Impeach Bush “Evidence?”

March 8, 2007

I ran across these at the website, Impeach For Peace where the site authors make the claim “Nonpartisan efforts to Impeach Bush & Cheney.” While they are making their case for impeachment, ‘nonpartisan’ they are not.

Looking at the “evidence” we see hearsay quotes from some of the more prominent leftwing biased sources in the country. Let’s look through them.

ILLEGAL WAR

“The memorial goes on to set forth that, George W. Bush has intentionally misled the Congress and the public regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify a war against Iraq…”

As I showed in the post Impeach Bush Over the War on Terror in Iraq?, President Bush made claims as did several prominent Democrats long before he took office. How is it possible that he could have “lied to” or “misled” Congress when what he said was the same thing they were saying years earlier?

President Bush went before both Houses and the United Nations, which had issued 17 resolutions against the regime of Saddam Hussein in the previous 12 years that were completely ignored.

The 1992 Gulf War ended a “cease fire,” not surrender. Conditions mandated in that “cease fire” were also ignored and not complied with. That alone constitutes legal grounds for resumption of hostilities as the Saddam Hussein regime thumbed his nose at the entire world and blocked UN efforts at ensuring he disposed of his WMD programs.

Saddam was given a chance to step down or allow inspectors back in prior to the invasion in May 2003, which he also ignored and puffed out his chest. When it was too late, he tried to say he would comply, but the die was cast and Troops were on their way in.

NOTHING ILLEGAL there.

ILLEGAL SPYING
*Update - Recently Found Guilty by District Court

“The memorial goes on to set forth that, George W. Bush has admitted to ordering the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of American civilians without seeking warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review…”

Yes, an admission of some electronic surveillance was made, but not in the fashion the left thinks. It wasn’t “wiretapping” or eavesdropping of domestic calls. See 'Warrantless' searches not unprecedented, On the Legality of the NSA Electronic Intercept Program and Case for spying.

The “recently found guilty by District Court” is most laughable. Even the very left leaning New York Times cited legal experts, who agreed with the ruling, but saw serious problems in it. The article Amatuer Hour shows even more problems with her ruling, as does the revelation of a conflicts of interest on the part of the Judge, Anna Diggs Taylor.

See also the Washington Posts A Judicial Misfire.

GENEVA CONVENTION VIOLATIONS
*Update -Found Guilty by the Federal Supreme Court

“The memorial goes on to set forth that, George W. Bush has conspired to commit the torture of prisoners in violation of the "Federal Torture Act" Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture convention and the Geneva Convention…”

More than anything else, this Supreme Court Decision has brought a big smile to the faces of the anti-Bush crowd. That it grants legal considerations to those non-citizens who have shown they desire to behead our culture and destroy our country matters little to those afflicted with the dreaded BDS.

Did they forget that the handful of Troops who supposedly mistreated prisoners in Abu Ghraib were prosecuted for what amounted to little more than college pranks? Of course, the prosecution didn’t include Bush or Cheney, so they weren’t far enough.

The “found guilty by the Federal Supreme Court” addresses Military Tribunals and detainees, not torture. Of that SCOTUS decision, a 5 to 3 split between liberal and conservative Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito strongly dissenting. Justice Thomas said the majority "openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs."

See also Scalia’s Dissent

Another point IBP misses is that in this decision, the Court declared that it was not questioning the government’s power to hold Hamdan “for the duration of active hostilities” to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, “in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.”

Which is basically declaring if they try him, they have to take him to federal court, but they don’t have to try him.

The rest is memos and nonsense written to Bush and nothing showing that he approved any of it, better luck next time.

ILLEGAL DETENTION
*Update - Found Guilty by District Court

“The memorial goes on to set forth that, George W. Bush has acted to strip Americans of their constitutional rights by ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to legal counsel, without charge and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the President of a U.S. citizen as an "enemy combatant."

Here I have to really fight the urge to request that those signing on to IBP please take as many of the more misguided terrorist detainees into their homes to show us how to do it. But, this is about Jose Padilla, aka Abdullah al-Muhajir, a Puerto Rican born US Citizen with a long criminal history and convert to Islam with known ties to Al Qaeda and accused dirty bomber.

Something is terribly wrong when a criminally inclined person like Padilla is agonized over while those feeling sorry for him couldn’t care less that US Citizens who own businesses may not allow patrons to use a legal product within their business, should they so decide.
Padilla has been declared fit to stand trial, but lawyers are still trying to have him freed because of claims of “torture,” right out of the Al Qaeda Training Manual.

Yes, let’s hurry and impeach Bush for trying to prevent another 9/11-type attack in the country.

ILLEGAL RELEASE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

“The memorial goes on to set forth that, George W. Bush authorized the leaking classified national secrets to further a political agenda, exposing an unknown number of covert U. S. intelligence agents to potential harm and retribution while simultaneously refusing to investigate the matter…”

Even though nothing in Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s papers filed suggest Bush or Cheney did anything illegal, and that presidents have wide latitude to declassify material, that doesn’t stop the BDS afflicted from their cries of IMPEACH NOW for Bush “leaking” already declassified material.

Likewise, I Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby's recent conviction of lying about a non-crime has given the IBP crowd more hope and fodder for a fresh push for impeachment, even though the trial was not about Iraq, Bush, Cheney or “outing” a non-covert CIA analyst.

Already, a House Oversight Committee hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 16 due to “questions about whether senior White House officials… complied with the requirements governing the handling of classified information” and “whether the White House took appropriate remedial action following the leak,” even though no real leak occurred and it was known to Special Counsel Fitzgerald even before he was appointed to the investigation.

I have no doubt that the IBP crowd will be standing with IMPEACH BUSH signs as he hands over power to whoever the next president will be on January 20, 2009. If they could accomplish it retroactively, they will push for that as well.

In the meantime, we have Troops facing an emboldened enemy seeing how Democrats, Syria and Iran Ally Against Victory In War On Terror while protestors try desperately to block shipments of needed medical equipment to the troops from the Port of Tacoma.

Lew