codyg1985’s Think Tank

Former Democratic New York Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman has listed many reasons to impeach President George W. Bush.

Holtzman argues that Bush has went above the law in issuing wiretaps for American citizens without a warrent:

On December 17 President Bush acknowledged that he repeatedly authorized wiretaps, without obtaining a warrant, of American citizens engaged in international calls. On the face of it, these warrantless wiretaps violate FISA, which requires court approval for national security wiretaps and sets up a special procedure for obtaining it. Violation of the law is a felony.

Two legal arguments have been offered for the President’s right to violate the law, both of which have been seriously questioned by members of Congress of both parties and by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in a recent analysis. The first–highly dangerous in its sweep and implications–is that the President has the constitutional right as Commander in Chief to break any US law on the grounds of national security.

The second legal argument in defense of Bush’s warrantless wiretaps rests on an erroneous statutory interpretation. According to this argument, Congress authorized the Administration to place wiretaps without court approval when it adopted the 2001 resolution authorizing military force against the Taliban and Al Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks.

Indeed, the claim that to protect Americans the President needs to be able to avoid court review of his wiretap applications rings hollow. It is unclear why or in what way the existing law, requiring court approval, is not satisfactory. And, if the law is too cumbersome or inapplicable to modern technology, then it is unclear why the President did not seek to revise it instead of disregarding it and thus jeopardizing many otherwise legitimate anti-terrorism prosecutions. His defenders’ claim that changing the law would have given away secrets is unacceptable. There are procedures for considering classified information in Congress. Since no good reason has been given for avoiding the FISA court, it is reasonable to suspect that the real reason may have been that the wiretaps, like those President Nixon ordered in Watergate, involved journalists or anti-Bush activists or were improper in other ways and would not have been approved.

Firstly, I believe that Holtzman’s comparison of Bush to Nixon is a bit of a stretch. The spying that Nixon was engaged in was for political gain; to get an edge on his opponents. The wiretapping that Bush has allowed to occur was/is being used for national security purposes. Only international calls are being traced; not every call is being placed. The legality of the matters put aside, our country may not be as safe as before if these wiretaps were not legal. Of course, the legality of the wiretaps are certainly up for debate.

The second reason Holtzman gives for the impeachment of President Bush is the reasons that he and his administration gave to invade Iraq:

It is that the decision to go to war is the gravest decision a nation can make, and in a democracy the people and their elected representatives, when there is no imminent attack on the United States to repel, have the right to make it. Given that the consequences can be death for hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of people–as well as the diversion of vast sums of money to the war effort–the fraud cannot be tolerated. That both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were guilty of misleading the nation into military action and neither was impeached for it makes it more, not less, important to hold Bush accountable.

Once it was clear that no weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, President Bush tried to blame “bad intelligence” for the decision to go to war, apparently to show that the WMD claim was not a deliberate deception. But bad intelligence had little or nothing to do with the main arguments used to win popular support for the invasion of Iraq.

It would agree that the reasons given to go to war were questionable. It seemed to me that those reasons were such that they got the attention of the American people. The claim that Iraq was in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, especially nuclear weapons, would catch the attention of the American people, who would then demand immediate action.

I believe that Bush should be held accountable for this. Thousands of U.S. troops have paid the ultimate price for this war, and what really justifies the loss? There is little to no evidence to support the claim that Saddam Hussein was coordinating with Al Qaeda, and arguably, terrorist activity has increased since the U.S has invaded Iraq.

However, now that the U.S is in Iraq, impeaching the Commander in Chief may be a mistake. Impeachment may only lead to additional losses in Iraq, and that would not be in the best interests of anyone involved.