by Gerard Donnelly Smith
(Swans - June 20, 2005) Wake up Howard Dean! Remember: Regime change begins at home. Millions of Americans proudly displayed that sign during the 2004 election, hoping that they could exercise their right to expel the thieves from the White House. Unfortunately, because of election fraud in Ohio, as in Florida in 2000, the Bush Regime regained the presidency, and continues to consolidate power with threats of breaking the filibuster with a "nuclear option." The Bush Regime continues to wage an illegal occupation in Iraq, continues to manipulate both politics and economics in Afghanistan via the Hamid Karzai oil pipeline, continues to rattle its saber at Iran, North Korea, and any other country it deems "evil."
How does one resist the Bush Regime's blatant disregard for national sovereignty, individual freedoms, and constitutional laws protecting each American's right to a fair election?
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Francis Boyle, Professor of Law, have both drafted an "Impeachment Resolution Against President George W. Bush" while Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese argue in the Boston Globe that "THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse." John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, in "Unmasking a CIA Agent is Bad, Lying to Congress Worse. With Each US Death in Iraq, the Case Against the President Grows Stronger" writes:
Now that the U.S. government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq has, in effect, confirmed an obvious truth -- that President George W. Bush and his closest advisers promoted a non-existent nuclear and chemical weapons threat from Iraq to justify a war -- an obvious question presents itself: Why aren't Americans talking seriously about impeachment?
After all, Mr. Bush now stands plausibly accused of the lofty crime of subverting the Constitution of the United States -- that is, lying to Congress about an imminent danger to the American people in order to collect enough votes to authorize his corporate/imperial project in Iraq. (Globe & Mail (Canada), Thursday, October 9, 2003.)
The Green Party called for the impeachment of the Bush Regime on the last day of its National Convention in 2003, citing as evidence a "pattern of making false statements to Congress, the American people, and the world to win support for actions by the American government and military forces" in violation of the Constitution of the United States, Charter of the United Nations, and other international laws; "[s]quandering the resources of the American people to serve the interests of transnational corporations;" and "war crimes, including the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs in the preemptive invasion of Iraq." (http://www.gp.org/press/pr_07_21_03.html.)
In his book Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, John W. Dean, Counsel to President Richard Nixon, describes the impeachable offenses that should be levied against the Bush Regime, especially against the president and vice president. The "high crimes and misdemeanors" for which Bush et al. may be impeached and removed from office include 1) lies to justify the War in Iraq, 2) leaking the name of a CIA operative.
Among the list of growing offenses, these are the most prominent: 3) Ohio election fraud, 4) authorizing the torture of prisoners, 5) the Downing Street Memo, 6) illegal wiretaps of UN diplomats, 7) authorizing the kidnapping of "terror" suspects, 8) depriving citizens of First Amendment rights during the 2004 campaign and during his so-called town-hall meetings, 9) using federal tax-dollars to plant stories in the press, and 10) transferring $700 million from the Afghanistan war budget to preparations for the Iraq war.
These "alleged" offenses are sufficient evidence that a comprehensive resolution of impeachment should be drawn and introduced to Congress. Whether or not impeachment proceedings will be enacted by this Congress is not the issue. The mid-term elections are the issue. Howard Dean, as the Chairman of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), has the opportunity to take back the House and the Senate, if he and his party can develop a platform that will appeal to the populace. Since the Bush Regime's approval ratings are low -- due to the aforementioned high crimes and misdemeanors -- Dean should make impeachment the DNC's rallying cry!
Shifting the balance in Congress, so that Democrats have even a slim majority will be enough to ensure that an impeachment resolution is passed. Giving the American public that opportunity should be Dean's and the DNC's primary goal. In order to remove the Bush Regime ASAP, American voters must, first, take back the Congress from the Republican "yes men" who have allowed these crimes to go unchallenged; second, demand that the 110th Congress impeach the bastards!