Impeachment Update

Ron Paul was href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01042008/watch2.html">interviewed
by Bill Moyers last Friday (1/4/2008).
 Paul Responded to Moyers' observation that
the media have been complicit in keeping the War out of the public eye
as the campaign is heating up.  

But, you know, isn't it amazing at the end of last
year they turned this into almost like another mission accomplished,
you know. It was our worst year, you know. If you go by years, it was
our worst year. We lost 900 men in Iraq, over 100 in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is blowing up. It's coming unraveled. We're involved in two
countries they are trying to nation build. At the same time, it looks
like we'll be in Pakistan. So, this whole idea that there's some type
of victory going on over there, and it's a disaster.

That is certainly true.  It is a disaster, and the media
portray it as a victory.  It hasn't made us safer, it hasn't
secured access to strategic resources, it has not promoted democracy.
 Instead, it has created an enormous refugee problem, worsened
child poverty and hunger, and it has diverted resources from critical
domestic priorities.  



So it is refreshing to see a senior statesman call for a solution.
Granted, it won't really fix the problem, but it could keep the problem
from getting worse.  In general, like the war, the media have
downplayed this issue.  But today it was featured in the
Washington Post:

href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404308_pf.html">Why
I Believe Bush Must Go

Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.

By rel="tag">George McGovern

Sunday, January 6, 2008; B01

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney
administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only
honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and
the vice president.



After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach
President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I
thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an
expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated
me.



Today I have made a different choice...

McGovern then lays out the case in general terms, before moving on to
specifics:

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has
been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant
commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal,
nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed
almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or
physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis
(according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The
financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is
expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have
borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now
climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.



All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress
that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter
and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life
and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by
the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct
violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.



I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon
administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far
stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T.
Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and
productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any
administration in our national history been so damaging as the
Bush-Cheney era?

He goes on.  No need to repeat it here; most readers probably
know the litany.  Those who do not, are encouraged to visit
the National
Impeachment Resource Center. ( href="http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/26333">Enjuiciamiento
en español)