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Edited on Fri Nov-10-06 12:20 PM by HamdenRice
Like many fellow DUers, I was stunned and disappointed when I heard Madame Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi say that impeachment was “off the table,” and until Tuesday's election results, I was deeply committed to the idea that we as a nation need to impeach, remove from office, convict and imprison the treasonous, murderous criminals who hijacked our country six years ago.
But since then, I've come to the conclusion that the House Democrats should not pursue impeachment against Bush or Cheney. I think Speaker Pelosi is correct, but perhaps for different reasons.
First of all, let me state what I think should be our goals. First, we need to show that we are a country of laws, that lawbreakers, even lawbreakers in the highest office of the land, will be punished and held accountable. Second, I hope that the toxic form of conservativism that has taken over the Republican party is thoroughly discredited and destroyed forever, and my ultimate hope is that the Republican party will be forced to dissolve, like the purely criminal RICO (Racketerring Influenced and Corrupt Organization) enterprise that it is, hopefully to be replaced by a party or parties that represent conservative voters within the boundaries of discourse set by the law and Constitution. And I hope that the Democratic Party attains power in Washington so that it can address in a empirical, logical, reality-based manner, the truly global, planet-threatening challenges faced by the people of the United States and of the world.
I assume that many DUers share these goals.
The question is: what is the best way to achieve these goals?
An incorrect assumption has taken root in the DU debate about impeachment -- namely that it is the only means the people and Congress have of addressing accountability for the criminality that has occurred over the last six years.
I agree that the many perpetrators of the various criminal enterprises and conspiracies of the Bush administration must be punished for reasons best explained by Latin American human rights activists after the age of Pinochet and South Africans after the age of apartheid: If society doesn't punish wrongdoers in high office, then society implicitly condones their behavior, says that one can commit crimes in high office, disappear people, torture, and it won't be punished. This means that the next dictator down the line will reason that he too can get away with lawless criminality. The post-Pinochet Latin Americans and post-apartheid South Africans called this the "culture of impunity," and believed it was very important to uproot that aspect of their political culture from their legal and political systems. The potential development of a culture of impunity, especially within the Republican Party, is why I fear allowing Bush and his criminal co-conspirators to get away with their crimes.
But I think we are confusing two things: impeachment on the one hand, and punishment and accountability on the other. Impeachment is not the only means of punishing the members of the Bush criminal enterprise. It isn't even the most efficient, fastest, certain or politically feasible. It happens to be the most nationally paralyzing, time-consuming, uncertain of outcome, politically costly means of punishment, and the means with the greatest threat of backlash from Republicans and independents.
But it is not the only means of punishment. Impeachment takes an incredibly long time, if past experience is any indication. It is highly unlikely that impeachment could be accomplished in the two years remaining in Bush's term. I think that Madame Speaker Pelosi was simply recognizing the unpleasant likelihood that Bush may manage to let the clock run out on his presidency without being impeached, and if that is so, why invest so much political capital in such a losing and risky proposition. (Could you imagine starting impeachment proceedings and Bush and Cheney being acquitted in the Senate??!) But that doesn't mean Bush and Cheney won't be punished.
We are creating a false equation, in other words: no impeachment = no punishment or accountability. That's just not so.
Congress will no doubt immediately begin investigating the crimes of the Bush administration. Within a few months, no doubt enough evidence will have been disclosed to justify the appointment of a special prosecutor or independent counsel, with the single minded focus and dedicated staff that Democratic House staff simply would not have.
Breathtaking horrors will be uncovered by Congressional and other investigations. I am sure we will learn of massive theft of billions of dollars by Halliburton, a company that in securities law parlance, was essentially under the control of the vice president when its looting started. I suspect that investigations will disclose evidence that monstrous elements within the Department of Homeland Security intentionally allowed thousands of people to die in New Orleans (Chertoff practically admitted as much on CNN live) and bussed the survivors to the far corners of the country in order to remove a blue spot from a red state. I suspect that we will learn that the NSA wiretapping program was used to spy on, blackmail and intimidate domestic opponents -- something already virtually proven in the British press, when it disclosed that John Bolton used NSA intercepts to spy on Colin Powell and disrupt his diplomatic efforts. I suspect we will learn that Cheney and Bush knew that there were no WMDs in Iraq and lied to Congress and the American people to get us into this hellish war. We will learn that certain high ranking officials in the Defense Department had treasonous allegiances to the Likud wing of Iraeli politics, and that Dennis Hastert was bribed, bought and paid for by Turkish intelligence elements and/or drug cartels. We will surely learn as has already been disclosed in the press, that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld took gleeful and sadistic personal pleasure in following and intervening in individual cases of torture. And most shattering to the remaining brain dead members remaining left of the toxic rump conservative movement who believe that Bush's one undeniable accomplishment is that he has "kept us safe" from another 9/11, we will learn that leading elements of the Bush administration knew of or even facilitated the attacks of 9/11 and allowed them to occur so they could implement their fascist agenda.
The question is what should be done with this knowledge? What will best serve our purposes?
I am reminded of the psychological reconditioning scenes in the book and film versions of A Clockwork Orange, or the torture scene at the end of Orwell's 1984. Imagine some horrific, pornographic image, something almost unbearable to watch. What would have a stronger impression on you: seeing it briefly and having it snatched away, or being forced to endure it for weeks, months or even two years.
Once the criminal horrors of the Bush administration are made clear to the general public, what would truly realign American politics for the next two decades? What would happen if the public watched all these facts come out, and also had to watch this horrific, ignorant, cruel little man on television, day after day, giving speeches and press conferences trying to explain away ever more disclosed crimes with pathetic and obvious lies -- with half of his handlers gone, under indictment -- undergoing a public Nixonian mental breakdown, making clear to the general public that their president and the entire leadership of the Republican Party was capable of the most murderous, treasonous crimes?
Compare that to what would happen if these same facts were disclosed, and he and Cheney were swiftly removed from office and replaced by some senior so-called "clean" Republican, probably John McCain or Colin Powell, preparing the way for a “rehabilitated” Republican party to run in 2008? (And don't get me started on the idea of President Pelosi -- anyone who thinks that will happen doesn't understand presidential succession or the process by which we got Gerald Ford as president.)
I apologize for being so pragmatic about crimes against humanity and the Constitution, but I for one think the former scenario, the spectacle of a president stripped of power, exposed as a traitor and war criminal, horrifying the public day after day with his evil stupidity would do more to permanently realign politics than impeachment -- while in the meantime, the House Democrats and Dr. Dean's 50 state Democratic Party re-enfranchise all voters, draft legislation for universal health care, engage in public diplomacy over the administration's head.
There will be accountability. Congressional investigative committees, independent counsel, career Justice Deparment lawyers, would all be preparing the indictments that will greet George Bush and Dick Cheney and the many other criminals in this administration, so that the minute they leave office the handcuffs will be slapped on and they can be frog marched to the federal prisons they so richly deserve.
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