-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 26, 2007 12:52:25 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd: Impeaching Bush&Co.
... most of the "experts" [in the preliminary debate] opposed
impeachment not on the
basis of enforcing the Constitution and the Rule of Law, whether
international or
domestic, but on the political grounds that it might hurt the
Democratic Party
effort to get their presidential candidate elected. As a political
independent, I did not argue that point. Rather, I argued the
merits of impeaching Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft under
the United States Constitution, U.S. federal laws, U.S. treaties
and other international agreements to which the United States is a
party, etc. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution
provides that treaties "shall be the supreme Law of the Land."
This so-called Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution also
applies to international executive agreements concluded under the
auspices of the U.S. President such as the 1945 Nuremberg Charter.
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
From: "Jim S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: July 26, 2007 1:44:41 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Impeaching Bush&Co.
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=6409
*The National Campaign to Impeach President George W. Bush*
By Prof. Francis A. Boyle
Global Research, July 25, 2007
Since the U.S. Supreme Court's installation of George W. Bush as
President in
January of 2001, the peoples of the world have witnessed a
government in the
United States of America that demonstrates little if any respect
for fundamental
considerations of international law, international organizations,
and human
rights, let alone appreciation of the requirements for maintaining
international
peace and security.
What the world has watched instead is a comprehensive and malicious
assault upon
the integrity of the international legal order by a group of men
and women who
are thoroughly Machiavellian in their perception of international
relations and
in their conduct of both foreign policy and domestic affairs.
This is not simply a question of giving or withholding the benefit
of the doubt
when it comes to complicated matters of foreign affairs and defense
policies to a
U.S. government charged with the security of both its own citizens
and those of
its allies in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and the Pacific.
Rather, the Bush
Jr. administration's foreign policies represent a gross deviation
from those
basic rules of international deportment and civilized behavior that
the United
States government had traditionally played the pioneer role in
promoting for the
entire world community.
Even more seriously, in many instances specific components of the
Bush Jr.
administration's foreign policies constitute ongoing criminal
activity under
well-recognized principles of both international law and U.S.
domestic law, and
in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and
the Nuremberg
Principles.
Depending upon the substantive issues involved, those international
crimes
typically include but are not limited to the Nuremberg offenses of
crimes against
peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as grave
breaches of the
Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1907 Hague Regulations on
land warfare,
torture, disappearances, and assassinations.
In addition, various members of the Bush Jr. administration
committed numerous
inchoate crimes incidental to these substantive offenses that under
the Nuremberg
Charter, Judgment, and Principles were international crimes in
their own right:
viz., planning, preparation, solicitation, incitement, conspiracy,
complicity,
attempt, aiding and abetting, etc.
Of course the great irony of today's situation is that six decades
ago at
Nuremberg, representatives of the U.S. government participated in the
prosecution, punishment and execution of Nazi government officials
for committing
some of the same types of heinous international crimes that members
of the Bush
Jr. administration currently inflict upon people all around the
world. To be
sure, I personally oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon
any person
for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes: Bush Jr., Tony
Blair, Saddam
Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin, Ariel Sharon, my
former client John
Wayne Gacy, etc. Furthermore, according to basic principles of
international
criminal law, all high-level civilian officials and military
officers in the U.S.
government who either knew or should have known that soldiers or
civilians under
their control committed or were about to commit international
crimes, and failed
to take the measures necessary to stop them, or to punish them, or
both, are
likewise personally responsible for the commission of international
crimes.
This category of officialdom who actually knew or at least should
have known of
the commission of such substantive or inchoate international crimes
under their
jurisdiction and failed to do anything about it typically includes
the Secretary
of Defense, Secretary of State, Director of Central Intelligence,
the National
Security Adviser, the Attorney General, the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs
of Staff and
regional C.I.N.C.s, and presumably the President and Vice
President. These U.S.
government officials and their immediate subordinates, among
others, were
personally responsible for the commission or at least complicity in
the
commission of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and
war crimes as
specified by the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles -- at
a minimum. In
international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration itself
should be viewed as
constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international
criminal law.
Consequently, on Tuesday 11 March 2003, with the Bush Jr.
administration's war of
aggression against Iraq staring the American People, Congress and
Republic in
their face, Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the Ranking
Member of the House
Judiciary Committee (which has jurisdiction over Bills of
Impeachment), convened
an emergency meeting of forty or more of his top advisors, most of
whom were
lawyers. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss and debate
immediately
putting into the U.S. House of Representatives Bills of Impeachment
against
President Bush Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of
Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in order to head
off the
impending war. Congressman Conyers kindly requested that Ramsey
Clark and I come
to the meeting in order to argue the case for impeachment.
This impeachment debate lasted for two hours. It was presided over by
Congressman Conyers, who quite correctly did not tip his hand one
way or the
other on the merits of impeachment. He simply moderated the debate
between Clark
and I, on the one side, favoring immediately filing Bills of
Impeachment against
Bush Jr. et al. to stop the threatened war, and almost everyone
else there who
were against impeachment for partisan political reasons.
Obviously, no point
would be served here by attempting to digest a two-hour-long
vigorous debate
among a group of well-trained lawyers on such a controversial
matter at this
critical moment in American history. But, at the time, I was
struck by the fact
that this momentous debate was conducted at a private office right
down the
street from the White House on the eve of war.
Suffice it to say that most of the "experts" there opposed
impeachment not on the
basis of enforcing the Constitution and the Rule of Law, whether
international or
domestic, but on the political grounds that it might hurt the
Democratic Party
effort to get their presidential candidate elected in the year
2004. As a
political independent, I did not argue that point. Rather, I
argued the merits
of impeaching Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft under the
United States
Constitution, U.S. federal laws, U.S. treaties and other
international agreements
to which the United States is a party, etc. Article VI of the U.S.
Constitution
provides that treaties "shall be the supreme Law of the Land."
This so-called
Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution also applies to
international executive
agreements concluded under the auspices of the U.S. President such
as the 1945
Nuremberg Charter.
Congressman Conyers was so kind as to allow me the closing argument
in the
debate. Briefly put, the concluding point I chose to make was
historical: The
thenians lost their democracy. The Romans lost their Republic.
And if we
Americans did not act now we could lose our Republic! The United
States of
America is not immune to the laws of history! After two hours of
most vigorous
debate among those in attendance, the meeting adjourned with second
revised draft
Bills of Impeachment sitting on the table.
Certainly, if the U.S. House of Representatives can impeach
President Clinton for
sex and lying about sex, then a fortiori the House can, should, and
must impeach
President Bush Jr. for war, lying about war, and threatening more
wars. All that
is needed is for one Member of Congress with courage, integrity,
principles and a
safe seat to file these currently amended draft Bills of
Impeachment against Bush
Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, and now-Attorney General Albert Gonzales,
who bears
personal criminal responsibility for the Bush Jr. administration
torture scandal.
Failing this, the alternative is likely to be an American Empire
abroad, a U.S.
police state at home, and continuing wars of aggression to sustain
both-along the
lines of George Orwell's classic novel 1984. Despite all of the
serious flaws
demonstrated by successive
United States governments that this author has amply documented
elsewhere during
the past quarter century as a Professor of Law, the truth of the
matter is that
America is still the oldest Republic in the world today. "We the
People of the
United States" must fight to keep it that way!
~~~
[Francis A. Boyle is a Professor of International Law and a human
rights
attorney. He is the author of "Destroying World Order" (2004,
Clarity Press).]
---------------------------------
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole
responsibility of
the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for
Research on
Globalization.
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of
which has not
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(C) Copyright Francis A. Boyle, Global Research, 2007
(C) Copyright 2005 GlobalResearch.ca
------------------------
"America is a nation founded on the principle that all human life
is sacred
Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not
ethical."-- G.W.
Bush on the occasion of vetoing Congressional bill on stem cell
research
June 20, 2007
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