally authorized CIA abuse of detainees. In addition, courts have rejected some of his extreme assertions of executive power. The Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees, and a federal judge ruled that the President could not legally ignore FISA. Even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's recent announcement that the wiretapping program would from now on operate under FISA court supervision strongly suggests that Bush's prior claims that it could not were untrue.<

Despite scant attention from the mainstream media, since last year impeachment has won a wide audience. Amid a flurry of blogs, books and articles, a national grassroots movement has sprung up. In early December seventy-five pro-impeachment rallies were held around the country and pro-impeachment efforts are planned for Congressional districts across America. A Newsweek poll, conducted just before election day, showed 51 percent of Americans believed that impeachment of President Bush should be either a high or lower priority; 44 percent opposed it entirely. (Compare these results with the 63 percent of the public who in the fall of 1998 opposed President Clinton's impeachment.) Most Americans understand the gravity of President Bush's constitutional misconduct. <

Public anger at Bush has been mounting. On November 7 voters swept away Republican control of the House and Senate. The President's poll numbers continue to drop.

These facts should signal a propitious moment for impeachment proceedings to start. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment "off the table." (Impeachment proceedings must commence in the House of Representatives.) Her position doesn't mean impeachment is dead; it simply means a different route to it has to be pursued. Congressional investigations must start, and public pressure must build to make the House act.

This is no different from what took place during Watergate. In 1973 impeachment was not "on the table" for many months while President Nixon's cover-up unraveled, even though Democrats controlled the House and Senate. But when Nixon fired the special prosecutor to avoid making his White House tapes public, the American people were outraged and put impeachment on the table, demanding that Congress act. That can happen again.

Congressional and other investigations that previously found serious misconduct in the Nixon White House made the public's angry reaction to the firing of the special prosecutor--and the House response with impeachment proceedings--virtually inevitable. Early in 1973, once it appeared that the cover-up might involve the White House, the Senate created a select committee to investigate. The committee held hearings and uncovered critical evidence, including the existence of a White House taping system that could resolve the issue of presidential complicity. The Senate also forced the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Watergate. Other committees looked into related matters. None of the investigations were prompted by the idea of impeachment. Still, they laid the groundwork for it--and the evidence they turned up was used by the House impeachment panel to prepare articles of impeachment against Nixon.

The same approach can govern now. Senate and House committees must commence serious investigations that could uncover more evidence to support impeachment. The investigations should ascertain the full extent of the President's deceptions, exaggerations and lies that drove us into the Iraq War. (They can simply in effect resurrect Republican Senator Howard Baker's famous questions about Richard Nixon: "What did the President know and when did he know it?") Congress should also explore the wiretapping that has violated the FISA law, the President's role in mistreatment of detainees and his gross indifference to the catastrophe facing the residents of New Orleans from Katrina.

Investigations should also be conducted into Vice President Cheney's meetings with oil company executives at the outset of the Administration. If divvying up oil contracts in Iraq were discussed, as some suggest, this would help prove that the Iraq War had been contemplated well before 9/11, and that a key motivation was oil. Inquiries into Halliburton's multibillion-dollar no-bid contracts should also be conducted, particularly given Cheney's ties to the company.

White House documents about Katrina that have not already been turned over to Congress should be sought to document further the President's failure to discharge his constitutional duty to help the people of New Orleans.

Our country's Founders provided the power of impeachment to prevent the subversion of the Constitution. President Bush has subverted and defied the Constitution in many ways. His defiance and his subversion continue.

Failure to impeach Bush would condone his actions. It would allow him to assume he can simply continue to violate the laws on wiretapping and torture and violate other laws as well without fear of punishment. He could keep the Iraq War going or expand it even further than he just has on the basis of more lies, deceptions and exaggerations. Remember, as recently as October 26, Bush said, "Absolutely, we are winning" the war in Iraq--a blatant falsehood. Worse still, if Congress fails to act, Bush might be emboldened to believe he may start another war, perhaps against Iran, again on the basis of lies, deceptions and exaggerations.

There is no remedy short of impeachment to protect us from this President, whose ability to cause damage in the next two years is enormous. If we do not act against Bush, we send a terrible message of impunity to him and to future Presidents and mark a clear path to despotism and tyranny. Succeeding generations of Americans will never forgive us for lacking the nerve to protect our democracy.
In some ways, the word treason is overworked. It almost fails to convey the magnitude of the heinous crimes that the US government has perpetrated upon the people of the US. Revolution is long overdue.

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fuzzflash sez....

Yes, comrades, it's time the kid-gloves came off. If Congress resists the will of the people, ie. Impeachment of BushCo, then it's high time we got on their cases. Give the bastards 24/7, well-organised, rolling static. Tens of thousands of us. It can't be that hard if Michael Moore can do it. He's been at it for 20 freakin' years. Time a mess of us followed his example.
Another 911 scenario and it "Goodnight Irene" for the last and greatest of human dreams. Unless, Nous Les Peuples, act now.

Unknown said...

Welcome back, Fuzzflash...I am with you comrade.

Michael Moore deserves a lot of credit. That he is villified by the right wing means he's doing a great job. The right wing has screwed up a once great nation. They are vehement because they know they've screwed --big time --but will blame others for their catastrophic, monumental, epic failures.

Sadly, the US, as we knew it, may not survive the war that is waged on it daily by a demonic and delusional right wing.

Anonymous said...

@len hart: i wouldn't say micheal moore's a great person. if anything i would see him as a tool of the right to discredit the left.

unfortunately alot of his arguements are valid and right, and then he has to go that extra mile and exaggerate a fact, or use misinformation just to try and drive his point home, which instead drive his (and anyone with the same viewpoints) credibility down.

if you want a credable outlook on it all, i reccomend noam chomsky.

very educated man with very educated arguments instead of showbizz fluff.

Unknown said...

I didn't say he was a great person. I said he is doing a great job. With the GOP in power, it is hard to exaggerate a fact.

I never bother to compare Noam Chomsky with anyone else. Nor Gore Vidal with anyone else. But that's not to say I don't have my favorite authors. I find Vidal an easier read than Chomsky. But then, again I found A.J. Ayer a good read while others find him completely incomprehensible. Between Ayer and Bronouski, I would choose Bronouski but that is not to say that Bronouski is a better writer. They are merely different.

Unfortunately, America was a showbiz nation. Not enough attention is given to the role of "showbbiz" in this nation's intellectual development, the impact of Vaudeville and Broadway on the waves of immigration.

There are some hints in "Ragtime" by E.L. Doctorow. He is most certainly among a handful of "intellectuals" who seem to have grasped the degree to which our culture and our intellectual life has been and continues to be influenced and shaped by showbiz.

Anonymous said...

Well, compared to the bald face lies and revisionist spin that comes from every corner of the right, Moore is an angel when it comes to rhetoric. Not to mention he had the balls to stand up to this group right from the get go, pretty much hanging out there all alone...that was not an easy position to be in, just ask any that have been waxed by the right. Also, say what you want about him, of course he is not an clinical intellectual as many mentioned, nor has he tried to pawn himself off as such, his is of a broad base appeal.

I personally don't play that game of the Dems having to to stay within the lines, all the while the goppers are stomping around how ever and where ever they please, and as we know they like to please themselves much. Frankly that is part of the reason we have come to this point of being a second string political party. I am not advocating adopting the gop behavior, but at the same time, tip toeing around at this point is rather stupid.

They say Moore's new movie is well done, and he is hardly "in" it, so that should help those that have become annoyed at him. For the most part, he does his home work, and yeah, he pulls a few stunts, even in "Sicko" also, but they never really bothered me before, so I doubt I should criticize him now.

Moore is trying to penetrate many barriers and compete with mass media culture on several levels in order to get through to as many (even half thinking) Americans as possible. Fox actually gave "Sicko" a thumbs up....and you know what I don't give a shit what any right winger says about Mike Moore, then or now...fuck em...they are the ones destroying the planet, no one else.

benmerc

jae said...

Holy Cow, Len, putting that clip at the end there really threw me for a loop. I've seen the pics before but it was because I knew where the link took me and I did some emotional readying.

It's just sickening what humans do to one another.

Unknown said...

anonymous said...

I personally don't play that game of the Dems having to to stay within the lines,

I've always hated that strategy. And the Democrats were doing it when there was no need to i.e, when they had clear majorities on a real positions. "Some" Democrats may have gained "some" center but at the loss of "some" of the very heart of the party.

I have a solution: 1) put an end to primary elections and replace them with a single general election based upon a "preference voting" system, something similar to the way in which coaches and/or teams are rated by AP, an "instant runnoff"; 2) put absolute spending limits on campaigns; 3) get corporations OUT of politics with an outright ban on corporate contributions and political advertising. Here is how that is done:

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT "PEOPLE" AND DO NOT HAVE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.

In fact, not being "people", corporations have no freakin' rights whatsoever.

I support a Constitutional Amendment to make that point clear.

jae,

sorry about the shock. I posted the video because, for too long, I was outraged about the lack of outrage when all Americans should have been outraged and screaming bloody murder. Tragcially, that's what our government has become --an murderous instrument of fascism i.e, the corporations that have sponsored and manipulate George W. Bush, a cold murderer and traitor.

Noticed that one of your fave books is "Lust for Life". I saw the movie version with Kirk Douglas when I was "small". I was appalled at the conditions in the Borinage and, later in the movie, impressed with the art. Irving Stone was gifted. He was able to bring Michelangelo and van Gogh to life in books and in movies. That is no small thing.

Unknown said...

An example of GOP thinking:

"Deng [Xiaoping] asked Henry [Kissinger] why we were so shocked over Tiananmen when the Cultural Revolution was going on when we opened relations with the PRC. He pointed out that surely that was much worse. He had a point."

—Former First Lady Barbara Bush relating a November 1989 dinner conversation with Henry Kissinger who had just returned from China. In Barbara Bush: A Memoir. New York: Lisa Drew Books, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.


Kissenger was enamored of Deng, called him a "great man", one of the greatest in Chinese history. Kissinger boasted that Deng considered him a friend and took him to a restaurant in Beijing, albeit they were in a private room. Bush Sr., likewise, boasted about his "friendships" in China and about unknowingly eating "dog lip" in the Forbidden City. It was later, in Japan, that Bush Sr puked on the Prime Minister of Japan.

Anonymous said...

Fuzz sez...

"that Bush Sr puked on the Prime Minister of Japan."

Far less a faux-pas than his imbecile offspring spewing on The Constitution. If only we could fade this mob to black like the Sopranos. Surprisingly few folk would give a toss what happened to them after the credits had rolled. A vainglorious clan of minor historical speed-bumps on the way to les peuples saving the planet.

Today I'm an optimist. Tomorrow my children and yours will have to breathe the air. Fresh or otherwise.

benmerc, with you for the long haul.

Marc McDonald said...

re:
>>>George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and
>>>the gang subverted the
>>>Constitution to carry out a
>>>war of naked aggression, itself
>>>a war crime

Impeachment?
Ain't gonna happen with the gutless Dems in Congress.
Hell, I'd just be happy if the corporate mainstream media would simply tell the people that Bush/Cheney lied the nation into war.

SadButTrue said...

Michael Moore made one very cogent observation in his book Stupid White Men. 'When a Republican runs against another Republican for public office, the Republican will always win.' (paraphrase) For some time now the corporate sponsors of the Republican party have had deep enough pockets to fund two campaigns at once. Often the Democratic and Republican nominees for Senate and Congressional seats have been nearly indistinguishable from one another on policy. There is only one political reality in America, the corporatocracy, and they fund both the right-wing Democratic Party and the extreme right-wing Republicans. The result is the death knell of democracy in America. The constitutional amendment against the idea of corporate personhood is a great idea Len. I just hope the barriers to such real meaningful recovery from the nightmare are not already too high.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke

enigma4ever said...

wonderful blog you have here...special...

Anonymous said...

FuzzFlash sez...

The Burke quote is a beauty,Sad.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one......".

Oui, mon ami, we are all "known associates" here.



enigma4ever,
if you'll permit me the liberty, ma'am, of a cut&paste from your blog bio:

"About Me
I am a heartbroken wandering refugee intuitive halfblind truthseeking scorched whistleblower mom nurse. I am a newsjunkie,research fiend.In many ways I am woman without a country right now. Most of my heroes are gone- MLK,Robert Kennedy,Ghandi, Marley,Lennon and now Jennings.The Bush Regime needs to come to an end."

You know, enigma, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful association.

Anonymous said...

Have you heard about HR 333? I urge you and your readers to take a few minutes to look at:

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/transparency.cgi?paper=1&qnum=pet45

It's a list of the 25 most recent comments made by real Americans participating in an online poll/letter-writing campaign concerning the impeachment charges recently filed against Vice President Cheney, which are now being evaluated by the House Judiciary Committee. Comments can be sent to elected representatives and local newspapers at your option. The participation page is at:

http://www.usalone.com/cheney_impeachment.php

Since this campaign began, several members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors, in part due to hearing from their constituents. Has yours? Make your voice heard, and let others know!

Unknown said...

enigma4ever said...

wonderful blog you have here...special...

Thanks...and I enjoyed your Plamegate Timeline and will add it to my "resources" links if that is OK.

SadButTrue, great Burke quote. Thanks, my friend.

Anonymous said...

Since this campaign began, several members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors

Thanks for sharing that link.

Anonymous said...

Speaking about great personages, I just love this recent quote from Valdimir Putin:

"Am I a 'pure democrat'? (laughs) Of course I am, absolutely. The problem is that I’m all alone---the only one of my kind in the whole wide world. Just look at what's happening in North America, it's simply awful---torture, homeless people, Guantanamo, people detained without trial and investigation. Just look at what's happening in Europe---harsh treatment of demonstrators, rubber bullets and tear gas used first in one capital then in another, demonstrators killed on the streets….. I have no one to talk to since Mahatma Gandhi died."

Putin and Bush in the same room...how does Putin stop himself laughing? I guess he has a lifetime of Soviet practice behind him. Perhaps the US and Russia could do a straight swap, leader for leader. It would be a fantastic deal for the US (of course, there would need to be some serious sweeteners thrown the Russian way, no question, with an intelligent nation like that one accepting a lemon like George Jnr. Billion dollar bribes, perhaps? Offers of free vodka?...)