By Debra Sweet on behalf of the World Can’t Wait national steering committee, 12/11/06
The day Congress opens, World Can’t Wait will lead a major challenge to the political direction in this country since the election. A regime as criminal as the Bush regime still allowed to even remain in office? No! An unjust war started on lies, allowed to continue for four years despite an election where people meant to express how strongly they want it stopped? No! The Democrats, now the majority, allowing debate only on how to run the war more effectively, and saying that impeachment can’t even be considered? No!
BUSH MUST GO! IF WAR CRIMES, TORTURE, AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY ARE NOT REASON TO IMPEACH, WHAT IS?
This is no time to “wait and see”. This is a critical time to take action and demand action. Open the investigations and start impeachment, now!
A few weeks ago, we announced that World Can’t Wait was going to raise the specific demand for impeachment at the opening of Congress on January 4, 2007. A call has been posted with initial endorsers. This letter is to address more fully why we propose this course of action now.
There are several major developments since October 5. The Democrats won both houses of Congress in what was widely acknowledged as a massive repudiation of Bush’s war on Iraq and whole program. Rumsfeld was forced out. The Iraq Study Group’s report sharply criticized Bush for “the grave and deteriorating situation in Iraq”, while trying to unify the country around the need to continue the war. And Bush is already making clear he will not go along with major elements of their recommendations and will not change course.
Millions of people who hate the war on Iraq and the direction of the Bush program hope that the danger of the Bush regime has been mitigated so that he will not be able to do much more damage with a Democratic majority in Congress. In fact, the whole situation is rapidly intensifying with potential dangers and opportunities closely bound together in this moment.
The Bush Regime is encountering deep and profound difficulties in their mission to reorder the whole Middle East under the dominance of U.S. strategic interests that are critical to empire, as Tony Snow openly put it the day after the Iraq Study Group report was issued. This bipartisan commission, which is dealing with the collapse of the nation and society of Iraq, has put out a report that is intended to stem the hemorrhage in Iraq and to unite the U.S. around a consensus of continuing an unjust war of occupation.
To quote Sandra Day O”Connor, “We”ve said in the report that we agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq as stated by the President: an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And to do that, we”ve made these various recommendations on a consensus basis. It’s my belief that if a large segment of our country gets behind that on a consensus basis, that it’s very likely we can move forward and make some progress toward that statement of goals. And I hope that the American people will feel that if they are behind something in broad terms, that we”ll be better off.”
Nancy Pelosi says the Democrats have to work with the president and be perceived as “uniters and not dividers”. But what is needed is NOT for the country to be united around an immoral and unjust war. The country NEEDS to be polarized. To unite with this war is to be complicit in war crimes. Millions of people who hate this must take independent action that makes clear this is NOT IN OUR NAME and we do not stand behind it in any way. We want this brought to a halt, the regime responsible driven out, tried and convicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
George Bush and the regime he heads is remaking laws, policies, and the shape of the government in a fascist direction, based on a fanatical reactionary vision of changing U.S. society permanently. They are seeking global empire through unjust wars which we are told will last generations, building a police state of repressive laws, and moving towards a theocracy, where the Bible becomes the law with all the horrors that will bring.
And they are not stopping, threatening to attack Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. All the “your government” indictments of the World Can’t Wait Call, including the ongoing crimes against Katrina survivors and the destruction of the planet’s environment, are the reasons this Bush program must be brought to a halt.
It is our strong belief and mission that George W. Bush, his administration and his program be repudiated and driven from office before 2008 in order for this whole direction to be stopped. We have about a year to do this before the 2008 election cycle creates other, and likely unfavorable, terms for doing so.
It is our assessment that raising a demand for impeachment based on making the case that this government, which has clearly committed war crimes and is guilty of crimes against humanity, would help establish very different political terms in the country than the ones presently being hammered out in the halls of power. And it will help accelerate the kind of movement from below that moves millions out of political paralysis and into the kind of massive resistance needed to drive out the Bush regime.
Whether this assessment of the situation and the content of the attached call for January 4 are correct is something that every member of this movement should seriously think through and weigh in on. We strongly urge local chapters to meet this week to discuss this and to correspond with the Steering Committee.
Here is the basis to impeach them: The war on Iraq is a war of aggression, waged preemptively on the basis of lies against a country that posed no threat. This is a war crime.
The war has been conducted through the targeting of the civilian population. The city of Fallujah (more than 300,000 people) was fenced in, cut off from water and electricity, most of its homes demolished, and declared a “free fire” zone. This – collective punishment – is a war crime.
The Military Commissions Act legalizes torture and rendition by the U.S. The United Nations says: “Torture is a crime under international law. According to all relevant instruments, it is absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances. This prohibition forms part of customary international law, which means that it is binding on every member of the international community, regardless of whether a State has ratified international treaties in which torture is expressly prohibited. The systematic or widespread practice of torture constitutes a crime against humanity”.
These war crimes and other crimes against humanity, well documented by the Bush Crimes Commission and the Center for Constitutional Rights were not the basis on which the Democrats opposed the Bush Regime, nor are they the basis on which the Iraq Study Group is urging Bush to change the conduct of the war on Iraq. But these crimes are the basis on which we must drive them from office.
Representative Cynthia McKinney introduced a resolution for impeachment on her final day in Congress, as well as a resolution to repeal the Military Commissions Act. Representative McKinney is now being vilified and dismissed. It’s necessary for people of conscience to rise to her defense and take up the challenge she poses.
Will people be complicit in these crimes by staying trapped within the deadly logic of the Democratic Party taking impeachment off the table, “ruling from the center,” and ushering in an era of “partnership” with these war criminals? We have to challenge people living in this country to take responsibility to stop what is being done in our names. Can we, or can we not, tolerate what this regime is doing? Are we a people who will go along with these outrages, or will we unite to say: Bring all of this to a halt – and force Bush from office?
Now, when there is a widening gap between what people think they voted for – an end to the war – and what the Democrats are actually doing, is the time to make these demands and to unite with people in the Impeachment movement to challenge and change the discussion that will take place as Congress opens. Many people who feel they voted to end the war are more politicized, and urgently want to see things changed. We have to show people why acting at THIS moment in THIS way matters, and why they have a moral obligation to act.
Making a demand to Congress at this moment that this president must be impeached is a way to challenge the whole country to come to terms with what this regime represents. It also constitutes a challenge to the logic of accommodation by the Democrats, and if done in the context of the whole Call by World Can’t Wait, it can bring forward the critical mass of people required to move millions into mass independent political action. There is no other way to change things.
In discussing this, people in the San Francisco chapter raised the concern that World Can’t Wait could be dragged into relying on the Democrats by raising the demand for impeachment, and they were right to have that worry. They contrast the correct basis on which to demand impeachment, which we have incorporated into the call for January 4, with the wrong basis:
“This is the wrong way for World Can’t Wait to go and will lead to surrendering key principles and standing. It means WCW tailors ourselves to the coalition’s framework — which will no matter what we say, drag WCW into advocating for people to rely on the Democrats, because the coalition overall is predicated on that understanding of how things work”It also gives up our powerful message that there will be no saviors from the Democrats and the only way to solve the situation is driving out the Bush regime”Everybody knows impeachment is off the table according to the leading Democrats. What does it mean to formulate the opposition to the Bush Regime — and the complicity and hand in it of the Democrats – as a demand for impeachment? Not much, if the grounds are that Bush lied. If he gets impeached just for that, it won’t force any real change. The Bush program can just go forward whether led by Republicans or Democrats. They are the same (corporate controlled, wealthy interests). We should only see impeachment as meaningful if it’s on ground of he’s a war criminal.” *
The questions the SF chapter is raising are highly important, and should be part of every chapter’s discussion. Is there a way to raise this demand without being drawn into the dominant political framework and way politics as usual is conducted in this country? Can it be done without leading people to rely on pressuring the Democrats and accepting incremental changes and false promises that do not and will not change the direction of things? Or can it be done in a way that fosters massive societal upheaval in response to people acting on principles and a morality that unites people living in the U.S. with people living under the US occupation and living under the threat of the next war the Bush regime intends to launch?
It would be wrong to raise impeachment just to broaden the appeal of this movement, or to narrow our concern to “impeachable offenses”. The call for January 4 and a broader coalition it can unite focuses on the war, torture and repression. And in doing this we think it’s critical that the Call for World Can’t wait is used as we in World Can’t Wait build for this. We should get out hundreds of thousands of copies and have people sign onto it. The Call’s indictments, based on the whole Bush program and trajectory, are the basis of unity for this movement. We need a whole lot of people feeling that they wouldn’t accept any government doing what the Bush regime has done.
In sum: Forcing the Bush regime from power could happen through impeachment, investigations leading to criminal prosecutions, or resignations based on scandals which go very high. The exact mechanism of their removal is not where we start. We start with why this regime should not be in office–and why it must be driven out. Impeachment based on making the case that the regime is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity is what the whole nation should be discussing, deliberating and acting on.
The exact mechanism for Bush’s political removal from office will be found when a large enough section of people no longer think this regime is legitimate, and act in their millions to repudiate it and drive it out. A powerful indictment delivered on January 4, setting those terms, will focus and direct peoples” attention to what the regime has done, and can potentially accelerate the kind of movement and the kind of political situation needed to drive it out.
*The chapter discussion was held before the call for January 4 was drafted.