[Peace-discuss] impeach bush

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Published on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 by the San Jose Mercury News
Santa Cruz Urges Probe into Bush Impeachment
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0910-01.htm
by Ken McLaughlin

[Photo] Santa Cruz Mayor Emily Reilly, at right, and Vice Mayor Scott
Kennedy, left,
conduct a meeting of the City Council in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Tuesday,
Sept. 9, 2003. The Santa Cruz City Council is considering becoming the first
local government in the country to ask Congress to look into impeaching
President Bush.

The Santa Cruz City Council on Tuesday became the nation's first local
government to ask Congress to look into impeaching President Bush on charges
he deceived the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and
has used the Sept. 11 attacks as an excuse to crush civil rights.

In a 6-1 vote, the council decided to send a letter to members of the House
Judiciary Committee asking the panel to investigate the president.

Dozens of activists cheered the decision, even though the letter was a muted
version of their proposal for a council resolution in favor of impeaching
Bush and other top members of his administration.

``It's a courageous action,'' said Sherry Conable, leader of a coalition of
10 local groups that support impeachment of all top administration
officials.

Conable held a sign saying: ``Love your country and the world. Impeach
Bush/Cheney.''

Activist John Jenkel, who traveled from Sebastopol to attend the council
meeting, said he couldn't agree more. ``This is a treasonous president,'' he
said.

In September 2002, Santa Cruz became the first city council to oppose a war
aimed at toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Although the council drew
some ridicule at the time, 165 councils and boards of supervisors across the
nation eventually passed nearly identical measures.

Santa Cruz council members said Tuesday they hoped their vote would trigger
similar grass-roots actions by local governments.

The overwhelming majority of the 80 or so people who filled the council
chamber Tuesday agreed with the council's letter to the House panel. But a
handful of critics warned the council that it could make the city look
foolish.

Local attorney Paul Sanford, who teaches constitutional law and ``never
leaves home'' without a copy of the U.S. Constitution, said he agreed the
Bush policy in the Middle East was flawed. But to impeach a president,
``high crimes and misdemeanors are required. Period.''

Nothing Bush has done would qualify, he said.

But Councilman Mike Rotkin said he considered the unjustified ``murder of
innocents'' a high crime.

Rotkin and other council members argued that the country deserved to find
out whether the White House purposely lied to the people and Congress about
Iraq's nuclear aspirations and the alleged stockpiling of weapons of mass
destruction.

``It's time for us to open up this can of worms,'' Councilman Tim
Fitzmaurice said.

Critic: Focus on home

Sylvia Mullen, on the other hand, argued it was time for the city council to
start paying more attention to the city and less to foreign policy.

``The streets are full of potholes, weed-infested medians and circles that
serve as trash receptacles,'' said Mullen, who has lived in Santa Cruz for
33 years.

``Even the downtown areas and streets in Buenos Aires and Zimbabwe were
superior to ours,'' added Mullen, who in the past year and a half has
visited South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and parts of the United
States as a tourist and volunteer.

The Santa Cruz council has a history of tangling with the federal
government. It has voted to sue the Drug Enforcement Administration and
Attorney General John Ashcroft on behalf of patients who need medicinal
marijuana. The action followed a September 2002 raid on a Davenport-area pot
farm.

Soon afterward, council members thumbed their noses at the feds by allowing
the cooperative -- the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana -- to pass
out pot to sick people on the steps of City Hall.

Impeachment letter

The letter to the House Judiciary Committee broaching impeachment was put on
the agenda by three council members -- Mayor Emily Reilly, Vice Mayor Scott
Kennedy and Fitzmaurice.

It asks the panel to investigate whether Bush violated congressionally
ratified international treaties and the Constitution by invading and
occupying Iraq.

Two other questions asked in the letter: ``Did false or misleading
information exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq, and was this part of a
conscious effort to mislead the American public? Did President Bush exploit
the fear generated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks to erode or compromise our
constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties?''

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Tuesday that council members were
free to send any letter they want but it would not change Bush's resolve,
made clear in a prime-time speech on Sunday night.

``The president remains focused on doing the work of the American people --
strengthening the economy, winning the war on terrorism and defending the
homeland,'' Lisaius said. ``The people appreciate what he is doing.''

Misleading information

Top Bush administration officials in July apologized for allowing a British
intelligence report on Iraq's nuclear ambitions into the president's State
of the Union address in January. The report, which Bush cited, said Iraq was
seeking to buy uranium ore from Niger to use in building nuclear weapons.
But officials from the CIA and the National Security Administration had
previously deemed the report to be false.

But Bush and top White House officials have denied misleading the public on
the issue of weapons of mass destruction. They say they still expect them to
turn up.

The push toward the impeachment resolution began on July 22 when more than
100 activists packed the council chamber to urge that it pass a resolution
asking the Republican-led Congress to impeach Bush, Ashcroft, Vice President
Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice for their roles in
going to war and creating the USA Patriot Act.

The anti-terrorism legislation, passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks,
has been widely criticized by civil libertarians.

Contending that the Patriot Act represents an unwarranted assault on civil
rights, the Santa Cruz council in November 2002 unanimously passed a
resolution urging the federal government to rescind parts of the law.

Congress had overwhelmingly passed the law after the Sept. 11 attacks,
making it easier for police to eavesdrop on phone conversations, seize voice
messages, track e-mail and obtain certain confidential records -- including
books that people check out at libraries.

Last November, Santa Cruz became the 14th city in the country to come out
against the Patriot Act.

Attorney General Ashcroft recently finished a tour aimed at defending the
law, saying it has prevented terrorism and is necessary in a post-Sept. 11
world.

The only dissenting vote Tuesday was cast by Councilman Mark Primack, who
argued that the council has enough city business to attend to without
jumping into national and international debates.

He indicated he agreed with the council politically but said he wasn't
elected because he was an expert on constitutional law or national policy.

``Every action we take like this weakens our ability to function as a
city,'' Primack said.

Copyright 2003 San Jose Mercury News