Kucinich Says Unidentified Foreign Official Wants to Speak at Impeachment Talks

By Molly K. Hooper, CQ Today.

An unidentified government official of a U.S. ally wants to participate if and when Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich makes his case to impeach President Bush before the House Judiciary Committee, according to the Ohio Democrat.

The House voted, 238-180, on Tuesday to send Kucinich’s latest impeachment effort (H Res 1345) to the Judiciary Committee.

Chairman John Conyers Jr. said he will hold a broad hearing on the general topic of abuses of power by the Bush administration.

“There’s never been one [hearing] that accumulated all the things that constitute an imperial presidency,” Conyers said, explaining that the anticipated hearing would review more than a year of committee inquiry into such matters as the firing of U.S. attorneys, the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame and the information provided to Congress in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Kucinich contends that President Bush ought to be impeached for allegedly lying to Congress in order to get approval to invade Iraq.

Conyers does not intend to specifically debate or hold a committee vote on Kucinich’s article of impeachment, though issues important to Kucinich would get a public airing.

A ‘New Angle’

No matter how the eventual hearing is framed, Kucinich said he would like to be joined at the witness table by a foreign official he would not name.

“I’ve been contacted by representatives of a U.S. ally who are seeking an opportunity to appear before the Judiciary Committee,” he said in an interview.

“Legislative leaders of a foreign capital” have a “new angle that I haven’t thought of before but is relevant,” he said. “This interest in whether we’ve been told the truth has extended to other countries.”

Kucinich would not provide further detail.

And in any event, the power to control the witness list of any congressional hearing rests with the committee chairman — in this case, Conyers.

The article of impeachment that was referred to committee on Tuesday was the fourth introduced by Kucinich.

He also introduced a broader version against Bush (H Res 1258) and two against Vice President Dick Cheney (H Res 333, H Res 799).

Throwing us a bone, but don’t hold your breath: Pelosi Says House Judiciary May Hold Hearings On Impeachment

Impeachment is too good for this criminal.

Source: Politico.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning that the House Judiciary Committee may hold hearings on an impeachment resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

Kucinich is expected to offer a “privileged resolution” this afternoon calling on the House to look at whether President Bush should be removed from office for lying to Congress and the American public when he sought congressional approval back in 2002 for taking military action to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Pelosi has said previously that impeachment “was off the table,” so her comments this morning were surprising, and clearly signaled a new willingness to entertain the idea of ousting Bush, although no one in the Democratic leadership believes that is likely since the president has only six months left in this term.

“This is a Judiciary Committee matter, and I believe we will see some attention being paid to it by the Judiciary Committee,” Pelosi told reporters. “Not necessarily taking up the articles of impeachment because that would have to be approved on the floor, but to have some hearings on the subject.”

Pelosi added: “My expectation is that there will be some review of that in the committee.”

A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee had no immediate comment when asked whether Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman, planned hearings on Kucinich’s impeachment resolutions.

Update: Conyers said he had just gotten Kucinich’s new impeachment resolution, and he was not sure of when hearings would occur, or what kind of hearings be held. Democratic aides said they would examine “abuses of power” by the Bush administration, although it is unclear why or how that is different from what has taken place already throughout the 110th Congress.

One thing is clear, however — there will be no move to remove Bush from office, despite Pelosi’s comments this morning, or Kucinich’s resolution.

Gore Vidal: “The United States is not a republic anymore”

Source: Tehran Times. Why doesn’t the New York Times have the balls to print something like this?

TEHRAN (Press TV) — An interview with legendary American essayist, author, social and political critic.

Press TV: We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of the President’s Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his conversations with Bush and Cheney — does this show that Congress is serious about calling the executive to account?

Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that’s end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is De[n]nis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to the well of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives must then try the president, and then after that it goes to the Senate for judgment. However, none of these things will happen because there’s nobody there except for Mr. Kucinich who has the courage to take on a sitting president who is kind of a Mafioso.

Press TV: How can it just be one person among so many hundreds of Congressmen who wants the impeachment of George W. Bush in these circumstances?

Gore Vidal: Well it’s because we no longer have a country. We don’t have a republic any more. During the last 7 or 8 years of the Bush regime, they’ve got rid of the Bill of Rights, they’ve got rid of habeas corpus. They have got rid of one of the nicest gifts that England ever left us when they went away and we ceased to be colonies — the Magna Carta — from the 12th century. All of our law and due process of law is based on that. And the Bush people got rid of it. The president and little Mr. Gonzales who for a few minutes was his Attorney General. They managed to get rid of all of the constitutional links that made us literally a republic.

Press TV: You have often written about the United States’ superpower status in terms of the history of previous superpowers. Do you think we’re witnessing the end of U.S. power as some suggest. Will the White House be seen like Persepolis?

Gore Vidal: Well it won’t make such good ruins, no. It’ll be more like the tomb of Cyrus nearby. They managed to destroy the United States — why? Because they’re oil and gas people and they’re essentially criminals. I repeat that this is a criminal group that’s seized control of the country through what looked like an ordinary election. But there’s some very nice films and documentaries about what happened in the year 2000 when Albert Gore won the election for president and they saw to it that he couldn’t serve. They got the Supreme Court — which is the Holy of Holies ordinarily in our system – to investigate and then accuse the thieves of being absolutely correct and the winners — Mr. Gore and the Democrats — of being the cheaters. It’s the first law of Machiavelli, whatever your opponent’s faults are, you pick his virtues and you deny he has them. That’s what they did when Senator Kerry ran a few years ago for president. He’s a famous hero from the Vietnam War. They said he was a coward and not a hero. That’s how it’s done. When you have a bunch of liars in charge of your government you can’t expect to get much history out of that. But later on we’ll dig and dig… and we will dig up Persepolis.

Press TV: Senator Obama talks about change but of course he has courting Wall Street as well as the Israeli lobby — do you see any prospect of change with him as president?

Gore Vidal: Not really. I don’t doubt his good faith, just as I do not doubt the bad faith of Cheney and Bush. They are such dreadful people that we’ve never had in government before. They would never have risen unless they were buying elections as they did in Florida in 2000, as they did in the State of Ohio in 2004. These are two open thefts of the Presidency. When I discovered that this did not interest the New York Times or the Washington Post or any of the press of the country I realized our day was done. We are no longer a country we are a framework for crooks to go in and steal money. Knowing that they’ll never be caught and they’ll be admired for it. Americans always take everybody on his own evaluation. You say I’m a state and they say “oh, yeah yeah yeah, he’s a state, isn’t that great.” And you accuse the other people of your crimes before you commit them. It’s an old trick which was known to Machiavelli who wrote about it in his handbook, The Prince.

Press TV: Finally that issue which is exercising so many minds in the Middle East and beyond. You, yourself have written about so many Imperial wars of the United States. Do you think Bush and Cheney would risk another war in what Mohammad ElBaradei of the IAEA calls a fireball?

Gore Vidal: They are longing to but they have spent all of the money. They have got it in their own private companies like the Vice-President and a company called Halliburton which is stealing more money and should be on trial sooner or later before Congress. But perhaps not, who knows? But it’s well known in Washington, these people are leaking away the money of the country. Well there’s no more money. They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies.

The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don’t stop. When the public that’s lied to 30 times a day it’s apt to believe the lies, is not it?

Never too late to impeach – It’s the Law

Comment from Signs Of the Times with a link to an article about the Protect America and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts. Perhaps the Democrats’ passiveness stems from Bush using the acts to secretly spy on and blackmail them? It makes sense:

One wonders at this impeccable record of failure by the Dems, considering the numerical majority they hold in Congress. The Constitution is remarkable clear about the course of action Congress is to pursue regarding the Bush Reich, yet they have sidestepped it at every turn. It is as if there is a collective stranglehold on them.

Source: Stephen Dick, The Herald Bulletin.

“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.” – Article II, Section 4, U.S. Constitution

There’s really no equivocation in this simple statement. It doesn’t say impeachment will be considered, but it “shall be.”

Articles of impeachment are drawn up in the House of Representatives, which, if approved, move over to the Senate for trial.

In the face of the most lawless administration in U.S. history, what are we to make of a House that refuses its duty to impeach? Just a decade ago, fire-breathing Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying under oath about an affair. Now, manipulating intelligence to go to war and illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens rate not even the lift of an eyebrow in the House. Maybe that’s because the House is complicit in those crimes.

With only seven months to go in this rogue administration, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, spent four hours on the House floor last week reading 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Kucinich, whose presidential aspirations went nowhere, was nothing if not exhaustive.

The articles begin with a secret propaganda campaign to manufacturing a false case for war with Iraq to endangering the health of 9/11 responders. In between, there are accusations of conspiracy to violate voter rights, Katrina failure, secret laws and failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Each article is detailed with evidence, and each article is grounds for impeachment.

Kucinich read his articles on June 10. The next day, I received a call from a reader baffled why there was nothing in the paper about it. The wire services barely bothered with it. The media considers it a nonissue and so does the House.

According to a short Associated Press story on June 11 (one that concerned itself more with Kucinich than his charges), the House voted to move the articles to a committee, “a procedure often used to kill legislation.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was clear when the Democrats regained the House in 2006 that there would be no talk of impeachment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, sniveling behind Pelosi’s skirt, uttered his agreement.

The reasoning was that the Democrats had better things to do than waste time on the partisan battle of impeachment. They had to right the wrongs of Bush.

A year and a half later, what have the Democrats done? Absolutely nothing. They’ve caved in repeatedly to all of Bush’s demands. As Reid recently told Rolling Stone, there’s nothing the Democrats can do until a Democratic president is elected. How utterly pathetic is that?

Kucinich and Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, filed impeachment articles against Vice President Dick Cheney last November. Republicans then, as the AP wrote, saw “a chance to force Democrats into an embarrassing debate (and) voted to bring up the resolution.” The Democrats scuttled the bill, but what would’ve been embarrassing about it?

Democrats had the law on their side, which used to trump politics. Using the law to expose the criminality of government officials is not partisan. It’s the House’s duty.

I’m glad Kucinich got the articles into the congressional record. At least someone had the chutzpah to do so despite the spineless Democratic leadership, which will continue its abysmal appeasement of an administration out of control.

Just last week, Bush, speaking in Europe, upped the bellicose rhetoric about how terrible Iran is. Even the mainstream media was speculating that Bush will invade Iran before his watch is up to tie the hands of a (possibly) more peaceful successor.

What will the Democratic-led Congress do if Bush decides to invade? Will Democrats, as Reid suggested, roll over and give Bush what he wants while they await their savior? It would be ironic if Reid and the other cowards found themselves dealing with yet another war as a Democratic president came to office. Would the Democrats, as Reid insists, get what they want then, or would they still be dealing with Bush as he returns to his slacker ways in Crawford?

Stephen Dickwrites for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind. He can be reached at steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com.

Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment

It’s not just Le Monde, but even t.v. coverage of U.S. events in other countries is better than it is here. They aren’t afraid to show graphic images of the Iraq War either. No wonder the U.S. is so unpopular.

Source: Gore Vidal, Truth Dig.

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the great engine of impeachment – he listed some 35 crimes by these two faithless officials – we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had tried to destroy it.

Although this is the most important motion made in Congress in the 21st century, it was also the most significant plea for a restoration of the republic, which had been swept to one side by the mad antics of a president bent on great crime. And as I listened with awe to Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment.

But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic, and so I turned, as I often do, to the foreign press for a clear report of what has been going on in Congress. We all know how the self-described “war hero,” Mr. John McCain, likes to snigger at France, while the notion that he is a hero of any kind is what we should be sniggering at. It is Le Monde, a French newspaper, that told a story the next day hardly touched by The New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or, in fact, any other major American media outlet.

As for TV? Well, there wasn’t much – you see, we dare not be divisive because it upsets our masters who know that this is a perfect country, and the fact that so many in it don’t like it means that they have been terribly spoiled by the greatest health service on Earth, the greatest justice system, the greatest number of occupied prisons – two and a half million Americans are prisoners – what a great tribute to our penal passions!

Naturally, I do not want to sound hard, but let me point out that even a banana Republican would be distressed to discover how much of our nation’s treasury has been siphoned off by our vice president in the interest of his Cosa Nostra company, Halliburton, the lawless gang of mercenaries set loose by this administration in the Middle East.

But there it was on the first page of Le Monde. The House of Representatives, which was intended to be the democratic chamber, at last was alert to its function, and the bravest of its members set in motion the articles of impeachment of the most dangerous president in our history. Rep Kucinich listed some 30-odd articles describing impeachable offenses committed by the president and vice president, neither of whom had ever been the clear choice of our sleeping polity for any office.

Some months ago, Kucinich had made the case against Dick Cheney. Now he had the principal malefactor in his view under the title “Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush”! “Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate.” The purpose of the resolve is that he be duly tried by the Senate, and if found guilty, be removed from office. At this point, Rep. Kucinich presented his 35 articles detailing various high crimes and misdemeanors for which removal from office was demanded by the framers of the Constitution.

Update: On Wednesday, the House voted by 251 to 166 to send Rep. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment to a committee which probably won’t get to the matter before Bush leaves office, a strategy that is “often used to kill legislation,” as the Associated Press noted later that day.

Kucinich Vows New Round of Impeachment Articles Against Bush If Measure Dies

I’m glad there’s someone in the Democratic Party with balls.

Source: Jason Leopold, The Public Record.

Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Congressman and former 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate, said he would continue to introduce resolutions calling for the removal of President George W. Bush from office if the articles of impeachment against Bush that he presented to the House Monday is not taken up within 30 days or dies in committee.

On Monday, Kucinich introduced the articles of impeachment against President Bush in the form of a privileged resolution, a procedural maneuver requiring Congress to take up the measure within two legislative days. Kucinich spent four-hours reading 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, accusing the commander-in-chief of a wide-range of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” such as lying to Congress and the public to win support for the Iraq war.

Congressman Robert Wexler, (D-Fla.), agreed to co-sponsor of the measure Tuesday.

Congress voted 251-166 Wednesday to send the articles of impeachment to a House Judiciary Committee for review where it’s expected to die.

But Kucinich said if that happens he will just introduce another resolution until lawmakers vote on the measure.

“Leadership wants to bury it, but this is one resolution that will be coming back from the dead,” Kucinich told the Washington Post Wednesday. “Thirty days from now, if there is no action, I will be bringing the resolution up again, and I won’t be the only one reading it. We’ll come back and many of us will be reading this [on the House floor], and we’ll come back with 60 articles, not 35.”

In a statement Wednesday, Kucinich urged the House Judiciary Committee to “begin a review of the 35 articles” and said he “will be providing supporting documentation to the committee so that it can proceed in an orderly manner.”

Kucinich said he expects to meet with Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers within a week to for the committee to vote on the measure. A resolution Kucinich sponsored last year to impeach Cheney was sent to Conyers’ committee but was not debated.

Conyers, as well as others in the Democratic leadership, has opposed initiating impeachment proceedings against President Bush. Conyers has said the House simply does not have enough votes to support impeachment and therefore pursuing it would be a waste of time.

He did, however, state in a letter sent to President Bush on May 8, that he would pursue impeachment if the president were to launch a military strike against Iran without first receiving approval or consulting Congress about the matter.

“Late last year, Senator Joseph Biden stated unequivocally that “the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach” the president.

“We agree with Senator Biden, and it is our view that if you do not obtain the constitutionally required congressional authorization before launching preemptive military strikes against Iran or any other nation, impeachment proceedings should be pursued,” Conyers’ letter says.

Kucinich said the articles of impeachment against President Bush are a way for lawmakers to “create an historical record of the misconduct of the Bush administration.”

“The weight of evidence contained in the articles makes it clear that President Bush violated the Constitution and the U.S. Code as well as international law,” Kucinich said in a prepared statement.

“It is the House’s responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to provide an effective check and balance to executive abuse of power,” Kucinich continued in the statement. “President Bush was principally responsible for directing the United States Armed Forces to attack Iraq.”

“I believe that there is sufficient evidence in the articles to support the charge that President Bush allowed, authorized and sanctioned the manipulation of intelligence by those acting under his direction and control, misleading Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq,” he added.

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is “off the table” because it would hinder the Democrats’ chances of securing a bigger majority in Congress come November and could result in a public backlash and cause the party to lose the November presidential election.

“Speaker Pelosi will continue to lead legislative efforts to find a new direction in Iraq but believes that impeachment would create a divisive battle, be a distraction from Congress’s efforts to chart a new course for America’s working families and would ultimately fail,” Pelosi’s spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer Tuesday.

Congress has not considered impeachment because the Democratic leadership believes it will hurt their party’s chances of securing the White House in November’s hotly contested presidential election between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.

Comment: That’s a lame excuse! There’s no chance in hell of McCan’t winning the election.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence agreed. Last week, the committee released a long-awaited report on prewar Iraq intelligence that concluded President Bush and Vice President Cheney knowingly lied to the public and to Congress about Iraq’s links to al-Qaeda and the threat the country posed to the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11.

That would be an impeachable offense, according to former Nixon counsel John Dean.

“To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked,” Dean wrote in a June 6, 2003 column for findlaw.com.

“Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be “a high crime” under the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.

Scholar: Democrats Shielding Bush

Source: David Edwards and Mike Sheehan, Raw Story.

Law professor and constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley says that America’s founders “would have been astonished by the absolute passivity, if not the collusion, of the Democrats in protecting President Bush from impeachment.”

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann talked with Turley one day after Kucinich’s historic presentation of 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush that garnered little mainstream media attention but was an Internet sensation.

Despite noting that not all of the articles Kucinich presented were “impeachable offenses” in a strict sense, Turley says “there are plenty of crimes there — this is a target-rich environment.”

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast June 10, 2008.

The Existentialist Cowboy: Liberty Betrayed!

This goes to show how much we need viable third parties.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/06/liberty-betrayed.html

Et tu, Democratic Party?

The American people have now suffered what must surely be the ultimate betrayal! Those elected to represent and serve their interests in Congress have ‘winked and nodded’ to Bush’s heinous crimes, abuses, usurpations of unconstitutional power, aggressive war and villainy. Democrats in Congress have quashed a move by Dennis Kucinich to impeach the usurper who still occupies the White House.

In a single act of cowardice and betrayal, if not treason, the US congress has ‘scuttled’ the Articles of Impeachment drawn up and carefully researched by Dennis Kucinich. The US government, therefore, may no longer assert or claim legitimacy. By turning a blind eye to the numerous specific crimes that Kucinich outlined and proved in some 35 Article of Impeachment, the people are left adrift. There is no rule of law!

WASHINGTON – Democrats in the House of Representatives yesterday scuttled a colleague’s proposal to impeach President Bush on a wide range of charges, including lying to the American public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, torturing war captives, and misleading Congress in an attempt to destroy Medicare. By a 251-166 vote, the House sent the 35-count articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, which is expected to let it die without further action. While the vote technically forces the measure to the committee for consideration, it also means the full House will avoid having to debate and vote on impeaching the 43d president.– Democrats scuttle proposal to impeach Bush

According to Boston. com “no Democrats [sic] voted against the resolution to send the measure to certain death in the Judiciary Committee, but 166 Republicans voted no – a tactic designed to force Democrats to address the measure publicly.” The desires, needs and aspirations of the vast majority of people had long ago been betrayed by the GOP. Now –the Democrats have simply twisted the knife in the wound. Thomas Jefferson would have had this to say:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

Clearly –as Dennis Kucinich proved conclusively and persuasively in some 35 Articles of Impeachment –the government of George W. Bush, his enablers, toadies, and the financial support that he enjoys has ‘broken the peace’ with the American people. The US Constitution is a covenant between the people and those elected to serve them. Bush has broken that covenant, thumbed his nose at it and disdained it, calling the Constitution ‘ …just a goddamned piece of paper!” The case against Bush, indeed this government was documented and proven in Kucinich’s 35 Articles of Impeachment. America, your government has betrayed you!

When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken. –Guerrilla Warfare, Ernesto “Che” Guevara

What will you do without freedom? What will you do about the yoke of tyranny imposed by the war criminal and usurper who now occupies the White House illegally? The Courts have abandoned you. The ‘Presidency’ is lost, perhaps forever to the forces of totalitarianism, greed and villainy.

Americans’ last hope –the Democratic majority in Congress –has, in fact, told you to ‘fuggetaboutit’! The US government is no longer legitimate! Like Bush, your government no longer ‘cares what you think!”

ADDENDUM: I was in the process of annotating Kucinich’s ‘Articles’ when I learned of the Democrats betrayal. Here are the very few that I had assembled:

1. Senate Finds Pre-War Bush Claims Exaggerated, False
   Proof Bush Fixed The Facts
   Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
   False Pretenses
   Study: Bush Led US To War on ‘False Pretenses’
2. The Nation: Bush’s Lies About Iraq
   BBC: Bush administration on Iraq 9/11 link
   Bush Falsely Claims He Never Linked Hussein To September 11»
   Ex-Bush aides conflate 9/11, Iraq in pro-war ad campaign
   9/11 Linked To Iraq, In Politics if Not in Fact
   Mother Jones: The Lie Factory
   Pro War Ads Falsely Link 9/11 To Iraq
   Bush Misled America about the Threat from Iraq
   Buzzflash: Did George W. Bush Invade Iraq by Lying?
3. A History Of Lies: WMD, Who Said What and When
   President Delivers “State of the Union” (2003)
   Iraq WMD Lies: The Words of Mass Deception
4. Nuremberg Principles:
   

   Principle I Any person who commitsan act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

   Principle II

   The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the personwho committed the act from responsibility under international law.

   Principle III

   The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsibleGovernment official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

   Principle IV

   The fact that aperson acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility underinternational law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

   War of Aggression = War Crime
   Bush Officials Charged with War Crimes: Crimes within the Court’s Jurisdiction:

   • The crime of genocide
   • Crimes against humanity
   • The crime of aggression
   • Crimes against United Nations and associated personnel
   • War crimes
   • Other categories of crimes

Crimes within the Court’s Jurisdiction

Kucinich effort to impeach Bush kicked into limbo

Michael Rivero says: “Time to kick the entire government into limbo.”

It would be great to throw out the whole rotten crew.

From Lisa Desjardins, CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – An attempt by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to impeach President Bush was kicked into legislative no-man’s land by members of his own party Wednesday.

The House voted 251-166 to send the Ohio Democrat’s impeachment resolution to committee, a maneuver that allows the Democratic leadership to freeze the measure indefinitely.

The vote largely followed partisan lines, with 225 Democrats voting on Kucinich’s request to send the measure to committee for consideration.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she would not support a View Drafts resolution calling for Bush’s impeachment, saying such a move was unlikely to succeed and would be divisive.

All 166 votes in favor of opening up a House impeachment debate came from Republicans, apparently eager to bring up the vote immediately and paint Democrats as political creatures in a time of serious issues.

Kucinich introduced the resolution into the House on Tuesday night.

Most of the congressman’s resolution deals with the Iraq war, contending that the president manufactured a false case for the war, violated U.S. and international law to invade Iraq, failed to provide troops with proper equipment and falsified casualty reports for political purposes.

Kucinich also charges that Bush has illegally detained without charge both U.S. citizens and “foreign captives,” and violated numerous U.S. laws through the use of “signing statements” declaring his intention to do so.

Other articles address global warming, voting rights, Medicare, the response to Hurricane Katrina and failure to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Last year, Kucinich introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. But the attempt failed in November, when Republicans tried to force a debate on it. Democrats voted to send the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, where the committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, has taken no action on it.

An earlier resolution to impeach Cheney has languished in the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties since May 2007.

The House of Representatives has voted to impeach two presidents — Andrew Johnson, in 1868, and Bill Clinton, in 1999 — but both were acquitted by the Senate and remained in office. No U.S. vice president has been impeached.

Kucinich dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president in January to focus on his re-election bid in Ohio. He handily won the Democratic primary in his district March 4 and faces former state Rep. Jim Trakas in the general election.

Our nation’s self-respect demands impeachment

Source: Linda Boyd, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

I wept to see Sami al Haj embrace his young son for the first time after six years in Guantanamo prison. Sami al Haj, a Sudanese news cameraman, was seized in Pakistan while working for al Jazeera News. He was imprisoned, tortured and brutalized by Americans while there. Like most prisoners held at Guantanamo, al Haj was never tried or charged.

After his release, Sami al Haj arrived in Sudan and was immediately rushed to a hospital by ambulance, weakened by his 438-day hunger strike in Guantanamo. His message to our government: “Torture does not stop terrorism, torture is terrorism.”

The U.S. government evidence against him says, “He was trained in the use of cameras by al Jazeera News.”

The American people have a choice ahead of them. They can continue to be shamed as a nation of torturers, or they can put a stop to this administration’s ongoing crimes against humanity.

Abusing and terrorizing innocent people doesn’t make us safer. Imprisoning people without due process doesn’t make us safer. Violating our laws, treaties and values doesn’t make us safer.

U.S. military and FBI interrogation experts affirm that testimony obtained under torture is inaccurate and unreliable. In May, the FBI issued a scathing 371-page report on torture and war crimes compiled from observations at Guantanamo. Even the CIA concluded in a 1963 study that coercion is “not very helpful outside the context of producing false propaganda.”

George W. Bush said, “We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture.”

Recently, Bush admitted that he knew top administration officials met repeatedly in the White House to discuss coercive interrogation techniques, including torture, and that he “approved them.”

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top administration officials have in fact condoned torture, and violated domestic and international laws that ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of human beings.

These laws include the Geneva Conventions, the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture and the U.S. Constitution. These laws are not invalidated, as the Bush team alleges, if prisoners are not on U.S. soil.

Torture laws are jus cogens, meaning “compelling law,” said constitutional law Professor Marjorie Cohn, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. “There can be no immunity from criminal liability for violation of a jus cogens prohibition.”

Being a rogue nation is not in our best interest and exposes our soldiers and citizens to grave danger. Why hasn’t Congress stopped torture?

It is unconscionable to simply wait for the torture team to leave office while hapless individuals are imprisoned without due process and tortured. Sami al Haj spoke of the many prisoners languishing in Guantanamo. In despair, many have tried to commit suicide.

Taking impeachment off the table means there is no limit to the Bush team’s depravity, and that torture will continue in our name.

The administration is already expanding prisons around the world, where the abuse of human rights will continue. A new 40-acre prison is under construction in Afghanistan.

While Guantanamo’s prison population is shrinking, prisoners from around the world are being redirected to U.S. prisons in Iraq, where they’ll be more hidden from the public eye. Particularly disturbing are reports of children imprisoned by the U.S. in the Middle East and Guantanamo.

Eventually, some of our highest officials will be tried for war crimes in a court of international law.

Already, charges of condoning torture are advancing against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in France. Author Philippe Sands quotes a judge with experience in international criminal cases who says “It’s a matter of time” before members of the Bush administration are arrested for war crimes while traveling abroad.

Why bother with impeachment if charges for war crimes will eventually catch up with the torture team?

Criminal charges can punish individuals for their crimes, but impeachment has the power to restore the rule of law, and redeem the office of the executive. Impeachment hearings will put the truth on the congressional record. Unlike other subpoenas, impeachment subpoenas cannot be denied.

Impeachment establishes legal precedent, so that future public officials will not be able to abuse power in the same way. The American people can signal to the world that they have taken responsibility for their own government, and ensure that torture will never again be this nation’s policy.

We must demand that Congress make ending torture the top priority. They know about torture, and their silence makes them complicit.

The eyes of the world are upon us. There’s plenty of time to impeach. Our self-respect as a nation demands it.

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Linda Boyd is director of Washington for impeachment.