Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!
By Gary Leupp
Created Jan 7 2007 - 10:14am
Early on in the movement to oppose Bush's wars of aggression, Ramsey Clark
and folks associated with the Workers' World Party advocated that the
president be impeached. I recall attending antiwar demonstrations where
people would go around collecting signatures on impeachment petitions, and
thinking to myself:
(1) "No way this is feasible, given Bush's popularity ratings and growing
fascist trends," and
(2) "Can't we do better in any case than channel our energies into some
legal procedure that will---even if it were to succeed---leave the whole
imperialist war machine intact?"
That was before the tide of U.S. public opinion turned, due primarily to the
efforts of the people of an invaded country to resist that imperialist war
machine. Had the project been the "cakewalk" predicted by prominent neocon
Ken Adelman, Bush and his allies in the corporate media might have continued
to persuade the masses that the invasion of Iraq was part of a rational,
justifiable, heroic and even holy "war on terrorism."
Instead, we've seen firm and growing Iraqi resistance to occupation, now
costing three American lives everyday.
In that context, anyone inclined to switch the channel control from Fox News
from time to time and realize that the invasion of Iraq was based entirely
on lies linking it to 9-11 and to such terrors as mushroom clouds over New
York City becomes inclined to fault the Bush regime with serious
misjudgments if not misdeeds.
Investigation after investigation convinces all with eyes to see and ears to
hear that the war on Iraq is wrong. The tight grip of the corporate media on
the American mind would not have allowed the decisive shift of opinion about
the war had it not been for the success of the "insurgents" in making life
hell for the invaders.
The complex and divided resistance movement, rather than antiwar activists
in the American streets, has forced Americans to conclude that Bush did
something profoundly immoral in attacking Iraq. The revelation (or what was
for some a revelation) that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction
and no appreciable al-Qaeda ties has helped millions to figure out that the
Iraq War is based on calculated lies.
But the main factor that even allows for this realization has been the
refusal of an invaded people to respond to their violation with the
predicted flowers and smiles. When Americans read that 90%% of Iraqis want
their GIs to leave post haste, or that 90%% say they were better off under
Saddam Hussein, or that only 35%% of the troops in Iraq (versus 42%%) approve
of Bush's handling of the war ---they just have to doubt the policies, and
even the character and values, of the man chiefly responsible for the Iraqi
quagmire. Impeachment, once a dubious long-shot proposition, becomes a real
and exciting historical possibility.
In October 2005, a poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs found that 50%% of
Americans wanted Congress to consider impeaching the president if it were
found that "President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for
going to war with Iraq." (This included an extraordinary 70%% of those
18-29.) 44%% did not agree with that, indicating that there is still a large
contingent of people who trust that if their leaders lie, they must have a
good reason.
The following month a Zogby poll showed 53%% in favor of impeachment if Bush
had lied, versus 42%% opposed. A Zogby poll in January 2006 found that 52%% of
Americans (versus 44%%) would favor impeachment if it were found that Bush
illegally wiretapped citizens. Which of course, he did, and has even boasted
about! I haven't seen more recent polls but imagine the pro-impeachment
majority has grown.
Most polls have shown Bush's support level at under 38%% for months, where it
may remain. There is a certain community, strongly overlapping the 26%% of
Americans who identify themselves as evangelical white Protestants, that
seems impervious to reason and evidence, loyal religiously to their
born-again man. They're unlikely to ever view impeachment proceedings
against him---as opposed to that monstrously lascivious Bill Clinton---as
anything other than a plot of Satan in league with the secular humanist
liberals pursuing their anti-family homosexual agenda. They are
well-organized and their political activities are well-funded. But their
strength shouldn't be exaggerated.
Perhaps heartened by the rising tide of popular aversion to the
administration, various writers have over the past year produced books
advocating the president's impeachment. The Center for Constitutional Rights
headed by Michael Ratner published Articles of Impeachment Against George W.
Bush [1] in March 2006; Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky, The Case for
Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from
Office [2] in May; Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper, The Impeachment
of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens [3] in August;
Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips (editors), Impeach the President: The Case
Against Bush and Cheney [4] in October; and Elizabeth de la Vega, United
States v. George W. Bush et al. [4] in November. The first two overlap
(Olshansky is also with the CCR) in laying out a technical legal case; I
reviewed the latter for CounterPunch [4] last year. De La Vega, a former
federal prosecutor, presents evidence to a hypothetical grand jury of a
conspiracy by Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and
Colin Powell to commit criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States in
order to make war on Iraq. Holtzman, a former district attorney and
Congresswoman who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the
impeachment of Richard Nixon, and journalist Cooper, also present a legal
brief. Loo and Phillips are sociology professors with a broader agenda of
not only ousting "the Bush-Cheney regime" but "creating a completely
different political atmosphere" (p. 303).
Impeach the President [5] is an interdisciplinary collection of sixteen
papers by academics, journalists, lawyers and activists including
Counterpunchers Jeremy Brecher, Larry Everest, Brendan Smith, and Kevin
Wehr. Its editors are less occupied with the technical legal case against
the regime than with the political exposure of the breadth of criminality
that characterizes it.
It is thus the most radical contribution in the bourgeoning genre of works
advocating impeachment, implicitly (or sometimes explicitly) indicting what
historian Howard Zinn in his introduction calls "the flawed nature of the
American political system" itself.
In some of the essays, the impeachment issue is less central than in others.
Lyn Duff and Dennis Bernstein's paper on the overthrow of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Chapter 13), for example, is a gripping narrative
about that U.S.-orchestrated crime that only in its conclusion (citing
Ratner) notes that it "definitely [constitutes] grounds for impeachment"
(247).
Richard Heinberg (Chapter 12) documents the administration's indifference to
the problem of the inevitable decline in world petroleum production,
beginning with the observation that "it would be difficult to create an
airtight legal case for impeaching George W. Bush based on his ignoring the
very real threat posed by Peak Oil" (223)---but the paper is a searing
indictment of incompetence in any case.
Mark Crispin Miller's paper, entitled "Bush-Cheney's War on the
Enlightenment" (Chapter 10), argues that the regime is "utterly
irrational""that is to say, not even rational in traditional
capitalist-imperialist terms but rooted in the "ultimately suicidal ...
rapturous eschatology of the quasi-Christian ultraright" (189). Miller
acknowledges that the president might not be tried for his rejection of the
essential principle laid down by the Founding Fathers of a "wholly secular
republic" (194, 198) but argues that "the impeachment effort must be largely
driven by a full awareness of the regime's theocratic animus" (198).
The contributors are not all of one mind concerning the nature of the regime
and the balance of forces feeding and comprising it. Miller for example
downplays the influence of the neocons, suggesting that they "do not
comprise a full-blown movement but are nothing more, or less, than a highly
influential coterie" and not "the theocrats' full partners" (190).
His position resembles that of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which has
long identified "Christian fascists" as the main problem and given
relatively little attention to the (primarily secular Jewish) neocons such
as Paul Wolfowitz, "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, John
Hannah, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Ledeen and Abram Shulsky
responsible for so much of the spadework in the campaign of lies leading to
war. On the other hand, Chapter 14, by co-editor Phillips, Bridget Thornton,
Lew Brown and Andrew Sloan deals extensively with the Straussian neocons and
the Global Dominance Group centered around them, linking them to right-wing
think tanks, corporate sponsors, AIPAC and the Israel Lobby that hugely
influences Christian fundamentalists' perception of the Middle East. (The
charts in this chapter, pp. 273-81, alone are worth the price of the book.)
They imply that a vast movement rooted in more or less traditional
imperialist rationality is indeed a full partner with the "theocrats"
if not indeed in the driver's seat. Everest also gives due attention to the
neocon role (122-24), which is of particular interest in that he writes for
the RCP's Revolution newspaper.
Published before the November elections, the book conveys hope for a
Democratic sweep, not for its own sake but as the premise for impeachment
proceedings. Judith Volkart declares, "If the Democrats win a majority in
the House in the 2006 fall elections, [John] Conyers ... will become
chairman of the Judiciary Committee. This event would dramatically change
the impeachment dynamic" (10).
But immediately after his party's victory, the Michigan rep announced: "In
this campaign, there was an orchestrated right-wing effort to distort my
position on impeachment. The incoming speaker (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.)
has said that impeachment is off the table. I am in total agreement with her
on this issue: Impeachment is off the table."
Conyers actually added that "impeachment would not be good for the American
people. The country does not want or need any more paralyzed partisan
government."
Volkart seems to have been a bit optimistic.
To be sure, the writers generally emphasize that only a mass movement will
force the hand of the politicians responsible for actual impeachment
measures. But the point is understated. Chapter 15 "Beyond Impeachment:
Building a New Political Culture" by Cynthia Boaz and Michael Nagler calls
for radical change, but only in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau and
Mahatma Gandhi (300) and through such individual actions as starting blogs,
writing letters to corporate media managers and "holding leaders
accountable" (298). Loo and Phillips in contrast call for "unprecedented
mass popular upheaval" xvi), and the radical critique of present conditions
presented in the book implies that if politicians frustrate the popular
will, revolution is an option.
There are too many gems in this 326-page work to mention individually.
Suffice it to say it held my attention throughout a ten-hour international
flight just after New Year's. Unembedded Iraq reporter Dahr Jamail's
detailed accounts of war crimes (Chapter 3), Greg Palast's piece on the
"Downing Street memos" (Chapter 7), Loo's essay on electoral fraud in both
2000 and 2004 (Chapter 2), and Kevin Wehr's article on administration's
antiscientific denial of global warming all stand out in my mind. My one
criticism is that while there is brief mention (in Everest's piece, 120) of
CIA "misrepresentation of the facts" before the assault on Iraq, there is no
specific analysis of the contradictions within the CIA or the neocons'
establishment of a separate rogue intelligence body (the Office of Special
Plans) headed by Douglas Feith and Leo Strauss expert and disinformation
artist Abram Shulsky (now head of the "Office of Iranian Affairs" occupying
the now-disbanded OSP's Pentagon offices) that specifically cherrypicked the
prewar "intelligence."
The Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee have sought to
investigate the OSP (what Mother Jones has called the "Lie Factory"), and
should they get serious now about moving forward with that probe it might
dramatically transform the political atmosphere.
What if the people---the targets of the regime's psychological
warfare---discover that that office, or those working through it, forged the
Niger uranium documents in a deliberate cynical move to frighten them into
supporting a disastrous war? That's the sort of thing that might move
Conyers et al. off their butts, especially if the clamor in the streets is
"shakin' your windows and rattlin' your walls."
Then we might find the times suddenly a-changin'.
--
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
