Fw: CONGRESS SHOULD BEGIN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY OF BUSH AND CHENEY

["giuseppe scano" <useppescano at virgilio.it>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Kramer" <skramer at cinci.rr.com>
Newsgroups:
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Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:55 AM
Subject: CONGRESS SHOULD BEGIN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY OF BUSH AND CHENEY


> Nader: Iraq an Unconstitutional, Illegal War
>
> Based on Five Falsehoods:
>   CONGRESS SHOULD BEGIN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY OF BUSH AND CHENEY
>
> "All public policy should revolve around the principle that individuals
> are responsible for what they say and do." -- George W. Bush, 1994.
>
> Washington, DC:
>   Building on his call for the impeachment of President
>   Bush and Vice President Cheney, Independent Presidential candidate Ralph
>   Nader today is calling on Members of the House of Representatives to
>   begin an impeachment inquiry to investigate two distinct impeachable
>   offenses.
>
> An Impeachment Inquiry is the first step toward considering Articles of
> Impeachment. During an Impeachment Inquiry the House would investigate
> whether there are potential impeachable offenses.
>
> Impeachment Inquiry and the Process of Impeachment
>
>   While the Constitution is clear in granting the impeachment power to the
>   House, it leaves the development of mechanisms for exercising the power
>   to the House. As noted by the Association of the Bar of the City of New
>   York in "The Law of Presidential Impeachment By the Committee on Federal
>   Legislation" (see: http://www.abcny.org/presimpt.htm):
>
>     "A variety of methods have been employed to institute impeachment
>     proceedings: Charges may be made orally on the floor by a Member of
the
>     House; a Member may submit a written statement of charges; one or more
>     Members of the House may offer a resolution and place it in the
>     legislative hopper; a presidential message to the House may initiate
>     proceedings. The House has also received charges from a state
>     legislature, from a territory, and from a grand jury. Finally, there
may
>     be a report of a committee of the House which may submit facts or
>     charges that will lead to impeachment. Under the rules governing the
>     order of business in the House a direct proposition to impeach is a
>     matter of highest privilege and supersedes other business. Similar
>     privileged treatment is given to propositions relating to a pending
>     impeachment."
>
>   The purpose of the Impeachment Inquiry is to have a Committee develop a
>   report for the House which then can be considered for the purpose of
>   determining whether to proceed with impeachment proceedings. The House
>   determines whether to impeach based on a majority vote. It is important
>   to remember that impeachment does not mean conviction - that is left to
>   the Senate. Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment, making
>   formal charges, which the Senate then considers. Conviction requires
>   two-thirds of the Members present in the Senate to vote for conviction.
>
> Two Potential Articles of Impeachment that Should be Part of an
Impeachment Inquiry
>
> The Impeachment Inquiry should focus on two areas involving President
> Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
>
> The unconstitutional war in Iraq.
>
>   "The Inquiry should examine whether President Bush and Vice President
>   Cheney have gone beyond the bounds of the Constitution, defied the rule
>   of law, and if so, whether impeachment is the appropriate constitutional
>   punishment," said Nader. The United States Congress never voted for the
>   Iraq war. Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which
>   unlawfully transferred to the President the decision-making power of
>   whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States
>   Constitution's War Powers Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11) vests
>   the power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the
>   United States Congress. This can only be changed by a constitutional
>   amendment.
>
>   "Our founders had seen what could occur when the power to declare war
>   was vested in one person, a King or a Queen, so they took clear steps to
>   ensure no one person could declare war for the United States. As James
>   Madison wrote: "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be
>   found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace
>   to the legislature, and not to the executive department," noted Nader.
>
> Five Falsehoods that Led to the Iraq Quagmire:
>
>   Making matters worse in this situation, the illegal first-strike
>   invasion and occupation of Iraq was justified by five falsehoods. Nader
>   calls for a second area for Impeachment Inquiry to examine: the "five
>   falsehoods that led to war." In 1994 George W. Bush said: "All public
>   policy should revolve around the principle that individuals are
>   responsible for what they say and do." In 2000, he ran as the
>   "responsibility " candidate. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of
>   national security intelligence data, if proven, would be "a high crime"
>   under the Constitution's impeachment clause. Article II, Section 4 of
>   the Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil
>   Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on
>   Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high
>   Crimes and Misdemeanors."
>
> WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
>
>   The weapons have still not been found. Nader emphasized, "Until the 1991
>   Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was our government's anti-communist ally in the
>   Middle East. We also used him to keep Iran at bay. In so doing, in the
>   1980s under Reagan and the first Bush, corporations were licensed by the
>   Department of Commerce to export the materials for chemical and
>   biological weapons that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick
>   Cheney later accused him of having." Those weapons were destroyed after
>   the Gulf War. President Bush's favorite chief weapons inspector, David
>   Kay, after returning from Iraq and leading a large team of inspectors
>   and spending nearly half a billion dollars told the president :We were
>   wrong."
>
>             See: David Kay testimony before Senate Armed Services
Committee,
>                  January 28, 2004.
>
> IRAQ TIES TO AL QAEDA:
>
>   The White House made this claim even though the CIA and FBI repeatedly
>   told the Administration that there was no tie between Saddam Hussein and
>   Al Qaeda. They were mortal enemies - one secular, the other
>   fundamentalist.
>
> SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES:
>
>   In fact, Saddam was a tottering dictator, with an antiquated, fractured
>   army of low morale and with Kurdish enemies in Northern Iraq and Shiite
>   adversaries in the South of Iraq. He did not even control the air space
>   over most of Iraq.
>
> SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A THREAT TO HIS NEIGHBORS:
>
>   In fact, Iraq was surrounded by countries with far superior military
>   forces. Turkey, Iran and Israel were all capable of obliterating any
>   aggressive move by the Iraqi dictator.
>
> THE LIBERATION OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE:
>
>   There are brutal dictators throughout the world, many supported over the
>   years by Washington, whose people need "liberation " from their leaders.
>   This is not a persuasive argument since for Iraq, it's about oil. In
>   fact, the occupation of Iraq by the United States is a magnet for
>   increasing violence, anarchy and insurrection.
>
> Nader urges the Congress to investigate the illegal nature of the war,
> and how the five falsehoods became part of the Bush Administration's
> drum beat for war, in a formal Inquiry of Impeachment.
>
> --
>
> For further information, contact:
> Kevin Zeese
> 1-202-265-4000
>
> --
> operates the Al-Balagh.net, which has a online bookstore in California
> selling books written by individuals who are on the U.S. and UN terrorist
> lists.
>
> Jabara is a member of the legal advisory board for the Council for
> Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR) as well. The non-profit
CPRR
> exists to "provide legal assistance to Palestinian refugees and their
heirs
> and to educate the public about the legitimate rights of Palestinians."
>
> Two members of the CPRR, Ishaq Farhan and Abdulateef Arabiyat, are members
> of the Islamic Action Front (IAF)-an Islamist party affiliated with the
> Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
>
> Abdeen Jabara also works closely with another IFCO project called the
> Coalition Against the "Counter Terror" Act. He distributes its flyers and
> has appeared in a video for the group, which may be purchased for $15 a
> copy - from IFCO.
>
> Apparently someone is buying. According to a New York Post report, "the
most
> recent IRS records available for IFCO, from the year 2000, show that the
> foundation took in $1,119,564 in contributions. A Not In Our Name
statement
> report that they have taken in more than $400,000 in recent months for the
> purpose of publishing their statement."
>
> NION and Narco-terrorism
>
> As disturbing as NION's relationships with IFCO and Muslim organizations
> are, just as disturbing is its relationship to the Revolution
>
>