Sunday, August 07, 2005
Folks in Iowa starting to call for impeachment
From the Gate City Daily, Serving Keokuk and the tri-State Area Since 1847, Soldiers' parent calls for investigation into war:
Thursday, August 4, 2005 2:13 PM CDT
To the Editor:
I am the proud father of two sons who are in the military. My Marine has recently returned from Iraq and my Guardsman, attached to the 134th Medical Company at Washington, is being deployed to Iraq on Aug. 6.
I have a few questions I'd like to ask your readers.
Why do we continue to support and be sucked into the lies our current administration are presenting to us? How can we continue to support an administration that:
n Secretly decided to go to war;
n Decided to deceive and mislead Congress and the American people with false claims about both weapons of mass destruction and ties between Saddam Hussein and 9-11;
n Secretly diverted $700 million from the war in Afghanistan and started bombing Iraq to provoke a war;
n Agreed to go to the U.N. only to "legalize" an illegal invasion - and then walked out of the U.N. when inspections worked.
Items 2 and 3 are both impeachable offenses. The Bush Administration's conspiracy to deceive Congress culminated in a fraudulent letter to Congress on March 18, 2003, claiming continued U.N. inspections would endanger the national security of the United States.
This fraud violated the federal anti-conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, which makes it a felony "to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose..."; and the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which makes it a felony to issue knowingly and willfully false statements to the United States Congress.
President Bush did not declare war until March 2003. Congress did not authorize military action until Oct. 11, 2002. But Bush began an air war six weeks before that authorization and increased "spikes of activity" five months before. This means that additional communications to Congress from the president, claiming that he had not yet begun the war, may be felonious, and that Bush violated the constitutional requirement that Congress authorize any war.
These criminal actions constitute high crimes under Article II, Section 4, of the United States Constitution: "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."
As a parent who is proud of not only the commitment his sons have made to their country, but all of the young men and women who have answered their country's call, I urge you to call or write your congressmen and urge them to support an investigation of the events that lead to our involvement in Iraq and if any wrong-doing is found the guilty parties be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Not only do the young men and women of our country deserve this, but the friends and families of the more than 1,820 American men and women who have given their lives in Iraq also deserve the justice of an investigation.
Surely, if the government can investigate the illegal use of steroids in professional baseball, they can also investigate the president of any wrong doing in his handling of the war in Iraq.
Michael Bennett,
Donnellson
