When the Whole White House is Criminal, How Do You Impeach an Entire Administrat

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Thu, 2 Mar 2006 23:00:06 -0800 (PST)

When the Whole White House is Criminal,

How Do You Impeach an Entire Administration?

 

 

 

 

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb06/Charles27.htm

 

 

When the Whole White House is Criminal,

How Do You Impeach an Entire Administration?

 

by James Charles

www.dissidentvoice.org

February 27, 2006

 

The list of criminal acts is long, depressing as it is frightening.

Equally depressing is the silence of the Democrats, the media

and ordinary citizens. Is American democracy dead?

In the current issue of The National Review, William F. Buckley calls

for the Bush administration to admit that it made a hideous mistake

by invading Iraq, writing that " the administration has, now, to cope

with failure and the acknowledgment of defeat " of its entire policy

from launching the war to believing it could unite and pacify

religious enemies whose mutual hatred goes back a millennia,

to installing a government that superficially resembles a democracy.

 

On one hand, when the dean of modern conservative politics

says Iraq was a mistake, even the most ideologically driven neo-con

must pay attention. On the other, the " failure " and " defeat " he writes

about is not simply another " Oops, we goofed! " mea culpa that White

House apologists can spin on the Sunday morning interview shows.

 

While cloaking his condemnation in polite Ivy League-ese terms

like " postulates " and " mitigation of policies, " Mr. Buckley overlooks

one simple fact: No matter how noble a policy of spreading freedom

may look on paper, the White House has been criminal in carrying it out.

 

The dilemma for America is: When the whole executive branch is criminal,

how do you impeach an entire administration?

 

* President Bush knowingly lied to Congress when he certified in writing

an immediate threat to the security of the United States mandated

the need to use armed force to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein.

 

As has been well documented over the past three years,

the administration knew before Bush's 2003 State of the Union message

that there were serious doubts in the intelligence establishment -

- the CIA, DIA, State Dept. and Dept. of Energy -- that Saddam

had either chemical weapons or a program to build atomic weapons.

 

Lying to Congress is a federal offence,

— a felony punishable with prison; on its face, it is also

— a " high crime and misdemeanor " -- an impeachable offence.

 

* The President knowingly violated

— both the Constitution and the law by authorizing

warrantless wiretapping, eavesdropping and spying on Americans.

— Likewise, in claiming the power to arrest and hold citizens

without charge he has violated the Constitution

and his oath of office to uphold that very document.

— He committed a felony and an impeachable offence.

 

* Vice President Dick Cheney, armed with an Executive Order

he got Bush to sign allowing him to unilaterally declassify information,

— decided to declassify Valerie Plame's role in the CIA.

He then set about outing her when her husband returned from Niger

and wrote a report stating that there was no evidence Iraq was trying

to buy yellowcake, a necessary ingredient to make a nuclear weapon.

 

Jason Leopold, who has been covering Plamegate from the start,

reported on Feb. 24, 2006, that the White House had just " found "

250 allegedly missing e-mails about Plame and that the Vice President

is implicated directly. The e-mails purportedly show

— Cheney lied to FBI agents about his role in the scandal,

— itself a federal offence punishable by imprisonment.

It also meets the " high crime and misdemeanor " impeachment test.

 

* Even after being warned by the Navy's general counsel - its top lawyer -

- that interrogation techniques being used by Americans at Guantanamo

were illegal, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued an order

authorizing what amounts to physical and psychological torture.

He has repeatedly denied the Red Cross private access to prisoners

— despite a treaty which guarantees the agency such access,

a treaty which was first written by the United States. Likewise, the FBI

warned the Defense Dept. that the interrogation of prisoners it witnessed

— was violating US law against torture, a warning Rumsfeld ignored.

 

Now, along with the Red Cross, groups including the United Nations,

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have condemned the US

for violating basic human rights, partly because it keeps secret the names

of prisoners being held and partly for abusing the prisoners in custody.

— Put Mr. Rumsfeld in the dock next to Bush and Cheney.

 

* While White House counsel, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,

with help from ideologue sycophants like former Justice Dept. lawyer

and now law professor John Yoo, created a convoluted rationale

to support the illegal actions of the Executive Branch. Apparently,

Mr. Gonzales never studied the laws written largely by the United States

for the Nuremberg trials that judged Nazi war criminals.

That code of justice punished jurists who formulated and interpreted laws

created to justify criminal acts. There is a special place in court

for people

like Mr. Gonzales who manipulate the law to countenance criminality.

 

The list of criminals is seemingly endless.

 

Colin Powell, a man of otherwise impeccable integrity

who devoted his life to the service of his country, knowingly

allowed himself to be made the administration's Knight Errant

by trying to convince the world that war was necessary.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who wrote Powell's UN speech and had access

to all the intelligence -- not just bits the administration wanted people

to hear -- admitted on the PBS public affairs program Now

on Feb. 3, 2006: " I participated in a hoax on the American people,

the international community and the United Nations Security Council. "

 

Former CIA director George Tenet knowingly gave the White House select

bits of intelligence he knew it wanted as justification for invading Iraq.

While National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice knew -

- or " should have known, " as lawyers say -- that the pre-war intelligence

was being cooked to prop up a shaky case for war

and neither objected nor resigned.

 

Don't forget the Joint Chiefs of Staff who, in 2003, went along

with dubious war plans, also without objection or resignation.

Or the field generals and senior officers who oversaw not just

prison camp torture but waged an indiscriminate war on Iraqi civilians,

— particularly in Fallujah where white phosphorus shells rained down

— on innocent men, women and children cowering in their hovels.

The website Baghdad Burning, written by a woman living in Iraq,

also writes about how US troops break into homes

in the middle of the night for no reason while ignoring what she calls

" the vicious civil war " being fought on the country's streets every day.

 

At home, FBI Director Robert Mueller violates his oath of office

by allowing agents to illegally spy on citizens

— only exercising their constitutional right of protest. Michael Chertoff,

who is so incompetent running Homeland Security his behavior borders

on criminal, is quietly spending $387 million with a Halliburton

subsidiary

— to Construct Detention Camps at Secret Locations across America

to house up to several hundred thousand people for the undefined

" rapid development of new programs. "

— And don't forget Karl Rove, who orchestrated the theft not just one

— but two Presidential Elections, new evidence dribbling out now reveals.

 

The list is long, as depressing as it is frightening.

 

Yet equally depressing is the silence of Democrats, the news media

and ordinary citizens. The Democrats look cowed, the news media

is a placid mouthpiece accepting administration talking points,

and ordinary citizens are afraid. " Please don't send me

your investigative reporting or political columns by e-mail, "

a long-time friend wrote to me by snail mail a few months ago.

" I'm afraid it will trigger NSA computers and make me a target. "

 

It took the funeral of Coretta Scott King for even

a few people of conscience to " speak truth to the powerful "

in the tradition of black churches, saying to Pres. Bush's face

the unpleasant realities that many are thinking.

 

Democracy in America may not be dead but it is in critical condition.

 

People who lived through Watergate remember how Richard Nixon

tried stealing the Constitution and the crisis he provoked as a result.

— Yet today, there is a far stealthier, more powerful and

— darkly insidious effort afoot to undermine and even destroy

more than — 230 years of American democratic ideals,

liberal political thought, and tradition of dissent and debate.

 

When the huge task of writing the Constitution was finally completed,

Benjamin Franklin emerged from the building in Philadelphia where

the convention was held to be confronted by a woman waiting word.

 

" What did you give us, Mr. Franklin? " she asked.

Franklin laid his hand on her shoulder and replied,

" A democracy, madam, if you can keep it. "

 

The question today remains, as it was

in Franklin's time, can America keep its democracy?

 

=====================================

James Charles is an independent investigative journalist

and writer, an American who lives in Toronto.

 

Other Articles by James Charles at:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb06/Charles27.htm

* An Amoral Morality Play

* Thugs Attack Federal Judges!

* Washington's Darkest Secret

* The White House Plays Extreme Dodge Ball

* Public Transit is a Moveable Feast

* Ready for Pentagon TV?

* Is Anything an " Experience " When Everything Is?

* Everyone Take Another Step To The Right

* It Was Fun Being a Baby Boomer -- Until We Realized How Old We're

Getting

* Encountering Hunter Thompson