[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:13443] [iac-disc.] Ralph Nader: Iraq an Unconstitutional, Illegal War - Impeach! (fwd)

[Al Kagan]

FYI.  See the petition at the end.

>Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 19:11:33 -0500 (CDT)
>From: Dale Wertz <dwertz at mc.net>
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>cc: PLGNet-L at listproc.sjsu.edu
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:13443] [iac-disc.] Ralph Nader: Iraq an 
>Unconstitutional, Illegal War -
>  Impeach! (fwd)
>X-Spam-Rating: mail.mc.net 1.6.2.pk.2 0/1000/N
>X-MailScanner: Found to be clean, Found to be clean
>Reply-To: srrtac-l at ala.org
>Sender: owner-srrtac-l at ala.org
>X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information
>
>
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>Tuesday, April 13, 2004
>For further information, contact:
>Kevin Zeese
>202-265-4000
>Nader: Iraq an Unconstitutional, Illegal War
>Based on Five Falsehoods: Congress Should Begin Impeachment Inquiry of Bush
>and Cheney
>
>"All public policy should revolve around the principle that individuals are
>responsible for what they say and do."
>-- George W. Bush, 1994.
>Washington, DC: Building on his call for the impeachment of President Bush
>and Vice President Cheney, Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader
>today is calling on Members of the House of Representatives to begin an
>impeachment inquiry to investigate two distinct impeachable offenses.
>An Impeachment Inquiry is the first step toward considering Articles of
>Impeachment. During an Impeachment Inquiry the House would investigate
>whether there are potential impeachable offenses.
>Impeachment Inquiry and the Process of Impeachment
>While the Constitution is clear in granting the impeachment power to the
>House, it leaves the development of mechanisms for exercising the power to
>the House. As noted by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in
>"The Law of Presidential Impeachment By the Committee on Federal
>Legislation" (see: http://www.abcny.org/presimpt.htm):
>"A variety of methods have been employed to institute impeachment
>proceedings: Charges may be made orally on the floor by a Member of the
>House; a Member may submit a written statement of charges; one or more
>Members of the House may offer a resolution and place it in the legislative
>hopper; a presidential message to the House may initiate proceedings. The
>House has also received charges from a state legislature, from a territory,
>and from a grand jury. Finally, there may be a report of a committee of the
>House which may submit facts or charges that will lead to impeachment. Under
>the rules governing the order of business in the House a direct proposition
>to impeach is a matter of highest privilege and supersedes other business.
>Similar privileged treatment is given to propositions relating to a pending
>impeachment."
>The purpose of the Impeachment Inquiry is to have a Committee develop a
>report for the House which then can be considered for the purpose of
>determining whether to proceed with impeachment proceedings. The House
>determines whether to impeach based on a majority vote. It is important to
>remember that impeachment does not mean conviction - that is left to the
>Senate. Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment, making formal
>charges, which the Senate then considers. Conviction requires two-thirds of
>the Members present in the Senate to vote for conviction.
>Two Potential Articles of Impeachment that Should be Part of an Impeachment
>Inquiry
>The Impeachment Inquiry should focus on two areas involving President Bush
>and Vice President Dick Cheney.
>
>
>1.    The unconstitutional war in Iraq. "The Inquiry should examine whether
>President Bush and Vice President Cheney have gone beyond the bounds of the
>Constitution, defied the rule of law, and if so, whether impeachment is the
>appropriate constitutional punishment," said Nader. The United States
>Congress never voted for the Iraq war. Congress voted for a resolution in
>October 2002 which unlawfully transferred to the President the
>decision-making power of whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq.
>The United States Constitution's War Powers Clause (Article 1, Section 8,
>Clause 11) vests the power of deciding whether to send the nation into war
>solely in the United States Congress. This can only be changed by a
>constitutional amendment.
>
>"Our founders had seen what could occur when the power to declare war was
>vested in one person, a King or a Queen, so they took clear steps to ensure
>no one person could declare war for the United States. As James Madison
>wrote: "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in
>the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature,
>and not to the executive department," noted Nader.
>
>2.    Five Falsehoods that Led to the Iraq Quagmire: Making matters worse in
>this situation, the illegal first-strike invasion and occupation of Iraq was
>justified by five falsehoods. Nader calls for a second area for Impeachment
>Inquiry to examine: the "five falsehoods that led to war." In 1994 George W.
>Bush said: "All public policy should revolve around the principle that
>individuals are responsible for what they say and do." In 2000, he ran as
>the "responsibility " candidate. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of
>national security intelligence data, if proven, would be "a high crime"
>under the Constitution's impeachment clause. Article II, Section 4 of the
>Constitution provides: "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."
>
>Five Falsehoods That Led to the Iraq Quagmire
>
>
>1.    Weapons of Mass Destruction. The weapons have still not been found.
>Nader emphasized, "Until the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was our
>government's anti-communist ally in the Middle East. We also used him to
>keep Iran at bay. In so doing, in the 1980s under Reagan and the first Bush,
>corporations were licensed by the Department of Commerce to export the
>materials for chemical and biological weapons that President George W. Bush
>and Vice President Dick Cheney later accused him of having." Those weapons
>were destroyed after the Gulf War. President Bush's favorite chief weapons
>inspector, David Kay, after returning from Iraq and leading a large team of
>inspectors and spending nearly half a billion dollars told the president :We
>were wrong." See: David Kay testimony before Senate Armed Services
>Committee, January 28, 2004.
>
>2.    Iraq Ties to Al Qaeda. The White House made this claim even though the
>CIA and FBI repeatedly told the Administration that there was no tie between
>Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. They were mortal enemies - one secular, the
>other fundamentalist.
>
>3.    Saddam Hussein was a Threat to the United States. In fact, Saddam was
>a tottering dictator, with an antiquated, fractured army of low morale and
>with Kurdish enemies in Northern Iraq and Shiite adversaries in the South of
>Iraq. He did not even control the air space over most of Iraq.
>
>4.    Saddam Hussein was a Threat to his Neighbors: In fact, Iraq was
>surrounded by countries with far superior military forces. Turkey, Iran and
>Israel were all capable of obliterating any aggressive move by the Iraqi
>dictator.
>
>5.    The Liberation of the Iraqi People. There are brutal dictators
>throughout the world, many supported over the years by Washington, whose
>people need "liberation " from their leaders. This is not a persuasive
>argument since for Iraq, it's about oil. In fact, the occupation of Iraq by
>the United States is a magnet for increasing violence, anarchy and
>insurrection.
>
>Nader urges the Congress to investigate the illegal nature of the war, and
>how the five falsehoods became part of the Bush Administration's drum beat
>for war, in a formal Inquiry of Impeachment.
>
>PETITION TO IMPEACH
>The purpose of this petition is to show Congress that people in their
>district support the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and will
>stand up for fact-finding for truth if a member of Congress has the courage
>to start the Inquiry.  Go to www.VoteNader.org/get_involved/impeach.php
><http://www.VoteNader.org/get_involved/impeach.php>  ,
>to sign the petition now.
>
>			####


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu