Re: [Holiday's] Re: The Iran War thread (Impeachment side-thread)

[Erik Miller]

The major crimes that we know about at this point are the violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act.  Congress passed a clearly written law about how the executive branch may perform surveillance, and Bush repeatedly signed orders for the NSA to ignore the law.  The violation was so blatant that John Ashcroft thought it was illegal, which is no small feat.  He swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which says that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed" in his job description (Article II, Section 3), and he has failed this clause miserably.  Which part of the constitution are you reading that makes it seem like impeachment isn't the appropriate remedy here, Lou?  I'd be happy to see a precedent making future presidents think twice before re-writing or disregarding federal law.

 

Erik

----- Original Message ----
From: Louis Jeansonne <l...@jeansonne.com>
To: hol...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2007 9:40:53 AM
Subject: [Holiday's] Re: The Iran War thread

I understand the argument that some of Bush's executive orders violate Constitutional checks and balances, but I fail to see how impeachment will correct that any better than simply striking down those particular executive orders or actions.  In my mind, this is no different than when Congress passes an unconstitutional law -- we don't remove them from office, the Supreme Court just strikes the law down.

 

According to the Constitution, impeachment is for crime.  When the legislative branch violates the Constitution, we don't consider it a crime, we just nullify the law or policy.  Why should the executive branch be any different?  You can't cherry pick the Constitution and use it as justification for impeachment, when the Constitution's own clauses on impeachment don't allow this!

 

On 10/27/07, vath...@umich.edu <vath...@umich.edu> wrote:

Lou-

I'll let Scott discuss his specific assertions about the need for
impeachment, but it is simply not the case that people are ONLY calling
for articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney because of a simple
disagreement about the war. For an interesting discussion of the
subject, I'd recommend this Bill Moyers episode from the summer:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html

In particular, it is interesting to hear Bruce Fein's arguments for
impeachment given his background (Fein is a Conservative Legal scholar
who drafted the first articles of impeachment against Clinton for
perjury). One of his central arguments, for those uninterested in
watching the clip, is that the unprecedented assertion of power by the
Executive branch under Bush has raised real and troubling
constitutional questions about checks and balances. If these assertions
of power remained unchecked, as they have been, they will remain in
place for future presidencies. The notion that those future presidents
- Democrat or Republican - will freely surrender Executive power back
to the other branches is, in his mind, unlikely. And since the current
Legislative branch is unwilling or unable to reassert their own
Constitutional authority, it is critical that articles of impeachment
be brought to correct the balance. Note that this is an argument to
restore Constitutional checks and balances, as construed by Fein and
others. This is not a direct attack on Bush and Cheney over policy
disagreements.

Others, of course, ARE calling for impeachment over policy
disagreements. But I wanted to point out that these are not the only
calls for impeaching Bush (as your comment suggested).

I'd love to hear what the lawyers in the "room" have to say about this
issue because I know virtually nothing about the Constitution. I am,
after all, an average American.

-Rich


Quoting Louis Jeansonne <l...@jeansonne.com>:

>
> I like this thread because it's one of the few issues where we can all take
> a stance, and our stances will be proven right or wrong.  Either Bush will
> invade Iran before his term is over, or he won't.
>
> I am not convinced that an Iran invasion is going to happen, or that they
> are planning it in the same way that they planned to invade Iraq.  The Bush
> administration's intention to invade Iraq before 9/11 is very
> well-documented.  People pretend like it's some newly-discovered thing, but
> it was extensively detailed in one of Bob Woodward's books, I can't remember
> which one, which came out before 9/11.  They definitely wanted to attack
> Iraq all along.  The same documentation does not exist for Iran.  I think
> they're just trying to scare them.
>
> I also don't buy the "media conspiracy/duping" argument.  How do you know
> the reporters aren't checking their facts?  And how do you know the military
> information is wrong?
>
> Also, preventing a war you disagree with is not a reason to impeach someone.
> I fear that people are going to call for the impeachment of every president
> from now on.  It's fine to just say that you disagree with someone.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: Scott Alister McKinley <scoot...@gmail.com >
>> Reply-To: <hol...@googlegroups.com>
>> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:25:58 -0400
>> To: < hol...@googlegroups.com>
>> Subject: [Holiday's] Re: The Iran War thread
>>
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm still interested in documenting the build-up to an attack within
>> Iran's borders.  The only reason I'm bothering y'all with it, is that
>> I think it will happen by next March (which is the #1 reason I thought
>> it was important to impeach either Bush or Cheney).
>>
>> The administration's initial attempt to convince the world that Iran
>> is an imminent nuclear threat failed.  The new rationale is that
>> elements of Iran's government are terrorist sponsors, therefore giving
>> us (or Israel) the right to attack.
>>
>> As before, to build credibility the administration uses people who are
>> presumed to be apolitical to make provocative claims of fact.  In
>> reviewing the build-up to the Iraq War, each of these proxies was
>> shown to be duped in one way or another (think Colin Powell, George
>> Tenet, and Hillary Clinton).  We must ask whether this is happening
>> again.
>>
>> The military face this time is General Petraeus, the source in my last
>> post.  The surprising civilian face in the following story is Henry
>> Paulson, Treasury Secretary.
>>
>> Three details stand out to me in this story.  First, because these
>> facts are detailed in a bureaucratic announcement about sanctions, the
>> entire set of claims is reported completely uncritically.  Going into
>> it, the reporter feels as though the story is that the US is making
>> new sanctions.  His guard is down.  The story turns out to be that
>> there are new claims of fact. Surprised to see these new claims, the
>> reporter parrots to claims without doing any due diligence to see if
>> they're true.
>>
>> Second, the allegation that Shiite Iran is supporting the Sunni
>> Taliban in Afghanistan strikes me completely new.  To my knowledge,
>> the Sunni - Shiite divide is so deep that there are virtually no
>> incidences of alliances, much less military support, even to confront
>> the Russians or Americans.  That a reporter would accept such a claim
>> without any proof and without any counterbalancing paragraph that,
>> hey, some of this may not be true, is just outrageous.
>>
>> Third, the US is going out of its way to link Iran to Hezbollah (which
>> may well be true).  The significance though is that Israel was
>> recently willing to strike facilities within Syria.  The rhetorical
>> groundwork has been lain to justify an Israeli strike within Iran the
>> next time Gaza flairs up.
>>
>> The story as it appears on cnn.com:
>>
>> -- Scott
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> U.S. details Quds Force's 'lethal support' to Taliban
>> http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/25/quds.force/index.html
>>
>> WASHINGTON (CNN)  -- The Quds Force, the elite unit of Iran's Islamic
>> Revolutionary Guard Corps, provides "lethal support" to the
>> Sunni-dominated Taliban for use against U.S. and NATO forces,
>> according to information in the new U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran.
>>
>> Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, with Secretary of State Condoleezza
>> Rice, announces the sanctions Thursday.
>>
>> The Quds Force is the "Iranian regime's primary instrument for
>> providing lethal support to the Taliban," and it "provides weapons and
>> financial support to the Taliban to support anti-U.S. and
>> anti-coalition activity in Afghanistan," the Treasury Department
>> alleged Thursday in announcing economic sanctions against the Quds
>> Force and other Iranian military and financial entities.
>>
>> Iran is a predominantly Shiite nation and is known to support Shiite
>> fighters in Iraq, where Shiite and Sunni Muslims have been at odds in
>> recent years, and in Lebanon.
>>
>> In the past, the U.S. military has said the Quds Force also supports
>> the Taliban, the Sunni movement that once controlled Afghanistan and
>> still harbors the al Qaeda terror movement. The Treasury Department
>> statement, however, laid out specific details of that alleged support
>> to justify designating the Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism.
>>
>> "Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged frequent shipments of small
>> arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar
>> rounds, 107 mm rockets, plastic explosives, and probably man-portable
>> defense systems to the Taliban," the statement said.
>>
>> The Treasury statement also says the Quds Force "has had a long
>> history" of backing Hezbollah's "military, paramilitary, and terrorist
>> activities, providing it with guidance, funding, weapons,
>> intelligence, and logistical support."
>>
>> The Lebanese Shiite group runs training camps in Lebanon's Bekaa
>> Valley and "has reportedly trained" more than 3,000 of the group's
>> fighters at Revolutionary Guard training facilities in Iran, the
>> Treasury Department alleged.
>>
>> The statement further alleges that the Quds Force provides roughly
>> $100 million to $200 million in funding a year to Hezbollah and has
>> helped the group rearm after the war in Lebanon with Israeli forces.
>>
>> The Treasury Department says the Quds Force provides "material
>> support" to two Palestinian groups -- Palestinian Islamic Jihad and
>> the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
>>
>> The Quds Force is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
>> Guard Corps. The others are Ground Forces, Air Force, Navy and Basij
>> militia.
>>
>> The Revolutionary Guard Corps "runs prisons, and has numerous economic
>> interests involving defense production, construction, and the oil
>> industry" and "has been outspoken about its willingness to proliferate
>> ballistic missiles capable of carrying" weapons of mass destruction,
>> the Treasury Department says.
>>
>> >
>
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