"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always." Mohandas Gandhi
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell

Friday, November 09, 2007

15 razões para a IMPUGNAÇÃO de Bush e Cheney

A Associação Nacional de Advogados dos EUA votou de forma unânime e entusiástica pela impugnação/Impeachment do presidente Bush e do vice-presidente Cheney.
Seguem-se as razões dessa impugnação na transcrição abaixo.

Diga-se também que os Democratas não são melhores, já tinham força bastante no congresso para acabarem com a guerra no Iraque, mas continuam alegremente a apoiar os Républicanos nas suas loucuras com a desculpa idiota de apoiarem as tropas.

Infelizmente nestas razões não estão incluidas as acusações de traição e crime relativamente aos acontecimentos do 11 de Setembro de 2001.

National Lawyers Guild Unanimously Passes Resolution on Impeachment of Bush and Cheney
At the National Lawyers Guild 70th Anniversary Law for the People Convention, being held October 31 - November 4 in Washington DC, the membership "unanimously and enthusiastically passed a resolution supporting the impeachment of Bush and Cheney." While alleged crimes relating to 9/11/01 are inexplicably omitted from the points of this resolution, it is nonetheless an extremely significant undertaking, including powerful implementation resolutions to demand investigation, support and work with impeachment efforts, and encourage all other groups and citizens "to adopt similar resolutions and to use all their resources to build the campaign demanding that Congress initiate impeachment investigation, impeach, and remove Bush and Cheney from office without further delay." We applaud the courage and strength of the National Lawyers Guild, and are grateful for their continuing work on behalf of all of us.

Resolution on Impeachment of Bush and Cheney


Whereas George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney:


1. deliberately misled the nation and doctored intelligence, as described in
the Downing Street minutes, http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html about
the threat from Iraq in order to justify a war of aggression and an occupation
of Iraq, as further described in House resolution H.Res. 333: http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/int3.pdf and as listed in House Resolution H. Res. 635: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr109-635


2. committed crimes against peace by initiating war against Iraq in violation
of the UN Charter http://www.worldpress.org/specials/iraq/ ;


3. committed crimes against humanity in their conduct of the occupation of
Iraq in which they killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and created
millions of refugees http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1892888,00.html
and http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/13/iraq.main/index.html ;


4. killed over 3700 American soldiers and severely wounded nearly 30,000 more
in the pursuit of an illegal, immoral, and unjust occupation of Iraq. While
Bush and Cheney have stated no truthful noble cause for the war, one of the
central purposes appears to be to take control of Iraq's immense oil reserves
to financially benefit private corporate interests. See Bush's benchmark listing
fact sheet released the same day Bush announced the "surge" that expressly
called on the Iraq parliament to "enact hydrocarbons law to promote investment
. . . " http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-3.html
and http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/56672/
;


5. committed further crimes against peace by threatening Iran in violation
of the UN Charter, as described in House resolution H. Res. 333 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/query/z?c110:H.RES.333:
and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6649053.stm ;


6. detained thousands of prisoners without charges and without providing the
ability to confront their accusers at a fair trial http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Americas/United-States-of-America
;


7. condoned the torture of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions,
the US anti-torture statute of 1994, the US War Crimes Act of 1996, and the
oath of office http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm
and http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Americas/United-States-of-America
and http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/
.


Bush's refusal to faithfully execute the laws prohibiting torture and his declaration
on February 7, 2002 that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners in
Afghanistan and in Guantanamo set the stage for torture there http://hrw.org/reports/2004/usa0604/2.htm
. The Rumsfeld approved Guantanamo torture techniques were then imported to
Iraq in August 2003, where the International Committee of the Red Cross found
"systemic" mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in several facilities and
where the Schlesinger Report confirmed in August 2004 that abuses were "widespread"
and "serious both in number and in effect," and that there is both
"institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels" ;


8. approved at least two different illegal electronic surveillance programs
of American citizens without a warrant in violation of the fourth amendment
and in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and repeatedly
lied to the American people by stating that

no surveillance was taking place without a court order. The first program includes
intercepting phone and email conversations without warrants and was exposed
by the NY Times on December 16, 2005 http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/CPC/NYT_15cnd-program.html
. After that program was exposed Bush said the program was carefully targeted
to just include international calls and suspected members of Al Qaeda. Then,
the second program was exposed by USA Today on May 11, 2006. It provides
a wholesale attack on the fourth amendment by recording call identification
information of tens of millions of purely domestic calls as well as international
calls http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
;


9. attacked basic human rights protections in the constitution including habeas
corpus, fifth amendment freedom from loss of life, liberty and property without
due process of law, eighth amendment freedom from cruel and unusual punishment,
and fourth amendment freedom from

unreasonable search and seizure ;


10. attacked the separation of powers in an effort to consolidate power in
the executive;


11. attacked the messenger who revealed that Bush "twisted" intelligence
"to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Just as Nixon retaliated against
former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
, according to papers filed in court by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in April 2006, there was "concerted action"
by "multiple people in the White House" to "discredit, punish
or seek revenge against" former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for his July 6,
2003 NY Times op ed piece http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?ex=1372824000&en=6c6aeb1ce960
dec0&ei=5007


that ripped the cover off of Bush's false assertions in his 2003 state of the
union address that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa for building a
nuclear bomb. In retaliation, and to silence other would-be critics, the White
House collected information about Wilson and disclosed to reporters that his
wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert agent in the CIA counterinsurgency division,
putting her life, and the lives of her contacts, at risk in violation of a US
law protecting intelligence personnel (The Impeachment of George W. Bush,
by Elizabeth Holtzman) ;


12. as the sole person under the Federal Stafford Act with responsibility and
authority to issue emergency orders to mobilize the military and any federal
resources needed to aid and assist in a disaster (see Failure of Initiative,
February 2006 report of the House Select Bipartisan Committee to investigate
the Preparations for and the Response to Hurricane Katrina http://katrina.house.gov/
), Bush failed to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, violated the
public trust, and demonstrated reckless and inexcusable indifference to human
life before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Bush knew but did not act until
too late, and then he lied about it on national TV. Footage and transcripts
from briefings Aug. 25-31 demonstrate that Bush was personally told well in
advance of the "unprecedented strength" of the hurricane, the "devastating
damage expected," and that "water shortages will make human suffering
incredible," according to highly accurate predictions by the National Weather
Service. The Associated Press reported that "in dramatic and sometimes
agonizing terms, federal disaster

officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane
Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New
Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage,"
http://www.truthout.org/cgibin/artman/exec/view.cgi/47/18079
. Yet Bush failed to muster resources to evacuate residents in advance and failed
to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina hit. Then three days
later Bush told Good Morning America, "I don't think that anybody anticipated
a breach of the levees." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030202130.html
In years before the storm Bush demonstrated inexcusable criminal negligence
and violated the public trust by cutting the budget for hurricane defense, though
the high probability of the breaching of the levees and the enormous risk to
human life from a major hurricane hitting New Orleans were predicted and well
known for years before the hurricane hit http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html
;


13. failed to take care that the laws be faithfully executed by issuing signing
statements that claim the authority to disobey laws based on the president's
own interpretation of their constitutionality, and then by taking action in
violation of these laws, including the US law making torture a crime, laws regarding
Congressional oversight that require providing information to Congress, laws
regarding domestic spying, laws regarding civil liberties, and laws strengthening
whistle blower protection, thereby expanding the president's own power by stepping
into the legislative and judicial functions at the expense of Congress and the
courts, upsetting the balance among the three Branches of government, and moving
us away from the rule of law toward vastly increased executive power; http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/
and
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/
;


14. converted the Justice Department into an arm of the Republican Party by
firing meritorious federal prosecutors who refused to base decisions on whom
to prosecute on political considerations--to help Republicans win election,
an offense James Madison discussed in a

speech to the Senate on June 17, 1789, in which Madison said, "The
danger then consists merely in this, the president can displace from office
a man whose merits require that he should be continued in it. What will be the
motives which the president can feel for such abuse of his power, and the restraints
that operate to prevent it? In the first place, he will be impeachable by this
house, before the senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend
that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment
and removal from his own high trust.
" http://www.gwu.edu/~ffcp/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=fc11904
and http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/27/113/print/
;


15. condoned criminal conduct and obstructed justice by commuting the sentence
of convicted perjurer Scooter Libby to keep him silent and to demonstrate that
Bush and Cheney will not allow high officials in the administration to be held
accountable for their criminal acts;


16. obstructed congressional investigations of these and other acts by the
administration by defying subpoenas from Senate and House committees seeking
documents and testimony under oath by administration officials and former administration
officials; (...)



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