Today I received an email from Rep. Sam Farr of California (a copy of which is below my reply). It appears that I am not the only one who received this email which apparently was written in response to requests similar to my own asking Rep. Farr to offer articles of impeachment against Bush and his cabal. Here is my answer which I am making public, but I am addressing it to any Representative in the House and not to Rep. Farr specifically:

Dear Honorable Member of the House of Representatives,

First of all I want to acknowledge you for at least being willing to admit that Bush and his administration are "reckless" and that Bush led us into war on "false evidence." But I think you miss the point entirely regarding my request that you enter articles of impeachment against Bush and other members of his administration. This is not a question of whether you can succeed in having Bush impeached. The question is whether he deserves to be impeached in your opinion and if so, whether or not you have the courage to stand up and say so. In my reading of the Constitution, I see no mention that approval from the Chair of the Judiciary Committee is a constitutional prerequisite to your entering articles of impeachment. I am not asking you to do anything but to defend the Constitution which you pledged to do when you took your oath of office. If you were to offer articles of impeachment, the facts that would be presented in those articles would help to educate the American public, energize patriotic Americans who are determined to defend the Constitution and the rule of law, it would open public debate on issues that are not now part of the national dialog. But most of all, it would simply be the honorable thing to do. It would be the next needed step to honoring our commitment to our children and grandchildren... the commitment to preserve their rights and solidify the rule of law in pursuit of justice so that they might one day live in peace and pursue their happiness in freedom. You say we have no "technical or tangible evidence" to justify Bush's impeachment. I say we do. Some of the evidence I've seen is circumstantial, but when you add it all up, the evidence as a whole is overwhelming

1. We have evidence that Bush lied when he told us war with Iraq was necessary. He lied about why we were attacked. He lied about weapons of mass destruction, he lied about pursuing democracy, he lied about when the US would leave Iraq, he lied about our not going to war to control the Middle East in general and Iraq's oil in particular.

2. We have the death, dismemberment and severe injury of tens of thousands of innocent citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq who were victimized by Bush's gross negligence in conducting his war. "Collateral damage" is a word that has been used to justify the slaughter of innocents. Only reckless irresponsible policies could have produced the carnage that we have seen and hundreds of individual stories have been documented that demonstrate the criminal callousness of this administration, which when taken in context, are nothing less than international war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. Let these stories be told in the halls of Congress and in the mainstream media.

3. The use of Depleted Uranium weapons is a crime against humanity. What we brought to Iraq is not Democracy, but cancer and birth defects as far into the future as we can see. And when our troops come home many of they themselves will be the evidence that will cry for justice.

4. The unnecessary destruction of Iraq's social and business infrastructure, including their invaluable historical treasures are war crimes beyond measure. The confiscation and/or privatization of Iraqi assets and their sale or control by American interests is a crime against the people of Iraq and violates established international law and basic human decency.

5. The Bush administration has engaged in summary executions and renditions... which is to say, murder, rape and torture, that was carried out by US forces or hired private contractors which are surely impeachable crimes under national and international law.

6. The denial of Constitutional protections such as the right to a public trial, the right to be represented by counsel, the right to due process... are criminal offenses. Establishing the policy where individuals can be held in detention without due process indefinitely is reason alone that he should be impeached for what it does to our Constitution, the rule of law, and what it says about American values to the rest of the world. Establishing, condoning, or allowing secret trials and disappearances and torture of uncharged, unrepresented people are all crimes, any one of which by itself should put Bush in prison.

7. Bush's refusal to rule out torture in the future treatment of prisoners in opposition to international norms is evidence of his purposeful intent to disregard the rule of law or abide by human values that the rest of humanity accepts. His total disregard of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights blackens and defiles the American consciousness.

8. The mismanagement of the People's money in prosecuting the war has been criminally negligent... soldiers were put in harms way and were killed because of this administration's incompetence and stupidity. Public funds squandered. Corruption in the land is ubiquitous because of this administration's incompetence, stupidity, and vile greed for wealth and power. Are incompetence and stupidity impeachable offenses? When so many lives are lost or destroyed, when government itself is brought under, when illegitimate power is accumulated by a few beyond any reasonable bounds, when the People are disenfranchised because of it... YES, you bet they are!

9. Bush's abuse of our first amendment rights has been witnessed by an entire country. Setting up "free speech zones" and excluding non-supporters from his public addresses is widely documented.

10. Bush has abused the Constitutional requirement of keeping separate church and state.

11. The unprovoked aggression against Iraq and its people is an international crime against peace, in and of itself.

12, Bush's regime operates in secrecy and he hides his crimes behind Presidential orders, including the removal of the Presidential papers of past Presidents which belong to the People and which helps him cover up crimes and historical evidence that the People have a right to see.

My dear Representative, if you cannot see the injustice in all of this... if you cannot see that any Commander-in-Chief who would create or allow these policies to endure on his watch is unfit for any public office... if you will not do everything in your power to see that he is removed from office... then you are an accomplice with him. You have a duty and an obligation to enter articles of impeachment if it is in your power to do so. Please, start the process of having elected officials tell the truth about the crimes this administration has engaged in and let your fellow Representatives, the Senate, and the People decide what they want to do about it. Do we have just one elected official who has the courage to tell the truth in public? Won't that one individual be you?

Mark A. Goldman

www.gpln.com/citizen.htm

www.gpln.com/truthortreason.htm

The following from Rep. Sam Farr

At 1041 AM 8/19/2005 -0400, you wrote

August 19, 2005

mark@gpln.com
Electronic Mail,

Dear Friend

Thank you for letting me know of your support for the censure or impeachment of our president and some of his top advisers. Our country struggles right now under a blanket of disbelief at the actions of this reckless Administration. An impeachment effort would be an important one because quite plainly, it seeks accountability. As members of the American public, we deserve no less.

You will be pleased to know that on March 17, 2004, I voted against H.Res. 557. This resolution affirmed "that the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power in Iraq." The Republican leadership moved this resolution through the legislative process in an attempt to prop up the Bush Administration which is faltering badly under revelations of misstatements and actions unsubstantiated by legitimate intelligence. As I am sure you are aware, I strongly support our troops and the Iraqi people who are trying to rebuild their country, but I could not justify voting for a resolution that did not take into account how the United States became involved because of the failed search for WMD, or, more importantly, the lives that have been lost in this war. This resolution made no reference to the over 550 US soldiers or the thousands of Iraqis that have been killed in the last year.

Our men and women in uniform and the valiant civilian Iraqis working to rebuild their country deserve an open discussion about the real challenges of rebuilding Iraq. The Republican House leadership is not doing anyone any favors by hiding the full cost of this war, skimping on funding for protective military equipment, faulty post conflict reconstruction planning, and ignoring the international community.  H.Res. 557 does not address any of these concerns, was written without any input from the Democratic side, and I therefore voted against this resolution along with 93 of my colleagues, some of whom are among the staunchest supporters of defense spending and the war in Iraq.

It is obvious to me that the environment surrounding the Iraqi War-the State of the Union and the months leading up to the war-reek of political agenda and misdirected foreign policy. High-level advisors to the President and his staff have pointed fingers across agency jurisdictions as they try to avoid accountability. There is no question of the horrible fact that Saddam Hussein presided over a profoundly evil regime. However, the misguided foreign policy that orchestrated the Iraqi conflict is dangerous and debilitating to the efforts of world peace, regardless of the fact that it deposed an evil, murderous tyrant.  This brings us to what I believe to be the President's actions for which you want him impeached leading America into a war on false evidence. Any consideration of impeachment articles would have to be supported by the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Sensenbrenner, and by the House leadership. It is doubtful that any members of the Republican leadership would support action on articles of impeachment. I have contacted Rep. Conyers, the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee regarding the possibility of impeaching President Bush. Rep. Conyers has been reviewing the legal basis for impeachment since before the beginning of the war in Iraq, and he continues to do so. However, he has not yet come to any conclusions that indicate that impeachment proceedings would be constitutionally viable at this time. I will take into account new circumstances as they arise, but in the current situation, we lack the technical and tangible evidence necessary to prove that President Bush committed a real crime versus pursuing a disastrous international political agenda. In addition, an impeachment is highly unlikely because Republicans control both the House, which acts as the prosecution, and the Senate, which acts as the judge. Thus, the political will is also lacking in the Republican leadership to consider an impeachment process.

Like you, I have serious disagreement with the President and his policies. But in terms of an impeachment effort, I believe that my colleague Rep. Dennis Kucinich has it correct in saying, "I think we need to make the peace movement visible in this country, and we need to work for candidates who want to create structures of peace in our society and who want new foreign policies which rely not on unilateralism and preemption, but on cooperation and support for the United Nations. An effort towards impeachment would only serve to strengthen the current administration." An impeachment effort is simply not feasible right now.  I believe that our energies need to be focused on the current situation in Iraq to ensure a democratically elected government so that Iraq and its citizens can join the global community. Also, we need to focus on our situation here in America our schools need more funding and better facilities; Americans need health care and affordable housing; our states need help out of current fiscal crises.

I agree that President Bush has failed in many ways to fulfill the duties of his office. The President has appeared to assume the power of the Presidency but not the responsibility, and that power has led to the deaths of American troops, Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians. Given the Republican control of Congress, an impeachment resolution surely is not viable. I can only hope, however, that the American public begins to understand - as you do - that the White House must be held accountable for its failures.

Sincerely,

Sam Farr
Member of Congress, CA-17