After Downing Street & World Can’t Wait – 2006-12-09 23:26:56
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/cynthia
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
Introduces Articles of Impeachment,
Faces Vicous Attacks by Media
After Downing Street.org
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has introduced articles of impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. In doing so, she alone has spoken for the 51 percent of Americans who Newsweek says want Bush impeached. Read McKinney’s remarks.
McKinney charges that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld manipulated intelligence and lied to justify war, and that Bush has engaged in illegal domestic spying. The former charge has been extremely well documented, and the latter proudly confessed to. The former charge was central to the concern of those who included impeachment in the U.S. Constitution. The latter charge is one of openly violating a law that was established in response to President Richard Nixon’s impeachable offenses.
The media attacks on Congresswoman McKinney have begun. McKinney foresaw the current attacks on her record and forged ahead anyway. Now, we need to support her.
Contact the media in support of McKinney and impeachment.
Urge other members of Congress to support impeachment.
Thank Cynthia McKinney.
Human Rights / Impeachment / Thank McKinney Day
Sunday, December 10th, is Human Rights Day, the 58th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that lays out, in 30 short articles, rights that every human should have protected. Eleven out of the 30 have clearly been violated in the United States by President Bush and his administration, rights including:
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence….
This Human Rights Day, many of us have worked to organize rallies for impeachment all over the country. They will now also be rallies to honor and thank Cynthia McKinney.. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/cynthia
ACTION ALERT: Impeachment Day: Sunday December 10
The Bush Administration has ignored the Constitution. Impeachable offenses need to be investigated. These are two statements that are true, yet are rarely heard via the mainstream American media.
We have all seen what complacency in the media can bring. The Iraq War could not have been executed without it. Impeachment is being framed as a distraction or as revenge. It is time for the media to discuss the real evidence that supports Impeachment and leave the opining to the citizens of this country.
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=9196431&type=ME
Impeachment Actions
• More than 60 Impeachment Forums are being held around the country on Sunday, December 10. To find the closest one near you, click here.
• If you can’t make it, please join your Congressional District Impeachment Committee:
http://democrats.com/cdic-find
• Be sure to sign our petition.
• And call your favorite talk shows and urge everyone to help us impeach Bush and Cheney at: http://impeachforchange.org
ACTION ALEERT: Wear Orange:
December 10th is Human Rights Day
Debra Sweet / World Can’t Wait
Take action on Sunday, December 10th and Monday, December 11th to bring the U.S. sponsorship of torture into the public view and to demand that it be brought to a halt.
“The United Nations has always condemned torture as one of the vilest acts a human being can perpetrate on another. Torture — defined as the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering to obtain information or a confession, punish, intimidate or coerce — seeks to annihilate the victim’s personality and denies the inherent dignity of the human being.
“Torture is a crime under international law. According to all relevant instruments, it is absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances. This prohibition forms part of customary international law, which means that it is binding on every member of the international community, regardless of whether a State has ratified international treaties in which torture is expressly prohibited. The systematic or widespread practice of torture constitutes a crime against humanity.”
— from the OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS FACT SHEET
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“Let us be clear: torture can never be an instrument to fight terror, for torture is an instrument of terror. The prohibition on torture is well established under international law. It is also unambiguous and absolute. It is binding on all States in all territories under their jurisdiction or effective control. It applies in all circumstances, in times of war as in times of peace. Nor is torture permissible when it is called something else: cruel and inhuman treatment is unacceptable and illegal, irrespective of the name we give it.”
– from the office of the UN General Secretory
“In December of 2001, The Bush Administration implemented the Special Access Program that authorized the secret seizure, detention, and interrogation of persons and subjected them to torture. The torture included but was not limited to water boarding, beatings, the administration of electric shock. Extreme temperatures, denial of pain medication for injuries, severe burning, deprivation of food and water and threats of death and sexual assault of family members.
“In January of 2002 the Bush Administration declared that Geneva Conventions protection will not be honored for the ‘War on Terror.’ In August 2002, the administration attempted to re-define torture to escape liability and/or insure immunity for those who authorized or committed torture.
“Secret detention itself is a form of torture for the person detained and for the families who were faced with a situation that amounted to that of enforced disappearance of an individual.”
– from the Verdict and Finding of Fact of the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration of the United States.
In October of this year Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that made legal and sanctioned all of the above. It mandated everything that were in the photos of Abuse at Abu Gharib photos that millions found abhorrent and that shocked the conscience of the world. Yet millions of people have learned to live with the knowledge that this is going on by their government, in their name, and have not taken the responsibility as citizens and people residing in the United States to stop it.
Putting a stop to torture was not an election issue this fall and no leading Democrat or Republican since has stated that this will be immediately overturned and basic laws and standards of human rights and decency adhered to.
If War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity are not reason enough to impeach the Bush Administration what is?
Your Government is openly torturing people, and justifying it. Your Government is the most powerful purveyor of torture in the world today. History is already littered with examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they every imagined.
It is up to us — in our millions and each one of us — to take responsibility NOW to change the course of history. To bring TORTURE and the whole Bush program to a HALT. This Regime does not represent us and we — through mass protest and society wide repudiation — will drive it from office.
On December 10th, bring the systematic and widespread practice of torture by the US into the public view. Act up to bring this crime against humanity and the Bush Regime to a halt.
Debra Sweet is the National Director of World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
