Impeachment Avenue via Downing Street

Impeachment is a word that’s going to turn up almost no hits on a Lexis Nexis search. The word gets kicked around whenever a president does stuff he shouldn’t. The last time it was used was with Clinton, who actually was impeached, but was not forced to leave office. As with everything else in American politics, impeachment is too complicated for a mortal mind to grasp. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, Clinton was impeached not for adultery (though there are many in the Puritanical States of America who would still like to burn people at the stake for that), but for lying about it under oath. Whether or not a president should have to answer questions about an affair under oath is another issue entirely.

Let’s just stick with the precedent of impeaching presidents who lie to the country.

There are those who’ve wanted to impeach Bush since he was appointed to office. Thoughts of impeachment strengthened after Bush lied America into a war in Iraq using WMDs as a justification that never materialized. Years of investigation have shown that their non-existence was deliberately ignored. The latest damning evidence to date comes out of England, through notes from a July 23, 2002 meeting known as the Downing Street Memo. It is evidence laying clear the Bush administration’s plans for war in Iraq fully 8 months before the initial attack:

“Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. … It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.”

The memo “proves” what any idiot already knew: Bush was hot to attack Iraq. The rest of the world is up in arms about it, because it’s hard evidence that could be used in a court of law. The court of common sense has long since judged against Bush’s veracity. Hell, he was talking about it during his campaign in 2000. What’s the big surprise that he went for it once 9/11 gave him the go-ahead? He and his administration lied to get it done. For that, he should be impeached according to US law. It’s Time to Get Serious About Impeaching Bush by Norman Solomon (CounterPunch) says that:

“such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States 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.’”

Using America’s might to wreak war an havoc on foreign countries has never been an impeachable offense. Even “Nixon’s illegal bombing of Cambodia — and his lies about that bombing” weren’t part of the grounds for his impeachment proceedings. In a situation similar to Clinton’s, he was hanged for the least of his crimes. Reagan managed to play forgetful long enough that he was never impeached for his role in the sordid Iran-Contra affair.

The ‘I’ Word: Impeachment by Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese (Common Dreams) deals less with the Downing Street Memo and more with the fact that “[e]ighty-nine members of Congress have asked the president whether intelligence was manipulated to lead the United States to war”. They cite numerous reports (already oft-cited, as if anyone in the mainstream press or most of America cares) from the Atomic Energy Commission and UN inspectors and even the CIA, saying that “[w]e do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has . . . reconstitute[d] its weapons of mass destruction programs.” Despite the whole of the administration’s evidence being either “circumstantial with equivocations” or wholly contradicted by reality, Cheney made indisputable statements like “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction”, while Bush cowed the country with stories of Saddam “[launching] a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes”.

Given what they knew at the time, there is no disputing that they lied to get America into a war. The problem is, naturally, that most of America doesn’t know this, and, even if they did (or do), they just don’t care. To their moronic faithful base, Bush and Cheney are trustworthy businessmen who are straight shooters and know what they want and will get it without screwing around like that Democrat, Clinton. And don’t even get them started on his wife.