First, let me congratulate this paper for publishing reporter Douglas Wright’s excellent, balanced presentation of local opinions about our country’s pre-emptive initiation of war on Iraq and the endless continuation of the conflict. It’s important that we hear what our neighbors feel about such important national issues, even in a regional paper. Getting news of the war from national media sources removes it from our personal experience, and allows us to dismiss it from the realm of our personal responsibility.
Nothing could be further from the truth! It is very real and very local, as Mr. Wright so effectively showed.
Let’s go from the issues of WMD’s to our right to start wars. I loved that quote from Jim Perley, of Windham, “I have real problems thinking that it’s our job to remove despots from office around the world,” he said. “Where is it written in our Constitution that we need to be the police of the world?”
Do you realize Congress did not authorize the initiation of the war? The U.S. Constitution is clear that the authority to declare war rests in Congress and not in the hands of the President. It states “Congress shall have the power to declare war.” Nevertheless, Bush brought a resolution to Congress asking it to convey its authority to him, alone, and used “fixed intelligence” to convince Congress to approve it.
Congress knows it’s wrong to make pre-emptive strikes against other countries. You know it’s wrong to lash out and hurt someone when you don’t like them, even if they are really bad. That’s what we have police to deal with and, on a global level, the United Nations. Bush’s lies to Congress sent us into war without international support, ensuring that most of the soldiers killed and dollars spent would be American.
Likewise, it was illegal for the President to authorize wire-tapping of U.S. Citizens without warrants, directly breaking the law under the Foreign Securities Intelligence Act. He doesn’t dispute that he ordered such actions, but he believes our laws don’t apply to him.
He doesn’t believe international laws apply to him either. Bush and Cheney also conspired to commit the torture of prisoners in violation of the “Federal Torture Act,” the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention. That violated U.S. and international law!
Last Tuesday, I attended a presentation at USM by constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, sponsored by the Maine Lawyers for Democracy. Founder of the After Downing Street Coalition and author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush, Bonifaz shared his concerns about the systematic erosion of our Constitution and named these three charges (illegal war, warrantless spying on citizens, and torture) as sufficient grounds for impeachment. He described how four State legislatures and numerous towns and municipal political committees have already begun the call for impeachment of the President and Vice President. In fact, the Kennebec County (Maine) Democratic Committee just passed such a resolution.
According to the coalition’s Web site, a city or state cannot directly impeach a President. That is done by Congress and tried by the Senate. However, local governments can initiate the impeachment process by sending charges to the Congress for them to act on. As more states pass these resolutions, Congress will have to act.
Many complain about the incompetence of the President but fail to recognize him as the threat to democracy that he is. If we allow this President to finish his term uncensored, then we have acquiesced in his crimes and must shoulder our share of the responsibility. Visit www.afterdowningstreet.org/resolutions for information on passing local and state resolutions.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
