Impeach George W. Bush

No matter what else George W. Bush has done, the imprisonment and torture of Maher Arar is sufficient reason to impeach George W. Bush and remove him from office for failing to fulfill his constitutional duty to take care that the laws by faithfully executed:

Shakespeare's Sister : "Outraged, embarrassed, and disgusted": Responding to the New York Times coverage of the heinous mistreatment of Maher Arar, a Canadian computer engineer who was "seized on Sept. 26, 2002, after he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia," then removed to Syria "where he says he was held for 10 months in a tiny cell and beaten repeatedly with a metal cable," only to be "freed in October 2003, after Syrian officials concluded that he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada," Glenn Greenwald says, bluntly, "Here is the 'moral authority' of the U.S. under the Bush administration."

[O]n top of operating secret torture gulags in Eastern Europe, we also kidnap people, charge them with no crime, give them no opportunity to defend themselves, deny them contact with their consulate in violation of international treaties (as the Canadian report complained about), send them off to be tortured for months, and then when it turns out that they are completely innooent, we block them from obtaining compensation in our courts because our Government claims that national security would be jeopardized if they were held accountable for their behavior.

How can you be an American citizen and not be completely outraged, embarrassed, and disgusted by this conduct?

The answer: you can be a Republican Loyalist.

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

It looks like the Canadians also have a lot to answer for..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14897315/

At what point do we as a (civilzed?)society understand that the "war on terror" is causing more harm than good?

For some reason, Brad's reminders about Orwell are really starting to affect me...

[DonCoffin]

For what it's worth, the Canadian government can hardly claim much moral high ground here--they gave Arar's name to whichever US government agency it was that seized him.

This does not, in any way, reduce the culpability of the government of the United States. I truly hate what my government is making me complicit in.

[andres]

Prosecute former president Bush. Prosecute former vice-president Cheney. Prosecute them as soon as they and their lackeys are out of office.

Brad, don't you think the above has a more realistic ring? (I admit it doesn't sound as catchy, though)

[Aaron]

No Andres,
They should be TRIED AND CONVICTED OF WAR CRIMES, ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING, AND MULTIPLE COUNTS OF TORTURE MURDER AS A CAPITAL CRIME. As well as an running an illegal invasion but thats not a US statute.
And that should occur now.

[sglover]

I wonder if even brain-dead, daddy-figure-craving right-wing cretins might look at this case and finally realize, "Jeez, *I* could talk to the wrong guy in a cafe for 20 minutes, and end up in a Syrian dungeon!"

Sigh.... Probably not....

But something I worry about even more is, depending on how this next election breaks, many people in the upper 2-3 tiers of the government could be looking at the beginning of a process that ends in a well-deserved prosecution. They're fighting for their lives, and they show little evidence of scruples....

[wolfgang]

Syria?
All of a sudden Syria is an ally of the US in the war on terror?
I am stunned ...

[TJM]

sqlover:the sort of people who support GWB wouldn't spend 20 seconds let alone 20 minutes in a cafe with a Middle Eastern person unless they were being waited on by that person and even then,contact would be minimal.

[Fred Flintrock]

Bush/Cheney need rectal reamings from a syphillitic bull.

[Jean-Philippe]

"sqlover:the sort of people who support GWB wouldn't spend 20 seconds let alone 20 minutes in a cafe with a Middle Eastern person unless they were being waited on by that person and even then,contact would be minimal."

No but an illegal immigrant from Somalia may be cleaning their home... In any case, they think that their front porch flag and the jingoistic stickers on their car protect them. At best they think this kind of mistakes is worth "protecting our children", at worse they enjoy knowing Muslims are being tortured ("they're all hate us"). Get one of these guys a bit drunk, and what you learn about their real political thoughts is quite scary. The version we hear from the Bushies, scary as it is, is a sanitized version of what these guys hear in coded terms.

[BroD]

While you're outraged, click on over ActBlue and put some money into campaign coffers.
It's up to us to kick some butt in November.

[rea]

"All of a sudden Syria is an ally of the US in the war on terror?"

Well, yeah. Syria is more than willing to curry favor with us, which doesn't prevent them from trying to stab us in the back, or us from kicking them in the face whenever it seems convenient.

[SHRUB]

It would be nice if the crybabies would support the US in our effort to fight the war on terror. We're trying to keep this country free while agents of terror work 24/7 to spread disinformation. The democrats are Kennedy,Pelosi, Reid, and Clinton. Sometimes a small egg gets cracked when making an omelet.

The blogosphere is the primary vehicle for the worldwide terrorist information network. There are a number of secret messages being passed through blogs to activate and coordinate autonomous terror cells around the world. Luckily, in cooperation with loyal ISP's around the country we are able to analyze each submission and intercept terrorist messages. We, of course, strip the identity of each poster from the record until an actual intercept is identified. No one who is innocent would object to this security measure and has nothing to fear.

This is a homeland security measure to prevent Saddam Hussein from attacking you again.

[prince roy]

What Canada did is unfortunate, but it is not morally (or legally) culpable in the same way as the US. Canada simply passed information to the US that turned out to be inaccurate. Happens in law enforcement all the time.

We all know what the US did: ship him to a third country that it reasonably knew would likely torture this person. I'm sure it is illegal for the US to do this by either domestic or treaty law, or both. The US then misled Canada about what it had done to the person.

So yes, Canada screwed the pooch, but what the US did is beyond reprehensible.

[trevelyan]

i disagree prince roy,

The reason this is in the news again is that the Canadian commission charged with investigating how this happened just came out with its report. This report is extremely critical about the security branches of the Canadian government.

http://www.ararcommission.ca/eng/26.htm

On top of indirectly sending a citizen to be tortured, Canada failed to extend diplomatic assistance to Arar once he was in Syria (where it was clear enough that the man was being tortured or at risk of it). And when Arar returned to Canada some civil servants began to libel him with malicious and completely falsified press "leaks".

Paul Martin's failure to make more noise about this and insist that Arar was released or returned to Canada was disastrous. It made the Canadian government as complicit in this man's treatment as any of his physical jailers in Syria.

[Jodin Morey]

Impeach Bush yourself! No Joke.
This is much more than just a petition.

There's a little known and rarely used clause of the "Jefferson Manual" in the rules for the House of Representatives which sets forth the various ways in which a president can be impeached. Only the House Judiciary Committee puts together the Articles of Impeachment, but before that happens, someone has to initiate the process.

That's where we come in. In addition to the State-by-State method, one of the ways to get impeachment going is for individual citizens like you and me to submit a memorial. ImpeachforPeace.org has created a new memorial based on one which was successful in impeaching a federal official in the past. You can find it on their website as a PDF.

STOP WAITING FOR YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO ACT FOR YOU.

You can initiate the impeachment process yourself by downloading the memorial, filling in the relevant information in the blanks (your name, state, etc.), and sending it in.

http://ImpeachForPeace.org/ImpeachNow.html

More information on the precedent for submitting an impeachment
memorial, and the House Rules on this procedure, can also be found at
the above address.

If you have any doubts that Bush has committed crimes warranting
impeachment, read this page: http://ImpeachForPeace.org/evidence/

If you're concerned that impeachment might not be the best strategy
at this point, read the
bottom of this page: http://ImpeachForPeace.org/

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
Bush, June 18, 2002

"War is Peace"
Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984

[a]

Actually the guy was lucky to be sent to Syria. Once they were sure he was not a terrorist, they freed him. In US he would still be in prison.