[Peace-discuss] Return the unused portions of the Constitution...

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The war in Afghanistan itself, as well as war from Gaza to Pakistan, 
and in Somalia and Yemen, constitute an impeachable offense under 
domestic and international law.  Once again we will regret not using the 
mechanisms set down by the Founders. --CGE]

	The Case for Impeachment of President Barack Obama
	By Dave Lindorff

Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book,The Case for Impeachment, in which I
made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick
Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration
-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- should be impeached
for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United
States.

These days, when I mention the book's title, people sometimes ask, half
in jest, whether I'm referring to the current president, Barack Obama.

Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this
new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates,
are also guilty of impeachable crimes -- including many of the same ones
committed by Bush and Cheney.

Let's start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full
ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops
in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA)
to 100,000 by this August.

The president has authorized the use of Predator drone aircraft for a
program of bombing conducted against Pakistan which has illegally
expanded the Afghan War into another country without any authorization
from Congress. These pilotless drones are known to kill far more
innocent bystanders than enemy targets, making them fundamentally
illegal on principle as weapons. Furthermore, this wave of attacks in
Pakistan is a war of aggression against another nation if the word "war"
is to have any meaning at all, and as such it is illegal under the UN
Charter. Indeed initiating a war of aggression against a country which
does not pose an immediate threat to the invader is described in the
Charter and in the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter as the gravest of all war
crimes.

The president, as commander in chief, has also, in collusion with
Attorney Eric Holder, blocked any prosecution of those who authorized
and perpetrated torture against captives in the War in Iraq, the War in
Afghanistan, and the so-called War on Terror -- notably Federal Appeals
Court Judge Jay Baybee, and Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo, who as
Justice Department attorneys authored the legal briefs justifying
torture --  and has in fact continued to permit the application of
torture against captives. All of this is in clear violation of the
Geneva Conventions, which as a signed set of treaties, are part of the
law of the United States. Under those treaties, failure on the part of
those up the chain of command to halt or to punish those who commit
torture are themselves guilty of the crime of torture.

As commander in chief, President Obama has also overseen a strategy in
Afghanistan of expanded attacks on civilians in Afghanistan. As in Iraq
under the Bush administration, this current phase of the war in
Afghanistan is seeing more civilians killed than enemy combatants,
because of the widespread use of weapons like helicopter gunships,
aerial bombardment, fragmentation bombs, etc., as well as a tactic of
night raids on housing compounds where insurgents are suspected of
hiding -- raids that frequently lead to the deaths of many women and
children and innocent men. It is significant that even the recent
execution-style slaying of nine students, aged 11-18, by US-led forces,
has not led to an investigation or prosecution of a individual. Rather,
the incident is being covered up and ignored, with the clear
acquiescence of the White House and the leadership at the Pentagon.

It is also widely believed that under the command of Gen. Stanley
McChrystal, who is known to have directed a large-scale death-squad
operation in Iraq before moving to his current position, a similar
death-squad campaign of assassination is being conducted now in
Afghanistan -- a campaign that like the notorious Phoenix Program in the
1960s in Vietnam, is almost certainly resulting in the deaths of many
innocent Afghans.

Domestically, the president has continued to allow the policy of
detention without trial of hundreds of captives in Guantanamo Bay and
other prisons, including Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and his director
of national security has even stated that it is the policy of this
administration that American citizens deemed by the administration to be
enemy combatants or terrorists may be targeted for summary execution.
Such officially sanctioned state murder is a blatant violation of the
Constitution's insistence that every American has a right to a
presumption of innocence and to a trial by a jury of his or her peers.

The president has also continued and in some ways even expanded the
Bush/Cheney administration's program of warrantless spying by the
National Security Agency on the electronic communications of millions of
Americans. A part of that program, the monitoring of communications of a
now defunct Islamic charity, was just declared illegal by a federal
judge in a case that was brought against the Bush/Cheney administration,
but which continued to be defended by the current administration. There
has not been a decision as yet by the Obama administration about whether
to appeal that decision. While the case in question does not represent a
crime by the Obama administration, it is clear that it only represents
the very tip of the huge iceberg of domestic spying, and the
administration's vigorous efforts to shut down this case or to win it
are clear evidence that the NSA is continuing to do the same thing on a
vast scale. In fact, the only reason this case even got to trial is
because of a government error that resulted in a memo describing the
monitoring being mailed inadvertently to the victims of the spying.

While we're at it, I would also suggest that there is amble evidence to
call for the impeachment of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who
appears, as head of the New York Federal Reserve, to have colluded in an
effort to cover up a massive fraud at Lehman Brothers, and who has
subsequently as Treasurer, participated in unprecedented giveaways of
taxpayer funds to several of the country's largest banking institutions.

The above enumeration of criminal and Constitutional transgressions
makes it clear that this president, like his predecessor, has, almost
since his first day in office, continued down a road of criminal and
unconstitutional behavior that threatens the survival of Constitutional
government in the United States.

Let me state it simply: President Barack Obama, as well as Attorney
General Eric Holder, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Treasury
Secretary Geithner, should be impeached for war crimes and high crimes
against the Constitution.

Of course, having watched the Democratic Congress shamelessly duck its
solemn duty to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush,
Vice President Cheney, and their criminal subordinates for two years, I
have no illusions about that same Democratic Congress allowing an
impeachment bill to be filed against this president.

Having said that, I think it is important to at least make the point
publicly that this president, like the one before, deserves to be
impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

________________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book is "The
Case For Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available
at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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