thinkprogress.org — Today during a town hall event, an attendee forced Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to respond to Rep. Dennis Kucinich?s impeachment articles against President Bush. McCain said that he opposes them. Yet in 1999, he voted for the impeachment of President Clinton. At the time, McCain stressed that a president must be held ?accountable to the rule of law".
Jun 26, 2008 View in Crawl 4
invisibleinkJun 26, 2008
The holding of the Guantanamo Bay detainees without due process and the "harsh interrogation tactics" (torture) unleashed there and elswhere are violations of the Geneva Conventions and federal law requiring strict adherence to treaties by elected officials. Treaties are regarded as the law of the land and it is federal crime to subvert them. These are impeachable and imprisonable offences. Kucinich is doing the right thing, but, for some unfathomable reason, the politicians of his own party ignore these crimes. At the very least, Rumsfeld is blatantly guilty for approving and encouraging the tortures and atrocities at Abu Graib, and he should be tried (due process) and imprisoned.
staxofmaxJun 27, 2008
McCain refuses to impeach Bush?! Stop the presses!!!Is anyone really surprised? It would be political suicide for McCain to do so, pure and simple. Can't we just file this under "no s**t" and move on?
doctechnicalJun 27, 2008
You are wrong.Under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, these detainees are not entitled to POW status. In order to qualify for this status they would have to have satisfied four conditions: They would have to be part of a military hierarchy; they would have to have worn uniforms or other distinctive signs visible at a distance; they would have to have carried arms openly; and they would have to have conducted their military operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.HTH. HAND.
imperialromeJun 27, 2008
When Justin Volpe abused Abner Louima after taking him into custody, did the DA prosecute Rudy Guiliani or the police commissioner for approving of it? No, because the overzealous subordinate is acting in excess of his authority.When guards at Gitmo abuse prisoners there, was it because Bush told them to do so? Rumsfeld? No, it was because the lawyers at DOJ and DOD approved of procedures that the SC did not agree with. That is not a crime, in and of itself.The Holding of prisoners without "due process" is a bogus argument. It was unclear from the very start what due process they were entitled to. If they are covered under Article 3 of Geneva Conventions, then they can be held for the duration of the war, without trial. Period.If they are covered under Article 4, then they are civilians, and can be tried for crimes against US forces for illegally engaging with US troops in combat. Therefore, a review board needed to be established, and that review board had to establish what did, or did not happen, in each case. Since they have processed and released most of the Gitmo detainees, that process was WORKING.The remaining Gitmo detainees are those who were most likely actual enemy combatants, who could and should be tried, but the evidence against them had to be reviewed, and trials scheduled; and then the SC decided that the procedures weren't enough, and threw the whole thing out again.Now, the Gitmo trials will not go forward until a new Congress comes into office, and a rewrite of the MCA is completed. So instead of giving them trials, and releasing them or sentencing them, they will remain in limbo for another two years.Finally, it is wholly unreasonable to impeach the President when no crime was committed. Even if I take at face value your assertion that he lied to get us into a war, which I don't accept, but even if I did accept that, the war was duly and legally authorized by the Congress.That means your entire case of "he lied" / "he misled" / "caused the deaths of " is based on the gullibility of your representatives in Congress. Since they authorized the use of force and military means to removed Saddam Hussein, does it not also taint them? Did they do so with the intent of causing the deaths of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians? Aren't they just as responsible for those deaths? So, if they are just as culpable and responsible for the deaths caused by this war, shouldn't they also be impeached on the same basis?If it follows that they reviewed the same intel, which they did, and came to a false conclusion, which you assert, and they authorized the use of force, aren't they just as guilty? So how can a guilty party to the same crime put another party on trial, legally? They cannot.Case closed.
curtisagJun 27, 2008
Pie would you quit signing your posts like a jackass. You're a very sensible person otherwise.
Closed AccountJun 28, 2008
Bullcrap! This is all lies and made up bullcrap.Even Thinkprogress has pulled the PDF file."Error 404 - Not Found"So much for the evidence that Bush lied.
coildcoyleJul 18, 2008
Vault, The reason is that we need to prevent Bush from issuing Blanket Pardons to all of the other criminals in his 8 year crime wave.Think about it.Coil