By
Dina Rashed, IOL Chicago correspondent
CHICAGO,
October 15 (IslamOnline) - In efforts to stop a U.S. aggression
against the Iraqi people, a campaign to impeach President George W.
Bush is under way, also bringing charges against Vice President Dick
Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. Attorney General
John Ashcroft.
The
campaign is led by Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in an effort to stop any
possible war against the Iraqi people.
“The
impeachment is based on accusing the President of committing high
crimes and misdemeanors, and for initiating an aggressive war against
Iraq, which is in violation of article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter and
the constitution of the United States,” Boyle told IslamOnline.
The
process requires at least one member of Congress to introduce the
resolution, and in the past few days Boyle has been actively reaching
out to several Representatives that he thinks may be willing to carry
the Bill to the House.
The
effort is modeled after a very similar case When Rep. Henry B.
Gonzalez introduced a Bill of Impeachment against George Bush Sr. for
his war against Iraq in 1991.
The
resolution which was submitted to the Committee on Judiciary in
February 1991 introduced five articles warranting impeachment and
trial of the President, and his removal from office.
Almost
all of the articles stated in the Gonzalez Bill could still hold
ground in the current situation. In its second article, the older
resolution stated that Bush Sr. has violated the U.S. Constitution,
federal law and the United Nations Charter by bribing, intimidating
and threatening others, including the members of the United Nations
Security Council, to support belligerent acts against Iraq.
A
reference was made to the side financial deals that the U.S.
government made with several governments including waiver of
international debts and promises of financial and military aid, while
building a coalition against Iraq.
Article
three stated that the President “has prepared, planned, and
conspired
to engage in a massive war against Iraq, employing methods of mass
destruction that will result in the killing of tens of thousands of
civilians, many of whom will be children.
“This
planning includes the placement and potential use of nuclear weapons,
and the use of such indiscriminate weapons and massive killings by
serial bombardment, or otherwise, of civilians violates the Hague
Conventions of 1907 and 1923, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and
Protocol I thereto, the Nuremberg Charter, the Genocide Convention and
the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
“In
all of this George Herbert Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary
to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government,
to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the
manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
Article
5 accused the previous Bush of planning, and conspiring to commit
crimes against the peace by leading the United States into aggressive
war against Iraq in violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations
Charter, the Nuremberg Charter, other international instruments and
treaties, and the Constitution of the United States.
|
|
Francis
Boyle, professor of International Law at University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
|
The
new Bill that is formulated by Boyle, who also served as the legal
Counsel to Gonzalez’s efforts, will include an additional article
accusing Ashcroft’s efforts of creating a Police State in the
homeland, Boyle said.
He
has heavily criticized Ashcroft’s measures of investigation
following the events of September 11, and its breaches to civil
liberties granted by the U.S. constitution.
“Clearly
Attorney General John Ashcroft and his right-wing Federalist Society
lawyers took every piece of regressive legislation off the shelf, tied
it all into what they called an anti-terrorism bill, and then rammed
it through Congress, giving it the appropriately Orwellian name of the
U.S.A. Patriot Act,” Boyle stated earlier.
Despite
the Congress’s recent position on the war against Iraq, granting its
support to the President’s military intervention, Boyle believes
that the impeachment process once introduced to the House could serve
as a determent to the President and may stop the war or shorten the
term of the military operations in Iraq.
Boyle,
who is well known for his scholarly contributions on the
interdependence between international law, politics and human rights
efforts, has served internationally as the legal adviser to parties
engaged in independence movements, namely to the Palestinian
delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations in Washington D.C.
from 1991 to 1993, and as the legal adviser to the PLO on the creation
of the State of Palestine from 1987 to 1989.
In
2000, President Aslan Maskhadov appointed Boyle Attorney of Record for
the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria to conduct its legal affairs on a
worldwide basis. In that capacity, Boyle brought charges against the
Russian Federation at the International Court of Justice for violating
the 1948 Genocide Convention
