Bush Administration: High Crimes and Misdemeanors

It's beyond clear now that the Bush administration lied to congress and to the people regarding the rationale to invade Iraq (WMD). Then came the Downing Street Memo (as if any more proof of wrong-doing was needed). To many legal scholars, lying our nation into war most definitely falls under high crimes and misdemeanors. It's time for this administration to be accountable to the law and to - we the people - whom they claim to serve. The precedent for impeachment is there.

It's damn sad that we'd impeach a president for lying under oath regarding a sex-act and not for offenses that have led to the deaths of almost 2000 of our troops, maimed thousands more, tarnished our image abroad and flushed our nation's treasure down the toilet - all based on LIES.

How long can the American people stand to be lied to?

High Crimes and Misdemeanors
By Ken Sanders
CommonDreams.org

Saturday 18 June 2005

Under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, "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." Any reasonable interpretation of the Constitution's impeachment clause, and the historical application thereof, leads to the inescapable conclusion that articles of impeachment should be brought against President Bush for his commission of high crimes against the United States.

It is the consensus among legal and constitutional scholars that the phrase "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" refers to "political crimes." While not necessarily indictable crimes, "political crimes" are great offenses against the federal government. They are abuses of power or the kinds of misconduct which can only be committed by a public official by virtue of the unique power and trust which he holds. Thus, high crimes and misdemeanors refer to major offenses against our very system of representative democracy. Likewise, high crimes and misdemeanors can be serious abuses of the governmental power with which the President has been trusted.

In the case of Iraq, it is becoming harder and harder to deny that Bush engaged in official misconduct that caused serious and likely irreparable injury to the United States.
www.truthout.org...

You know that memo is not dying in the news like many including me though, is still circulation and still making prime time.

I think the memo is an important piece of information somebody needs to be held accountable for the mistakes of the present administration.

Originally posted by marg6043
I think the memo is an important piece of information somebody needs to be held accountable for the mistakes of the present administration.

Hopefully it will be the smoking gun. Especially now that Bush's support is softening among the GOP (over the war).

They didn't make mistakes.. those mistakes were intentional. You see this face: That was me yesterday watching Condi "Madame Dowager" Rice lie through her frikken teeth on ABC's This Week.

The Memo doesn't seem to be going away. And more and more members of the GOP are distancing themselves from Bush. Trouble ahead?

Time to Impeach a War Criminal
By DOUG THOMPSON
Jun 20, 2005, 08:26
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Slowly, but steadily, the Downing Street Memo is getting the public attention it deserves and making the case that President George W. Bush should be removed from office.
The memo, dated July 23, 2002, is a summary of a meeting between Richard Dearlove, the head of British intelligence, and senior Bush Administration officials. This was before Bush started making his public case to invade Iraq but, according to the memo, the decision had already been made:

“The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The [National Security Council] had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”

In other words, at a time when Bush was telling the American people that “every possible avenue” would be exhausted before going to war the administration had, in fact, already made up its mind to invade Iraq and was willing to manufacture evidence to support such an invasion.
www.capitolhillblue.com...

Originally posted by EastCoastKid

Hopefully it will be the smoking gun

I don't think it will be as much as I'd like it to be. They said the Downing Street Memo's would be the Smoking Gun. Even George Galloways testimony in front of a panel would be the smoking gun but the government continues to down play these issued. They made up a fake memo so that the Downing Street memos would be proven fake. They tried to make the people see right through Galloway.

There have been alot supposed "smoking guns" and not one has broken this administration. Not one has proven to the American people what the truth is. Bush and his cronies continue their objective as if nothing is wrong. That is truly sad.

Originally posted by marg6043
I think the memo is an important piece of information somebody needs to be held accountable for the mistakes of the present administration.

Before you impeach this Administration you must wake up the American people first to the truth. If you do not than the people will be wondering "why are impeaching our President? He's done nothing wrong."

People in the country are still blinded by the propoganda and lies the government has brought to the table. So in essense they believe Bush is a great President the U.S. government has done nothing wrong.

Alot of that ignorance of the masses is the fault of the mainstream media. If they went after this memo scandal with the ferver they had in cheerleading the invasion, this administration would be toast.

Originally posted by EastCoastKid
Alot of that ignorance of the masses is the fault of the mainstream media. If they went after this memo scandal with the ferver they had in cheerleading the invasion, this administration would be toast.

Oh, I totally agree that the mainstream media is a BIG part of it. Heck, the government pays CNN and mainly Fox News to spread the lies. Now there are some good people in those organizations but I think they're scared to go after these kind of issues.

There is alot of self-censorship. Folks know what will fly and what won't. Some news organizations are better than others. TV "news," tho.. fugheddabouddit.

Originally posted by EastCoastKid
There is alot of self-censorship. Folks know what will fly and what won't. Some news organizations are better than others. TV "news," tho.. fugheddabouddit.

There's no such thing as an unbiased FREE media in the US anymore. There hasn't been for a long time. You have to rely on the more obscure internet news sites to actually get news without the Bull#.

I will believe it when I see it on right wing TV News


How much proof needed before the truth comes out?
Now seven leaked British documents raise Iraq war questions

Online Journal
By Kevin Zeese
Snip~
June 17, 2005—The Downing Street Memo—minutes of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisors that said the US was "fixing" the intelligence to support the Iraq War—was not enough to get the mainstream US media or members of Congress to take the issue seriously.

Now there is Downing 1 through 7

Cabinet Office Memo I
Cabinet Office Memo II,,,

Memo from Meyer to Blair III,,,
Snip~
On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs and the critical importance of the MEPP as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skilfully [sic], we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board.

Memo: Ricketts to Blair IV,,,
Snip~
First, the THREAT. The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11 September. This is not something we need to be defensive about, but attempts to claim otherwise publicly will increase scepticism [sic] about our case. I am relieved that you decided to postpone publication of the unclassified document. My meeting yesterday showed that there is more work to do to ensuer [sic] that the figures are accurate and consistent with those of the US. But event he best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years ont he [sic] nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.

Memo From Jack Straw to Tony Blair V,,,
Snip~
If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the US would now be considering military action against Iraq. In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida. Objectively, the threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September. What has however changed is the tolerance of the international community (especially that of the US), the world having witnesses on September 11 just what determined evil people can these days perpetuate.

The Growing Case for a Resolution of Inquiry VI,,,
Snip
A February 2001, CIA report delivered to the White House that stated: "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs."[3]

-Secretary of State Colin Powell in February 2001 that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction

VII! Dead link
legal options memorandum—eight pages long—looks at the alternative legal justifications for war—security counsel resolutions, self-defense and humanitarian intervention—and finds all of them lacking


Source:
onlinejournal.com...

[edit on 21/6/2005 by Sauron]

As if it is not the first time an American President has lied. Regardless of political party, they all lie and we have been in previous wars that I am sure had some lies too. Regardless of your position, what do you hope impeaching Bush will do? You still have the republican administration is charge and little old Cheney who will probably drop dead of a heart attack before finishing the term.

Impeachment sounds lovely and may make you feel happy but just like going into to Iraq, once you get there and do the job, just how do you plan on dealing with what is left????

Originally posted by Memorialday1999
As if it is not the first time an American President has lied. Regardless of political party, they all lie and we have been in previous wars that I am sure had some lies too. Regardless of your position, what do you hope impeaching Bush will do

The rule of law and ethics demand accountability. After the botched Somalia operation where 19 servicemembers died, the outrage and calls for Secretary of Defense Les Aspin's resignation was deafening. I was one who called for his head on a platter. President Bill Clinton responded by quickly announcing Aspin's resignation.

For the families of the fallen, accountability was given.

Thus far, there has been only the slightest hint of accountability within this administration: CIA Director George Tenet's ridiculous "falling on his sword" for Bush (resignation), which was thoroughly useless and the prosecution of those "few bad apples" from Abu Ghraib. And those turkeys were instructed by their superiors to act unlawfully. Only one person in their chain of command was held responsible: Gen. Janice Karpinski. Many speculate the reason she was repremanded is b/c she is a female. Maybe. Maybe not. The bottom line is, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld (and their loyal Neo Con underlings at the Pentagon) are responsible for lying this nation into war. To date, upwards of 2000 young men and women in uniform have given their lives for a LIE.

If one of those dead were YOUR child, would you feel the same?

As a former soldier who had to say good-bye to relatives who were terrified for my well-being (namely my MOTHER) when leaving for Operation Desert Shield/Storm, I would be IRATE.

Our dead and maimed are crying out for accountability.

Here are a few articles on the lies:

Deception's damning documents
By Paul Rogat Loeb | June 21, 2005

IT'S BAD enough that the Bush administration had so little international support for the Iraqi war that its ''coalition of the willing" meant the United States, Britain, and the equivalent of a child's imaginary friends. It's even worse that, as the British Downing Street memo confirms, they had so little evidence of real threats that they knew from the start that they were going to have to manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning still is that they effectively began this war even before the congressional vote.
www.boston.com...

Writer Russ Baker noted in October, 2004, that Mickey Herskowitz, the man Bush had originally hired to write his autobiography ("A Charge To Keep: My Journey To The White House"), told Baker that George Bush was planning his Iraq invasion - to seize and hold political power for himself and the Republican Party - during his first presidential election campaign.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," Herskowitz told Baker. "It was on his mind. He [Bush] said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

Bush lied, and Americans died. And continue to die. But politically - at least so far - it has worked out well for Bush.
www.informationclearinghouse.info...

Here's an article written by former Marine (Gulf War) and weapons inspector Scott Ritter. He has been dead on the money every step of the way.

The US war with Iran has already begun
by Scott Ritter
Sunday 19 June 2005 12:06 PM GMT




Americans, along with the rest of the world, are starting to wake up to the uncomfortable fact that President George Bush not only lied to them about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (the ostensible excuse for the March 2003 invasion and occupation of that country by US forces), but also about the very process that led to war.


On 16 October 2002, President Bush told the American people that "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope that the use of force will not become necessary."

We know now that this statement was itself a lie, that the president, by late August 2002, had, in fact, signed off on the 'execute' orders authorising the US military to begin active military operations inside Iraq, and that these orders were being implemented as early as September 2002, when the US Air Force, assisted by the British Royal Air Force, began expanding its bombardment of targets inside and outside the so-called no-fly zone in Iraq.

These operations were designed to degrade Iraqi air defence and command and control capabilities. They also paved the way for the insertion of US Special Operations units, who were conducting strategic reconnaissance, and later direct action, operations against specific targets inside Iraq, prior to the 19 March 2003 commencement of hostilities.

President Bush had signed a covert finding in late spring 2002, which authorised the CIA and US Special Operations forces to dispatch clandestine units into Iraq for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from power.
english.aljazeera.net...

It never ends...

Acting on the Articles of Impeachment is fully warranted in this case.

There are certainly many individuals, corporations and policy makers who do not want this can of worms opened, but that's the whole idea of an investigation of this magnitude.

Those who have fallen and those who will bear the scars of battle for the rest of their lives
and those who are now still in harms way, deserve to know the truth.


impeach |imˈpē ch | verb [ trans. ] call into question the integrity or validity of (a practice) : there is no basis to Searle's motion to impeach the verdict. • charge (the holder of a public office) with misconduct : the governor served only one year before being impeached and convicted for fiscal fraud. • Brit. charge with treason or another crime against the state. DERIVATIVES impeachable adjective impeachment noun ORIGIN late Middle English (also in the sense [hinder, prevent] ; earlier as empeche): from Old French empecher ‘impede,’ from late Latin impedicare ‘catch, entangle’ (based on pedica ‘a fetter,’ from pes, ped- ‘foot’ ). Compare with impede .

Thesaurus
impeach verb 1 congressional moves to impeach the president indict, charge, accuse, lay charges against, arraign, take to court, put on trial, prosecute. 2 the headlines impeached their clean image challenge, question, disparage, criticize, call into question, raise doubts about, cast aspersions on. antonym confirm.



[edit on 10-7-2005 by FallenFromTheTree]