Ramsey Clark – 2004-06-15 10:17:06
For the American people who support and defend the Constitution of the United States, who want to prevent further crimes by a lawless administration, who believe we can redeem our country in the eyes of those this government has assaulted and those who have witnessed this brutality and who dare to demand of future government leadership, NEVER AGAIN, Impeachment is Imperative.
A decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that we Americans should declare the causes which impel us to impeach.
• The Bush Cabal Has Subverted the Constitution and Caused the Powerful US Military to Commit the Most Serious of All Crimes
• George W. Bush chose to wage a war of aggression against Iraq, which had not attacked the United States and presented no imminent threat to our people, or legitimate interests. A small cabal, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby and Rove wrested decision-making processes from established institutions of government to reinforce President Bush’s desire to seize Iraq, defying international institutions, the opinions of humankind and the rule of law to commence a disastrous criminal military adventure.
• War of aggression is the first offense listed in the Nuremberg Charter as a Crime against Peace. The Nuremberg Tribunal after hearing evidence of Nazi crimes in World War II convicted the leaders of waging wars of aggression, which it called “the supreme international crime.”
• At Nuremberg, the Chief US Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson, promised posterity that in the future all nations, including our own, would be held accountable for such crimes.
• President Bush and key administration officials engaged in a lengthy campaign of deceit, concealment and false propaganda to create support for, and acceptance of, its war of aggression by claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, harbored terrorists, had close ties with and supported Al Qaeda and intended to attack the US, US citizens and US interests. A free society, democratic institutions and constitutional government cannot survive such deceit by its own government.
• The US has made civilians and civilian facilities its direct object of attack. It has pursued assassination and summary executions as official policy. President Bush boasted of summary executions in his State of the Union message in 2003.
• Excessive and indiscriminate force and illegal weapons have been used. Many thousands of Iraqi citizens, whole families, women, children, elderly Iraqis have been killed as a result.
• US military casualties exceed 5,000 including more than 800 deaths with many additional thousands returned to the United States for physical and mental illnesses.
• The US has employed torture, including torture to death, rape and sexual assault and humiliation, as approved and ordered policy from Afghanistan and Guantanamo to Iraq, inflicted on thousands of prisoners, many, if not most, without any evidence of wrongful conduct.
• An admitted 37 human beings have been murdered while being held in captivity by the United States under these conditions. We know not how many more.
• All the mounting evidence makes clear that this program of torture and death is not aberrational conduct of rogue or undisciplined soldiers but is rather the policy adopted at the highest levels of the Bush/Rumsfeld chain of command.
• All this in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the International Conventions Against Torture, the laws of all nations and common human decency.
Our Constitutional Duty To Impeach is Clear
• Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States 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.
• Every American should choose whether to vote for impeachment entirely on the facts, straight up, or down, without political, or partisan fear, or favor. We owe this to the country, its future and our common heritage.
Impeachment is Required Now
Impeachment now is the only way we, the American people, can promise ourselves and the world that we will not tolerate crimes against peace and humanity by our government. Knowing what we know, to wait for the election is to tolerate what has been done and risk more.
The conspiracy of deceit and the facts of criminal acts are crystal clear. They have been apparent all along. Now they are undeniable.
Revelations of the criminal purposes of the Bush administration by insiders including former Bush administration Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill and Chief Security Advisor on Terrorism Richard Clarke confirm what we knew.
Evidence gathered by, and admissions made to, pre-eminent investigative journalists including Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh, and torrents of media reports confirm what was in plain sight all along. The New York Times, with its presumed access to information, proclaims with a healthy candor that it was mislead by the Bush administration.
In truth, the Times leadership supported the ends sought and the anticipated benefits of regime change. It remained uncritical of the false justifications given and criminal acts committed by the Bush cabal until the media reports of the means employed repulsed the public and the proclaimed values of the Times. The same is doubtless true of much of the media and the public. The remedy is greater rectitude, independent judgment and constant vigilance.
The Bush Cabal Pursues Its Policy of Regime Change In Iraq, Haiti, and Elsewhere, Even as its Criminal Acts Catch Up with It
The Bush cabal continues its policy of regime change seeking to continue its control of Iraq by causing the installation of a man with also known, close ties to the CIA as Prime Minister of Iraq, among other US paid agents, come June 30, 2004, thus assuring greater conflict as Iraq struggles for real independence and sovereignty.
• Former CIA agents have stated Prime Minister Allawi was responsible for fatal bombings of civilian targets in Iraq including a movie theater and a school bus during the 1990’s.
• President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and finally Secretary Powell all stated with supreme arrogance that the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti, “must go” in February 2004.
Then a US Air Force plane flew the kidnapped President of Haiti to isolation in the Central African Republic in March using force and false propaganda of corruption and drug dealing to justify the destruction of a democratically elected government.
The US then installed a neo-Duvalierist of its choice as head of State of Haiti. Both CARICOM – the Caribbean community of nations and the African Union denounced the Bush administration actions.
Meanwhile, the US-installed government in Haiti is powerless, the country is paralyzed and former military, paramilitary and Ton Ton Macoute elements control major areas in Haiti and systematically assault Aristide supporters who remain the majority….
There will be more aggression before the November elections and more after, whatever the outcome, if the American people do not act now to impeach President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Powell, who has finally claimed he supported the war of aggression against Iraq and also who presented false information before the United Nations in its justification, Secretary Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Ashcroft, who has pervasively violated the Bill of Rights and appeased and condoned criminal acts by government, and other civil officers of the United States.
A Major Statement for Impeachment Must be Made Before August – Join Now
More than 400,000 individual Americans have voted for impeachment. Their votes have been communicated to Congress and the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, which has “the sole power of impeachment.” Article I, Section 2, Constitution of the United States.
Nearly all those who voted did so directly on the VoteNoWar.org / ImpeachBush.org website, at rallies, or from paper ballots distributed on street corners or in shopping centers and recorded here.
Now it is urgent that we take the next step building on the groundswell of support around the country. The mass media rarely mentions impeachment. We must tear down the curtain of silence.
Strategies to Press for Impeachment
A major campaign in the mass media can accelerate the impeachment movement. Last year ads placed in the New York Times the San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets in big and small cities stimulated the impeachment movement and reached millions of people.
Funds are needed to place advertisements in major newspapers throughout the country. Impeachment demonstrations and voting rallies can bring out new support. If successful, impeachment spots on TV could follow and thousands of volunteers on the streets seeking votes could multiply votes for impeachment.
Such a campaign can force the House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings and the Republican Convention to face nominating George W. Bush as a liability in the November elections.
This is the most important vote you will ever cast – for integrity in constitutional government and honor and decency in US foreign, military and domestic policy.
Ramsey Clark
June 2004
