Veterans for Peace (VFP), a progressive organization if ever there was one, took the courageous step of voting for the “impeachment of President Barack H. Obama for war crimes” at its annual national convention in Portland Oregon in August. The resolution, which called on Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings, passed with a majority vote. If you did not read of this, you are a victim of the gatekeepers on the “Left” and the usual censorship of the mainstream media.
The resolution sounds the death knell for the view that advocates of Obama’s impeachment are no more than Right wing, Racist Birthers. Thus, David Swanson, a leader of the Impeach Bush movement, after a pro forma denunciation of Obama, wrote recently in response to charges of hypocrisy: “I can’t get 20 people into the streets to demand Obama’s impeachment (and if I did, they’d want him impeached for being born in Africa to aliens from Planet Socialism….” Is that VFP, David?
The VFP resolution is stark testimony that Swanson is dead wrong and that the tide is turning against the war criminal Obama even among his most faithful followers. A call for impeachment, whatever the prospects for success, makes crystal clear that the antiwar community regards the President as a criminal – whether that President is Bush or Obama. And it puts a stop to the nasty tactic of shutting up impeachment advocates by calling them racists.
The impeachment resolution is modeled on another that VFP passed some years ago calling for impeachment of Bush. The anti-Obama resolution merits reading in full here. It has telling additions to the one targeting Bush. It opens thus: “Whereas, President Obama, on 19 March 2011, committed a criminal act by ordering the U.S. military to war in Libya without first obtaining the consent of the U.S. Congress in a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.” Bush told lies to get us into war. Such is his arrogance that Obama, acting in the Democratic tradition of Harry S. Truman in the Korean war, did not even bother to lie. He simply went ahead and trampled on the Constitution without pretense.
The seventh in the list of reasons for impeachment is a tight summary: “Whereas, millions upon millions of Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Somali, and Libyan civilians have been maimed, poisoned, displaced from their homes, and killed in a direct result of ongoing, illegal acts of war by the United States.”
It concludes “Therefore Be It Resolved that Veterans For Peace call on the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Barack H. Obama for failure to uphold his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies foreign and domestic, and for his commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, obstruction of justice and the violation of numerous national and international laws, treaties and conventions.”
This victory of the VFP rank and file who submitted the resolutions did not come easily. It took three years. The first such resolution was written shortly after Obama took office, on his fourth day ordering Hellfire missiles to strike Pakistan, killing dozens of civilians including three children. That prompted Tom Santoni of the Central FL VFP chapter to pen a principled impeachment resolution. It was taken up at the national convention the following August and was supported by the admirable Adam Kokesh who was at a meeting next door of VFP’s sister organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War. But the VFP leadership, that is the Board, voted against it, thus requiring a two-thirds vote of the membership. This bit of gate keeping worked, and the resolution failed at the August convention. Santoni quit in disgust, a big loss to VFP. The Central Florida chapter tried again in 2010 under the leaderhship of its co-chair Phil Restino. This time Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan endorsed the resolution, but again it failed. Finally, this year the Central FL chapter once again submitted the resolution and this time the board did not vote it down! The unstoppable Restino reached out to all 128 VFP chapters urging support and passage. And spontaneously Jesse Perrier of Boston’s Smedley Butler chapter of VFP arose and gave an impassioned speech that brought down the house and won the day. The resolution passed.
Now what about the implementation? The Impeach Bush resolution was pushed aggressively in 2005 running up to the 2006 election when Dems were running on the promise of impeachment, on which they promptly reneged, most notoriously John Conyers, the poster Congressperson for impeachment. Mike Ferner, at the time executive director of VFP, made an indignant Bush-bashing speech for impeachment in front of the White House. You can view it in all its glory. A hard copy letter with the signature of the VFP president was mailed to each member of the House calling for impeachment.
How about the present resolution? Mike Ferner opposed it in the floor debate at the August convention. There has been no rally and none is planned – not in front of the White House or anywhere else. This time a FAX of the resolution has been sent to the House members without signature of the President. Currently the Central FL chapter is trying to send snail mail letters on its own to every House member – once it gets the signature of the president.
Unfortunately this story can be repeated in different ways in a variety of “progressive” organizations with leadership more loyal to Dems than to antiwar principle. This writer has witnessed it himself in organizations like PSR and United for Justice and Peace. But the ground is shifting, and much to its credit VFP has led the way.
John Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com. He thanks Phil Restino, co-chair of Central Florida Vets for Peace and Jesse Perrier of the Smedley Butler Brigade of Vets for Peace in Boston for their help. He attempted to reach a voice against the resolution but received no reply.
***
Text of VFP Resolution to Impeach.
IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BARACK H. OBAMA FOR WAR CRIMES?Whereas, Barack H. Obama is Commander In Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and the head of the Executive Branch of the United States government, and
Whereas, President Obama, on 19 March 2011, committed a criminal act by ordering the U.S. military to war in Libya without first obtaining the consent of the U.S. Congress in a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, and
Whereas, the illegal U.S. invasion, bombing and occupation of Iraq initiated by the Bush administration continues under the Obama administration; and
Whereas, the U.S. government is currently engaged in illegal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and President Obama pledged to increase the number of military personnel and tax dollars spent on the these wars, and
Whereas, the U.S. military used and continues to use depleted uranium munitions, cluster bombs and white phosphorous in densely populated areas in violation of U.S. laws and international laws and treaties prohibiting the indiscriminate killing of civilians; and,
Whereas, the Geneva Conventions specifically prohibit the use of especially injurious weapons and materials causing unnecessary harm that remain active and lethal after battle, and over large areas of land, and
Whereas, large numbers of babies born in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer life-long illness and deformity like severe disfigurements and brain damage, Down’s syndrome, and weak hearts doctors state are caused by the U.S. military’s massive and widespread use of toxic and radioactive materials, and
Whereas, millions upon millions of Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Somali, and Libyan civilians have been maimed, poisoned, displaced from their homes, and killed in a direct result of ongoing, illegal acts of war by the United States, and
Whereas, illegal, immoral and counterproductive detainee torture and brutalization at the hands of the U.S. military’s Immediate Reaction Force continue at Guantanamo under the Obama administration and in particular, the torture of Pfc. Bradley Manning at Quantico, Virginia, and
Whereas, President Obama is an accessory after the fact in obstructing justice by failing to order the Department of Justice to initiate investigations into numerous and blatant U.S. war crimes committed by the Bush administration, for which it is manifestly accountable under the law, and
Whereas, millions of Americans, including Veterans For Peace and Prosecute Them Now, supported the impeachment of Bush/Cheney for the same war crimes that are being committed now by Obama in violation of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. federal laws, the United Nations Charter, the Hague Convention, the Geneva Conventions, The United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter, and
Whereas, Veterans For Peace and Prosecute Them Now are committed to the stated mission to restrain our government from intervening overtly and covertly in the internal affairs of other nations, to seek justice for veterans and victims of war, to increase public awareness of the exact costs of war, and to abolish war as an instrument of national policy;
Therefore Be It Resolved that Veterans For Peace call on the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Barack H. Obama for failure to uphold his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies foreign and domestic, and for his commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, obstruction of justice and the violation of numerous national and international laws, treaties and conventions.
Approved at the 2011 VFP National Convention?
Impeaching a president is akin to charging Charlie McCarthy for a murder committed by Edgar Bergen. If you want to hold those truly responsible for Amerika's crimes against humanity accountable for their actions, you're going to have to reach MUCH HIGHER than the sepia-skinned sock puppet! Of course that would be tilting at windmills, as these shadowy creatures pulling the Washington, D.C. strings not only have covered their tracks thoroughly, but have sufficient resources at their disposal to make any attempt to hold them accountable a losing –and lethal– proposition whomever would make the attempt to do so.
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Please post the reference link instead of just copying and pasting the text of the resolution.
Sorry but the link did not make it onto the blog.
It is: http://veteransforpeace.org/convention_resolution…
Thanks John. My mother is a member of VFP and would definitely support this. I'll have to tell her. She hasn't been going to meetings lately – she's 88, served in the Pacific in WWII.
Let it be known that in late January of 2009 after Obama not only did not exercise his unique ability as Commander in Chief to order an immediate cease-fire to the illegal, immoral, bogus “war on terror” (an order that he still can give at any moment in time, should he just choose to do so), but instead ordered drone-bombing attacks on Pakistan (a country that Bush hadn’t even gotten to yet) killing a bunch of innocent civilians … it was we in the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace who approached the leaders of Veterans For Peace, After Downing Street, World Can’t Wait, and other national antiwar orgs with the following “War Crimes are War Crimes: Prosecute Bush, Impeach Obama!” encouraging them to take that statement/call for accountability and bring it to national attention. We submitted bumper sticker templates to them with that statement (which we’ll gladly mail to you) and kept pushing the idea for quite some time until it was very clear that the national leadership of those antiwar organizations wanted nothing to do with that message of a single, non-partisan standard of call for accountability in regards to impeaching/prosecuting war criminal U.S. Presidents.
After a while of my own pushing of this message, instead we got After Downing Street changing its name to “War is a Crime” and World Can’t Wait soliciting donations from well meaning activists to pay the NY Times (the same newspaper that lied to us all for over a year about WMD so as to lead this country into war on Iraq) thousands of dollars for a full-page ad stating that “Crimes are Crimes”.
War is a Crime ? Crimes are Crimes ?
I encourage you and all the readers to ask the leaders of the above-mentioned national antiwar organizations to please explain their 2+ years of blatant double-standards in calls for accountability in regards to a Republican War Criminal U.S. President vs. a Democrat War Criminal U.S. President for commission of the very same war crimes.
Phil Restino
Chapter Co-Chair, VFP Chapter 136
Central Florida Veterans For Peace
ph/fax: (386) 788-2918
email: CentralFlaVFP@aol.com
Obama has been a huge disappointment, but give me a break! Let bushie get away with all that he did? Bush and cheney both should be in prison by now but in our haste to "move on" we seem to have forgotten that there is still a concerted effort to put them in jail.
Let's face it — they (our fearless well protected leaders) are ALL war criminals, and we'll never ever succeed at getting any of them to pay for their crimes. They are protected for being good little puppets. Until we figure out a way to stop the greedy evil behind the curtain, this talk of impeachment is a total waste of time.
Bush and Obama are two pease in a pod. What choice do they have? They are being ordered around by the very same creeps. One is a belligerent, in your face, chicken hawk war criminal and the other is a mild mannered, chicken hawk war criminal. The results of both these twerps are identical – kill and torture innocent people around the world and take ever more freedoms and rights away from Americans. They have identical policies; you just have to follow the trends of the results of their actions, don´t let them pull you into the details that only act as a confusion factors. Jesus, this Obama character is right out of Nostradamus.
I overheard the guys in the background talking about how proud they were for having pushed a complete idiot over on the American people, but now wanted to shove a black dud, give him a controversial name (Obama-Osama), and still get him elected. They did it.
Again, the call of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace has been all along "War Crimes are War Crimes: Prosecute Bush, Impeach Obama!", as you can see from the 2 posts above. We are and have been since late January 2009 calling on the national leadership of our own antiwar organization, along with those of the other national antiwar organizations in this country, for application of the same standard to any war criminal U.S. President regardless of political party affiliation, race, gender or creed. Contact us for a free "War Crimes are War Crimes: Prosecute Bush, Impeach Obama" bumper sticker if you want.
Phil Restino
Chapter Co-Chair, VFP Chapter 136
Central Florida Veterans For Peace
ph/fax: (386) 788-2918
email: CentralFlaVFP@aol.com
Great Resolution! Obama supposedly was warned that there would be a coup if he tried to bring Bush and his administration to trial, which he and/or his family members just might not survive. However, if one reads James Douglass' well researched book JFK and the Unspeakable: How he died and Why it matters it would seem that the coup happened year ago. What can we do about that!!??? By the way, this book is well worth the read, and no, it is not "just another conspiracy theory". Lee Loe, Grandmother for Peace, Houston TX
I think your resolution is great for getting your ideas out in the public forum.But lets be real, it ain't gonna happen. Please direct your energies toward taking on the VA and its abuse of our veterans.11-11-11 they are dedicating the D/V for life memorial. What a great format to march and scream to the country how we are being treated. Remember what happened at Walter Reed when public scrutny was cast on those folks!!!
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