After Saddam’s Lynching are Bush & Cheney Next?

Though the newly anointed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared that hearings for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney are off the table, following the State of the Union Address where Bush called for an increase of over 20,000 troops to Iraq, all bets are off. A posse is forming – not to lynch President Bush and VP Cheney – but to impeach and remove them from office.

Senator Ted Kennedy has proposed legislation which, if passed, would have dire consequences for the administration if they continue to defy Congress. According to Kennedy, “In 2002, the Bush Administration's case for war focused on Saddam's supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al Qaeda. In October of the same year Congress authorized a war against the regime of Saddam Hussein, not to send our troops into a civil war. I voted against the resolution and feel an escalation of this war only compounds the original mistake of going in the first place.”

“In 2007, Saddam Hussein is dead,” Kennedy continued. “Weapons of mass destruction were never found -- nor was any evidence that Saddam and al Qaeda were working together.

“Escalating the war in Iraq is not President Bush's decision alone. He must ask for the people's consent -- and Congressional approval is the only way he can get it,” Kennedy asserted.

Kennedy’s legislation requires Congress to approve Bush's escalation. If Congress votes against the escalation and Bush does as he claims he will do, which is to defy Congress, then the resulting “Congressional Crisis” would force Democrats to put impeachment back on the table.

Recently I received an email from Democratic.com which asserts that there are many reasons to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney. Chief among them is for “violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal ‘War of Aggression’ against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.”

In addition, the administration violated “U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.” They also violated “the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel,” according to the organization.

“The use of widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant and the use of ‘signing statements’ to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress is also a violation of US laws and the American Constitution.”

The administration is also guilty of “violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm,” according to Democrats.com. “Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution,” is also grounds for impeachment the progressive Democrat party organization maintains.

But central to the argument is the administrations “subversion of the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a ‘Unitary Executive Theory’ giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” Progressive Democrats are hardly alone in these opinions. Many mainstream Democrats and even some Republicans are joining the chorus of disapproval and demands for removal.

According to the National Priorities Project (NPP), the cost of the war to the American people in terms of tax dollars is over $356,989,440,352. In case you think that the NCC is funded by ultra leftists, among the sponsors are the Carnegie Foundation; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund; the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust, the Proteus Fund/Ford Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

Increasingly, the burden of the war is falling on the backs of the dwindling American middle-class and the poor. Early on into the administration, Bush gave giant corporations and the very rich enormous tax breaks to ensure this. However, whether or not there is a political will for impeachment remains to be seen, despite the hundreds of protests planned across the country against troop escalation.

The line of succession to the president is mentioned three times in the US Constitution. If the president and vice president are both impeached and removed from office, the next in line is the Speaker of the House who today is Nancy Pelosi. I can’t imagine presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her influential (impeached but never removed) husband, former President Bill Clinton allowing Pelosi to become president by default.

Hillary may be Dubya’s and Dick’s ace in the hole.

ENDS

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