Reply #9: Don't need a litany of charges. Just one: Torture. Case closed. [View All]

[pat_k]

We don't need a litany of charges. We don't need their 935 lies. When Bush and Cheney put torture "on the table" they made their removal a moral imperative.

Turning Americans into torturers destroys the heart of our identity as a nation. No nation that sanctions torture can claim to be a just or moral nation.

The treatment of the people who are in the custody of a state, and the processes by which they are committed to state custody are central to the identity and moral authority of a nation.

Whether it be an orphaned or abused child, a mental patient who presents a danger to self or others, a criminal suspect, a convicted criminal, or a person captured in armed conflict, if the processes for committing a person to state custody are immoral or unjust, then the state is immoral and unjust. If the treatment of those in custody is inhumane, then the state is inhumane.

The story of our nation is the story of our efforts to create a body of law committed to the principle that legitimate government power can only be derived from the consent of the governed; the sanctity of human dignity; and the inalienable right of every person to equal treatment under the law.

And under that body of law Drowning Torture ("Waterboarding" to the propagandists) is absolutely and unequivocally forbidden. It is as clearly forbidden as "The Rack" and "Thumbscrews."

Bush and Cheney refuse to acknowledge that Drowing Toture is immoral, inhumane, and prohibited in ALL circumstances. They refuse to acknowledge that arbitrarily seizing and indefinitely committing any person to U.S. custody is prohibited in all circumstances. They claim to have the absolute power to employ their own secret "defintion" of torture. They openly kidnap, indefinitely imprison, and abuse those they arbitrarlty label "enemy cambantas." They "defend" their acts by invoking the absurd notion that the American presidency has "unitary authoritarian power."

You don't need a law degree, or even a high school degree, to understand that absolute power like that is NEVER freely given to a leader; it is only taken by deception or force. Any claim that some "technicality" would give them the power to do that which we forbid must be rejected on it's face. To engage in argment is to legitimizes the illegitmate claim.

We can see that the emperor has no clothes. Unfortunately, fascists have decieved many Americans into believing that they are not fit to judge -- that they can't trust their own eyes. Even when we are in complete agreement that an act clearly violates our most treasured principles, many defer to authorities who tell us "it is all too complex for the likes of you."

Members of Congress are promoting that deception when they dismiss the truths we confront them with. They are promoting the deception when they refuse to formally accuse (impeach) and unequivocally reject the lunacy of a "unitary authoritarian executive." They are promoting the deception when they tell us impeaching Bush and Cheney will "take too long" or that it would be a "slow process."

The truth is that the case could be made in a day. (OK, the blowhards could probably draw it out to a week.) The Senate "trial" too. The charges could be on the Senate floor by valintines day.

We don't need to prove they they ordered government officials to torture. We know they did. We have proof that would stand up in any court, but we don't need them. They refuse to acknowledge that drowning torture is torture -- that alone makes them outlaws who cannot be allowed to weild massive power of the American presidency.

Congress is sworn to "support and defend" the Constitution. It is not an oath to win; it is an oath to fight. They have a duty to impeach NOW and seek to remove by the fastest means possible.

No lengthy "examination" or "investigation" of some litany of lies. Terrorizing the nation into war with threats of mushroom clouds makes them war criminals. Terrorizing us into is an intolerable abuse of our trust, a stain on the nation, a war crime that has subjected our troops and the Iraqi people to unimaginable horrors. Justice demand that they answer for those crimes Hague.

But the regime has not publicly claimed to have "unitary power" to deceive us. Their defense "we believed our own lies" is ludicrous, but it is a claim that must be proven false. Their claim to absolute power to turn Americans into torturers is false on its face.

Impeachment for any of their many crimes is better than no impeachment, but impeachment for torture is a call for the nation to recommit to the tenets on which our Constitution, and therefore the nation, is founded.

Impeachment for torture forces an "up or down" vote on this most egregious and indefensible of their "high crimes" against the Constitution itself. It force Members of Congress to choose:

• "Are we a nation that sanctions torture or forbids it?"
• "Is the USA a war criminal nation or just and moral one?"
• "Are you with the torturers or against them?"
• "Are we a nation founded on the principle of consent, or are we a an authoritarian regime?"

Whether they vote Yea or Nay as a body, it doesn't really matter. Members of Congress will make their choice, but theirs is not the last word. Forcing a vote allows the American people to will bear witness to what they do and render THEIR judgment in the voting booth.

By refusing to impeach, they are denying us OUR rightful opportunity to weigh in.