Impeach Bush! Justification: Offsetting Political Expediency
By Ted Lang © 2003
The impeachment process is an inquiry. It is the process directed at former President Clinton for lying about a matter that Democrats offered was personal, only a matter of sex, and the outcome of the politics of personal destruction. The impeachment process is initiated in the House of Representatives, which serves as an investigation of wrongdoing. The Senate must conduct a trial examining legal ramifications that can result in removal from office.
Curiously, the justification for both an impeachment and its use are found in virtually the same place in the United States Constitution: Article II [powers of the President], Section 3 [State of the Union Message], and Section 4 [removal from office]. The Congress unconstitutionally conveyed to President George W. Bush, the authority of “war-making powers,” thereby violating Article I [powers of Congress], Section 8, paragraph 10 [the power to declare war].
Presidents in the past have maneuvered to obtain this concession from Congress, justifying it as necessary for the political expediency of a “quick response” to a national emergency or attack. Such political expediency is nevertheless unlawful and unconstitutional, subverting the intent of our republic’s spirit of a separation of powers, specifically as it relates to the control of the Nation’s military might. The Congress, by having abdicated its war-making powers in the absence of an attack upon our Nation, gave President Bush dictatorial powers during peacetime.
Simply avoiding “entangling alliances” can obviate such expediency. It can be avoided to even a greater extent by deploying our military only when attacked. This eliminates the need for our maintaining standing armies in other nations and their staggering related costs, as well as the need for foreign treaties and their intrigue.
But President George Bush did maneuver for such power in his State of the Union address. And part of that address alleged that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger in order to construct a nuclear weapon. How many other nations, including our own, are currently engaged in this activity? This is no justification for war.
Along with an absence of “weapons of mass destruction,” the falsification of intent citing the need for a “regime change,” and now the falsification of a report on uranium procurement, President George Bush appears to have lied outright to the American people in his State of the Union speech. He falsely cited a “clear and present danger” to America. He implied that Iraq was involved in the 9-11 terrorist attack upon our nation, yet to date, no such evidence has been presented.
In their headline article of July 12th in the New York Times entitled, “C.I.A. Chief Takes Blame in Assertion on Iraqi Uranium,” David E. Sanger and James Risen launch their piece stating: “The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, accepted responsibility yesterday for letting President Bush use information that turned out to be unsubstantiated in his State of the Union address, accusing Iraq of trying to acquire uranium from Africa to make nuclear weapons.”
The article continues: “Mr. Tenet issued a statement last night after both the president and his national security adviser placed blame on the C.I.A., which they said had reviewed the now discredited accusation and had approved its inclusion in the speech.
For days, the White House has tried to quiet a political storm over the discredited intelligence, which was among many examples cited in Mr. Bush's speech to justify the need for confronting Iraq to force the dismantlement of Saddam Hussein's arms programs.”
It is clear, and hoped for as well, that the upcoming report from Republican Thomas Kean’s 9-11 investigation committee, which has been reputedly hampered by both funding as well as information delays from the White House, that the “incompetence” of intelligence gathering, a process that had it been handled properly could possibly have prevented much if not all of the devastation of 9-11, will point blame at both the CIA and the FBI relative to that terrorist act. Yet Mr. Bush has consistently stood by FBI directors Mueller and Freeh, and CIA director Tenet.
Now Mr. Tenet is “accepting responsibility.” What does that mean? Is that the same responsibility former Attorney General Janet Reno “accepted” for the Waco massacre? What was her punishment? What will Tenet’s be?
The article quotes Bush as saying; “ ‘I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services.’” In contract law, the question of reliability as concerns the warranty made by one party to a contract focuses both on whether the other party relied upon a statement made, and whether or not the relying party could reasonably be expected to have had a right to rely upon that representation of fact. Could Bush be reasonably expected to rely upon his own intelligence community? Can the American people be reasonably expected to rely upon what the President of the United States says during the constitutionally mandated State of the Union address?
What follows are yet more examples of bureaubabbling circular finger pointing. The article goes on: “Although Mr. Tenet’s statement did not say he had personally cleared the speech, he said in his statement, ‘I am responsible for the approval process in my agency.’” Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security advisor, is quoted saying, “The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety.” Later in the article, when asked whether or not she continues to have confidence in Tenet, Rice replied, “Absolutely!”
President Bush made the statement to persuade Congress and the American people to empower him to initiate an unconstitutional, unprovoked attack against a sovereign nation. If giving President Bush war powers was an act of political expediency, then why not exercise the offsetting political expediency of holding him accountable for campaigning for that unconstitutional authority under false pretenses? It was his duty under the Constitution to make his statements as accurate as possible and not with a reckless disregard as to whether they were right or wrong. People have been killed! As a people, do we not have a right to rely on him and to expect that his statements are true?
We are already receiving information that the Bush administration is making monumental efforts to water down the findings of the Kean commission. And now we have the bureaubabble that it was British intelligence’s fault, or there was a warning, or there wasn’t. There are enough contradictions to warrant a full and formal inquiry, and what is needed is impeachment by the United States House of Representatives.
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