Must Impeach

"I know half your audience wants us to impeach the president…but it's not going to happen."

"I think there is an orderly and dignified way to find out what happened… And, if there was a legal violation there needs to be accountability... you can't put the cart before the horse, but I would not rule out any form of accountability.” That would include impeachment, Feingold told reporters.

"I'm concerned about the abuses of executive power in the areas of torture and the areas of spying - and about how we're treating individuals in terms of the court systems."

Impeachment? "No. While we will vigorously exercise our oversight responsibilities, Democrats are interested in working to improve the lives of middle-class families, not tying up the House in endless investigations."

"the American people clearly were voting for change” …they "were not voting for anything less than a success in Iraq."

“Prepare(ing) to bomb Iran should be a top priority for the movement in the next two years…

Make no mistake, President Bush will need to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities before leaving office… We need to pave the way intellectually now and be prepared to defend the action when it comes."

Comment:

It is neither my intention, nor my place, to tell you what to think but I believe that all the above information and representative statements demonstrate several things.

First, I think they show the Democrats are unwilling to ‘rock the boat’ to any extent beyond that necessary to achieve electoral victories and push a limited ‘bipartisan’ progressive agenda. To this end, and despite what I perceive as a veritable mountain of evidence of Bush’s & Cheney’s direct responsibility in crimes against the American people and Iraq - the nature and magnitude of which exceed the abuses of any prior administration - they are willing to ‘let bygones be bygones’, wipe their hands of the campaign grime, and get on with the ‘hard job of running the country’. Essentially, giving the Bush Administration’s a free ride for their crimes against the American and Iraqi peoples as they become lost in the ‘day to day’ of running the country. I may be wrong, perhaps their outrage is as deep as mine and is only concealed behind a political mask and their statements of moderation are only ‘politics’ to gain the necessary foothold from which to effect real change…but I doubt it. The recent midterm elections will be proven to not have been a “change in direction” only a change in drivers.

Second, unless Congress moves to impeach Bush and remove his Administration (unlikely at best despite the new Democratic majority - as I noted above), he will have more than two years in which to accomplish his agenda. He has been sufficiently forthcoming about the nature of that agenda that, based on his statements, his prior performance, and reasonable extrapolation one may reasonably believe that, before he leaves office, he intends to:

Attack Iran, effect “Regime Change” there, and consolidate U.S. hegemony over the oil- & natural gas-rich regions of western-central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, and Tajikistan which, despite many questionable governments and human rights violations, our government supports and overlooks its stated commitment to ‘spreading Democracy’) and the Mideast (Iraq and Iran). Our huge network of military bases throughout the region (including the Balkans) and the maintenance of our armed forces at ’Cold War’ levels serves no other useful purpose. Would the “new” House & Senate stop him? I don’t know. It is clear, however, that the Democrats do not have a single, unified, view on the issue capable of stopping him if necessary.
Effect “Regime Change” in North Korea by continuing to deal in bad faith with the dysfunctional government of Kim Jung Il creating (as he did to Iraq and is currently doing with Iran) a ‘case’ for overthrowing that government by military force and against the wishes of the other nations in the region. Again, recent changes in Congress might not be sufficient to prevent him.
Continue the repressive & regressive agenda of ultra-conservative right-wing Christianity (so-called “Christian Reconstructionism”) in the functions of our government with the further disenfranchisement of women, the denial of their reproductive freedom, and the destruction of the 1^st Amendment “wall” between Church & State begun before the November 2006 elections and which, despite having a simple majority, the Democrats could probably not push corrective legislation past a Presidential veto.
Defend his attack on the fundamental liberties & rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights from repeal or corrective legislation by use of the Presidential veto.

Of Concern in this respect:

The “Military Commission Act of 2006” (MCA 2006) which:

Grants unprecedented and unchecked authority to the Executive Branch to label as "unlawful enemy combatants" and detain an overly broad range of people, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents inside the United States.
Denies any right to independent judicial review of these detentions (loss of ‘Habeas Corpus‘).
Eliminates accountability for past violations of the law & the Geneva Conventions.
Authorizes the President, without accountability, to re-define the protections of the Geneva Conventions and to define what does, and does not, constitute torture.
Permits the use of evidence obtained through coercion & torture and prevents the accused from knowing that evidence and challenging it…even in death penalty trials.
Gives the Secretary of Defense authority to deviate from time-tested military justice standards for fair trials…at his whim, and without accountability.
Creates crimes of “conspiracy” and “providing material support for terrorism”, the definitions of which are deliberately vague and may even include giving or reading this website!

The 2007 Defense Appropriations Bill which:

On June 22, 2006, modified the Insurrection Act. As part of the 2007 Defense Appropriations Bill Section 1076 of the new law changes Sec. 333 of the "Insurrection Act," and widens the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States to enforce the laws. Under this act, the President may also deploy troops as a police force during a natural disaster, epidemic, serious public health emergency, terrorist attack, or other condition, when the President determines that the authorities of the state are incapable of maintaining public order.
The bill also modified Sec. 334 of the Insurrection Act, giving the President authority to order the dispersal of either insurgents or "those obstructing the enforcement of the laws."
The new law changed the name of the chapter from "Insurrection" to "Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order."

“It also should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.“

Sen. Patrick Leahy, Conference Report, Congressional Record, September 29, 2006

He will continue to ignore, and obstruct responding to, the only current threat to the ongoing survival of human society as we’ve known it - Global Warming - while continuing to reward fossil fuel energy mega-corporations with more ‘corporate welfare’ and an undeserved, excessive, voice in the energy affairs management of our nation and the world.

Continue to violate Federal law and our Constitutional rights through illegal surveillance by obstructing corrective legislation by use of the Presidential veto.

While the new Democratic majority may provide a new direction on some issues (Alternative Energy, Congressional Oversight, Global Warming, and Corporate Welfare as examples) there is no reason to believe they - as a Party - understand the inherent criminality of the American invasion of Iraq and the need to reverse it as quickly as humanly possible, that they understand that America is not the center of the Earth and that our national priorities must take a place in line the those of other nations - particularly where another nation’s natural resources are of interest, that our nationalistic foreign policy is - in large part - the root cause of the world’s antipathy toward us, or that they are any more willing to address the fundamental realignment of our national resources needed to meet the only true existential threat to mankind’s current civilization - Global Warming.

Third I believe that the Bush Administration is guilty of crimes that disqualify them from continuing to serve in office, disqualify them from representing our country to the world, and that failing to address those crimes makes those who ignore them complicit in them. I believe the allies were right to remove the Nazis from public office and punish them after WWII, that leaders of the Khmer Rouge were brought to trial in Cambodia for the mass murder of their own countrymen in furtherance of justice, that the International Criminal Court was right to try Slobodan Miloševic and other Serbian & Croatian human rights abusers for the genocidal murder of ethnic Albanians & Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, that Spain’s indictment of the past leaders of Guatemala’s government for the attempted genocide of the Mayan people is just, that South Africa’s ‘Truth & Reconciliation Commissions’ addressing the facts of the Apartheid were a good and healing thing, that the prosecution of leaders of the Hutu extremists who committed the Rwandan Genocide who have been tried and convicted in ICC-led courts was just, and that Chile’s revocation of Augusto Pinochet’s immunity for the crimes he committed as their leader 25 years ago is also just and that Saddam Hussain deserves to be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. I believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the remainder of the Bush Administration may be guilty of similar crimes against Iraq and, if so, they should not be allowed to lead or represent our nation - the issue of their prosecution and punishment for their crimes aside.

In order secure justice for those harmed, to prevent ongoing violations, and who knows what else more there seems, to me, only one immediate recourse: Impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.

To delay is to invite disaster and delays justice and accountability.