Put Impeachment Back on the Table

An Open Letter to John Conyers

By RALPH NADER

Chairman John Conyers
House Judiciary Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Congress
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Conyers:

Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least, five categories of repeated, defiant "high crimes and misdemeanors", which separately or together would allow Congress to subject the President to impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. The sworn oath of members of Congress is to uphold the Constitution. Failure of the members of Congress to pursue impeachment of President Bush is an affront to the founding fathers, the Constitution, and the people of the United States.

In addition to a criminal war of aggression in Iraq, in violation of our constitution, statutes and treaties, there are the arrests of thousands of Americans and their imprisonment without charges, the spying on Americans without juridical warrant, systematic torture, and the unprecedented wholesale, defiant signing statements declaring that the President, in his unbridled discretion, is the law.

In 2005, a plurality of the American people polled declared that they would favor impeachment of President Bush if it was shown that he did not tell the truth about the reasons for going to War in Iraq. Congress should use its authority under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution to officially determine what President Bush knew before going to war in Iraq.

Your files and retrieval systems are bulging with over-whelming evidence behind all these five categories. When constitutional duty combines with the available evidence, inaction amounts to a suppression of that evidence from constitutional implementation.

When the Democrats were heading for a net election gain in 2006 in the House of Representatives, many observers of presidential accountability entertained the hope that the Judiciary Committee, with its new chairman, would hold hearings on an impeachment resolution. No way! The next backup was the belief that there would an impeachment inquiry (fortified by your own op-ed in the The Washington Post) No way! The next lowered expectation backup was just a hearing on impeachment urged by several of your present and former Congressional colleagues. So far, no way!

The fourth fallback was simply a hearing on the criminal and constitutional violations of Bush-Cheney by your Committee, as urged in a letter sent to you earlier this year by, among others, several of your former Congressional colleagues, including Senators George McGovern and James Abourezk, and Representatives Andy Jacobs and Paul Findley, along with Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City, and the undersigned. So far, no progress.

There is another option: do nothing. Since January 2007 - the politically expedient option of doing nothing has triumphed. Volumes can and will be written, about what can go down as the most serious abdication of impeachment responsibilities by a Congress in its history. No other president has committed more systemic, repeated impeachable offenses, with such serious consequences to this country, its people, to Iraq, its people and the security of this nation before, than George W. Bush. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and their colleagues had just these kinds of monarchical abuses and violations in their framework of anticipation.

Declarations by Bush on the somber occasion of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq this past March 20, 2008 demonstrated his criminal, unconstitutional arrogance and his confidence that this Democratic Congress will continue to be cowed, continue its historic cowardliness, and continue to leave the American people without representation. Even should he unilaterally attack Iran. The Democratic Party has abandoned its critical role as an opposition Party in this and other serious matters.

In a January 6, 2008 op-ed in The Washington Post, former Senator George McGovern wrote an eloquently reasoned plea for the impeachment of George W. Bush. More than two out of three polled Americans want out of Iraq, believing it was a costly mistake.

Repeatedly during the past seven years, Mr. Bush has lectured the American people about "responsibility" and that actions with consequences must incur responsibility.

It is never too late to enforce the Constitution. It is never too late to uphold the rule of law. It is never too late to awaken the Congress to its sworn duties under the Constitution. But it will soon be too late to avoid the searing verdict of history when on January 21, 2009, George W. Bush becomes a fugitive from a justice that was never invoked by those in Congress so solely authorized to hold the President accountable.

Is this the massive Bush precedent you and your colleagues wish to convey to presidential successors who may be similarly tempted to establish themselves above and beyond the rule of law?

Is this the way you and your colleagues wish to be remembered by the American people?

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sides

That huge wooshing sound you hear, in the midst of this situation, is that of US taxpayer dollars having been flushed unceremoniously down the toilet of funding for the training of every Iraqi security force member who has defected - and will defect - from the Iraqi Army.
The fact that the US and the Brits absolutely never saw this coming is a clear demonstration of a complete, contemptuous ignorance about the history of these people, not to mention any understanding of the seething anger Iraqis feel about what has been done to their country, and their countrymen.

Thomas

Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.

His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.

Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. [Nouri al] Maliki [the Iraqi Prime Minister] is driving his Government into the ground.”

The reason for his apparent switch of sides was simple: the 36-year-old was already a member of the al-Mahdi Army which, like other militias, has massively infiltrated the British-trained police force in the southern oil city. He claimed that hundreds of others from the 16,000-strong force have also defected to the rebels’ ranks.Abu Iman joined the new Iraqi police force after the invasion, joining the Mugawil, a special police unit infamous for brutality, kidnapping and sectarian murders.

“We already heard two weeks ago that we were going to attack the Mahdi Army, so we were ready,” he said. “I decided to take off my uniform and join my brothers and friends in the Mahdi Army. All these years, we were like a scream in the face of the dictator and the occupation.” He said: “I joined the police because I believed we have to protect Basra and save it with our own hands. You can see we were the first fighters to take on Sadd-am and his regime, the best example being the Shabaniya uprising.”

Abu Iman said that the fighting raging in Basra yesterday was intense because the al-Mahdi Army was operating on its own turf. He was confident that the Shia militia would prevail because its cause was just.

“The Iraqi Army is already defeated from within. They come to Basra with fear in their hearts, knowing they have to fight their brothers, the sons of Iraq, because of an order from Bush and his friends in the Iraq Government. For this reason, all of the battles are going in the Mahdi Army’s favour.”

Major-General Abdelaziz Moham-med Jassim, the director of operations at the Ministry of Defence, played down reports of defections in the Basra police force. “The problem of one policeman doesn’t make up for the whole of the force,” he said.

In recent months Major-General Abdul Jalil Khalaf, Basra’s police chief, has tried to shake up the force and drive out militia infiltrators, who have wrought havoc in the past, often turning police stations into torture cells in which factions settled vendettas and power struggles with murder and abuse. But he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt yesterday when a suicide car bomb attack in Basra killed three of his policemen. A local tribal leader said the police directorate building was later gutted by fire.

Home Price Decline Steepest in 21 Years

MoneyNews

NEW YORK -- The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index shows U.S. home prices fell 11.4percent in January, its steepest drop since S&P started collecting data in 1987.

The decline reported Tuesday means prices have been growing more slowly or dropping for 19 consecutive months. The index tracks the prices of single-family homes in 10 major metropolitan areas in the U.S.

The broader 20-city composite index is also down, falling 10.7 percent in January from a year ago. That is the first time both indexes dropped by double-digit percentages.

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

Although this is not sourced, it is worrisome, considering the degree to which Iraqi appears to be in meltdown.

There's a question the article doesn't address, and it is, absolutely,
one of the "6,000 lb gorillas in the room" in this situation.

Precisely what will Russia do if the US attacks Iran? Will its government just sit back and do nothing for one of its primary strategic partners in the region?

I think not. Read below

Thomas



MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost."

He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.

A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.

The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.