Bush can run, but he cannot hide from the Constitution

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President Bush can run, but he cannot hide from the Constitution of the United States. The election does not pardon the President for past, or future “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Impeachment is not a partisan political issue. The House of Representatives, possessed of the “sole power of impeachment,” is required to consider a bill of impeachment on the facts even if every Member were of the same party, or political persuasion, as the President. The seven specific provisions of the Constitution setting forth the powers and duties of the Congress in considering impeachment intend that any President or other civil officer of the United States who has committed a high Crime or Misdemeanor “…shall be removed from Office.”

The power of impeachment assures the people against criminal acts and despotic ambitions by government officials.

We, the People have the power to require the House of Representatives to do its duty and act on a bill of impeachment after full investigation and consideration. If it fails to do so those House members who failed to perform this Constitutional duty can and should be voted from office. Remember that President Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment for Watergate less than two years after his landslide reelection in 1972.

Impeachment is Imperative

For the American people who support and defend the Constitution of the United States, who want to prevent further crimes by a lawless administration, who believe we can redeem our country in the eyes of those we have assaulted and those who have witnessed this brutality and who dare to demand of future government leadership, NEVER AGAIN, Impeachment is Imperative. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we Americans should declare the causes which impel us to impeach.

President George W. Bush chose to wage a war of aggression against Iraq, which had not attacked the United States and presented no imminent threat to our people, or legitimate interests. A small cabal, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby and Rove wrested decision making processes from established institutions of government to reinforce President Bush’s desire to seize Iraq, defying international institutions, the opinions of humankind and the rule of law to commence a disastrous criminal military adventure.

A Campaign of Deceit and False Propaganda

War of aggression is the first offense listed in the Nuremberg Charter as a Crime against Peace. The Nuremberg Tribunal after hearing evidence of Nazi crimes in World War II convicted the leaders of waging wars of aggression, which it called “the supreme international crime.”

At Nuremberg, the Chief U.S. Prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, promised posterity that in the future all nations, including our own, would be held accountable for such crimes.

President Bush and key administration officials engaged in a lengthy campaign of deceit, concealment and false propaganda to create support for, and acceptance of, its war of aggression by claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, harbored terrorists, had close ties with and supported Al Qaeda and intended to attack the U.S., U.S. citizens and U.S. interests. A free society, democratic institutions and constitutional government cannot survive such deceit by its own government.

The U.S. has made civilians and civilian facilities its direct object of attack. It has pursued assassination and summary executions as official policy. President Bush boasted of summary executions in his State of the Union message in 2003. Excessive and indiscriminate force and illegal weapons have been used. Many thousands of Iraqi citizens, whole families, women, children, elderly Iraqis have been killed as a result.

U.S. military casualties exceed 10,000 including more than 1,100 deaths with many additional thousands returned to the United States for physical and mental illnesses.

The U.S. has employed torture, including torture to death, rape and sexual assault and humiliation, as approved and ordered policy from Afghanistan and Guantanamo to Iraq, inflicted on thousands of prisoners, many, if not most, without any evidence of wrongful conduct. An admitted 37 human beings have been murdered while being held in captivity by the United States under these conditions. We know not how many more. All the mounting evidence makes clear that this program of torture and death is not aberrational conduct of rogue or undisciplined soldiers but is rather the policy adopted at the highest levels of the Bush/Rumsfeld chain of command. All this in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention Against Torture, the laws of all nations and common human decency.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States provides: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, Shall Be Removed From Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors

More than 100,000 Dead Based on a Lie

We learn from the prominent medical journal Lancet of the report by researchers at John Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad that the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq and military occupation has cost “at least” 100,000 Iraqi lives already must civilian, women and children. Already President Bush has launched a massive aerial and ground assault on Falluja which may kill thousands of defenseless civilians.

Haiti, where President Bush forced the elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide from office, is in chaos with many thousands killed by widespread daily violence committed by U.S. supported paramilitaries against Aristide supporters.

Nearly 500,000 have voted to impeach. Help us increase that number into millions the Congress cannot ignore.

Every American should choose whether to vote for impeachment entirely on the facts, straight up, or down, without political, or partisan fear, or favor. We owe this to the country, its future, the Constitution and our common heritage. Impeachment is Required Now.

Impeachment now is the only way we, the American people, can promise ourselves and the world that we will not tolerate crimes against peace and humanity by our government. Knowing what we know, to wait longer is to condone what has been done and risk more.


Articles by: Ramsey Clark

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