The Case for the Impeachment of Barack Obama

[h3rm35]

The Case for the Impeachment of Barack Obama

By Dave Lindorff

Global Research, April 15, 2010
Counterpunch - 2010-04-02

Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book, The Case for Impeachment, in which I made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales--should be impeached for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United States.



These days, when I mention the book’s title, people sometimes ask, half in jest, whether I’m referring to the current president, Barack Obama.



Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates, are also guilty of impeachable crimes--including many of the same ones committed by Bush and Cheney.



Let’s start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA) to 100,000 by this August.



The president has authorized the use of Predator drone aircraft for a program of bombing conducted against Pakistan which has illegally expanded theAfghan War into another country without any authorization from Congress. These pilotless drones are known to kill far more innocent bystanders than enemy targets, making them fundamentally illegal on principle as weapons. Furthermore, this wave of attacks in Pakistan is a war of aggression against another nation if the word “war” is to have any meaning at all, and as such it is illegal under the UN Charter. Indeed initiating a war of aggression against a country which does not pose an immediate threat to the invader is described in the Charter and in the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter as the gravest of all war crimes.



The president, as commander in chief, has also, in collusion with Attorney Eric Holder, blocked any prosecution of those who authorized and perpetrated torture against captives in the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and the so-called War on Terror--notably Federal Appeals Court Judge Jay Baybee, and Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo, who as Justice Department attorneys authored the legal briefs justifying torture-- and has in fact continued to permit the application of torture against captives. All of this is in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, which as a signed set of treaties, are part of the law of the United States. Under those treaties, failure on the part of those up the chain of command to halt or to punish those who commit torture are themselves guilty of the crime of torture.



As commander in chief, President Obama has also overseen a strategy in Afghanistan of expanded attacks on civilians in Afghanistan. As in Iraq under the Bush administration, this current phase of the war in Afghanistan is seeing more civilians killed than enemy combatants, because of the widespread use of weapons like helicopter gunships, aerial bombardment, fragmentation bombs, etc., as well as a tactic of night raids on housing compounds where insurgents are suspected of hiding--raids that frequently lead to the deaths of many women and children and innocent men. It is significant that even the recent execution-style slaying of nine students, aged 11-18, by US-led forces, has not led to an investigation or prosecution of a individual. Rather, the incident is being covered up and ignored, with the clear acquiescence of the White House and the leadership at the Pentagon.



It is also widely believed that under the command of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is known to have directed a large-scale death-squad operation in Iraq before moving to his current position, a similar death-squad campaign of assassination is being conducted now in Afghanistan--a campaign that like the notorious Phoenix Program in the 1960s in Vietnam, is almost certainly resulting in the deaths of many innocent Afghans.



Domestically, the president has continued to allow the policy of detention without trial of hundreds of captives in Guantanamo Bay and other prisons, including Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and his director of national security has even stated that it is the policy of this administration that American citizens deemed by the administration to be enemy combatants or terrorists may be targeted for summary execution. Such officially sanctioned state murder is a blatant violation of the Constitution’s insistence that every American has a right to a presumption of innocence and to a trial by a jury of his or her peers.



The president has also continued and in some ways even expanded the Bush/Cheney administration’s program of warrantless spying by the National Security Agency on the electronic communications of millions of Americans. A part of that program, the monitoring of communications of a now defunct Islamic charity, was just declared illegal by a federal judge in a case that was brought against the Bush/Cheney administration, but which continued to be defended by the current administration. There has not been a decision as yet by the Obama administration about whether to appeal that decision. While the case in question does not represent a crime by the Obama administration, it is clear that it only represents the very tip of the huge iceberg of domestic spying, and the administration’s vigorous efforts to shut down this case or to win it are clear evidence that the NSA is continuing to do the same thing on a vast scale. In fact, the only reason this case even got to trial is because of a government error that resulted in a memo describing the monitoring being mailed inadvertently to the victims of the spying.



While we’re at it, I would also suggest that there is amble evidence to call for the impeachment of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who appears, as head of the New York Federal Reserve, to have colluded in an effort to cover up a massive fraud at Lehman Brothers, and who has subsequently as Treasurer, participated in unprecedented giveaways of taxpayer funds to several of the country’s largest banking institutions.



The above enumeration of criminal and Constitutional transgressions makes it clear that this president, like his predecessor, has, almost since his first day in office, continued down a road of criminal and unconstitutional behavior that threatens the survival of Constitutional government in the United States.



Let me state it simply: President Barack Obama, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Treasury Secretary Geithner, should be impeached for war crimes and high crimes against the Constitution.



Of course, having watched the Democratic Congress shamelessly duck its solemn duty to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their criminal subordinates for two years, I have no illusions about that same Democratic Congress allowing an impeachment bill to be filed against this president.



Having said that, I think it is important to at least make the point publicly that this president, like the one before, deserves to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.



Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com
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[ldrancer]

let me just say you don't have standing.
let me destroy your whole thing here, by saying, impeach what?
president of the united states. right? well how would you know what that was. look up the definition. right? ok, where's the definition. I'm not going to go on, but why post this stupid shit for. i mean what for i have bitched day one, maybe not here, but about john mccain, so call me racist. their foreign. their not president. impeach a what? him from senator, is exactly what they would say, and they would say he quit.
have you an arguement to this.

[h3rm35]

nothing you post makes any sense... how can I argue a point that's incoherent?
also, I'd just like to point out that just because I post something, doesn't mean that I wrote it, so when you start attacking something that I've posted by saying "let me destroy your whole thing here," you're completely off track. It's not MY whole thing, it's Dave Lindorff's whole thing. He wrote a great book about impeaching people in the GWB administration, and I figured people here had read that, so they might be interested to hear what he had to say about Obama's administration.

[Hans Olo]

He has a point. You can't impeach Obama if he was never legally holding that office in the first place. If, let's say, Obama was not qualified to being elected in the first place (because he didn't meet the constitutional requirements of being a natural born cititzen) then he didn't legally hold that office and can't be impeached.

Makes sense to me.

He still can be sued for fraud, for impersonating a public official, treated as a foreign usurper, all that. Impeachment, no.

[ldrancer420]

thanks you my point which passed him by. impeach what, noone is president. go look at the qualifications, and find me the person

[---]

(04-16-2010 11:05 PM)ldrancer420 Wrote:  go look and find me --[][] etc

wtf? who are you actually? are you my greek friend tazoz petras having some fun?

I thought so - assuch, my friend - a slimy wet haddock to engage all your post pubescent female relatives.

why do you come here and do this...please let's talk - i promise you i am not employed by the illuminati

there is no rhyme nor reason to your intro outbursts.

tbh, we"" have all seen it much times before, even after manyyears i myself amstill often very fucking tosser like.

i have also charged round spaces like you appear to be doing and this board is not quite right. it isn't normal. you could actually leave psychological tainted by causing the rattle snakes and mind sharks here to pay attention to you.

but i think you would be too intimidated to risk your fleshy hands in such a writhing mass of biting AVANT GARDE snakegrass

---

you are mr.magoo and we alredy stole yor shu's.

[Apocalypso Now!]

[Hans Olo]

Can we get back on topic, puh-leaze?

[h3rm35]

If one is to make the case that Obama isn't a valid president, and therefor can't be impeached, then the same would have gone for Bush, as he was appointed dictator after losing the election in 2k... That means all the justices who did not dissent could be impeached, and all decisions that they've rendered since along with those under Roberts are moot since he was appointed by bush. He's not even a Justice, and in that case, none of his other appointments are valid either. All Bush's executive orders, signing statements, and every bill he signed is illegal. Let's work on that first. A lot of shit would get cleared up really quickly, and in the face of that kind of drastic change, we'd pretty much have to pull an article V convention to set things right again. Sounds good to me.

[FastTadpole]

@h3rm35
Can't be impeached there's a motive if I ever heard one.

Obama is going to get crushed by anyone he runs against in 2012. This may have been in place to save face. Perhaps there is another agenda to this. If they keep him on they would be blatantly violating the constitution having an illegitimate president.

There would present congress with a reason to either nullify any law made over the past 4 (or 12 if you count Bush too) years or give Obama (and Bush) a pass and retroactively amend the Constitution to allow foreign born citizens to hold the countries highest office on the grounds that they can't just repeal 4 (or 12) years of law. Schwarzenegger could run for president - oh boy /s!

That may open up the door for a wholesale rewrite. They might pitch it under the guise of it being racist, or maybe feed off of that corporate personhood outrage that was manufactured. While they are at it they might jig around with that pesky pesky right to bear arms issue.

Quote:The certification of constitutional qualification for the office of president
DC Knows that Obama is Ineligible for Office
By JB Williams
Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Members from all three branches of the Federal government already know that Barack Hussein Obama is ineligible for the office of President. National leaders, to include members of the US Supreme Court, already know that Barack Hussein Obama is not a “natural born citizen” of the United States of America, and therefore, is ineligible for the office he currently holds. (See JB’s new article on The Bottom Line on Natural Born Citizen)

What they don’t know is how long it will take for most Americans to figure it out, or what to do about it.

The diversionary search for an authentic birth certificate is ongoing and Obama has now spent in excess of $2 million in legal fees to keep that search alive.

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice continues to deploy taxpayer funded attorneys around the country to file dismissals on behalf of Obama, denying all American citizens access to the courts as a peaceful remedy, which only fuels the fire of discontent and the questions about Obama persist.

Michelle Obama states that Kenya is Barack’s “home country.” She knows, after twenty years with Barack. The Ambassador or Kenya has confirmed the same His family friends all know it, and are in fact quite proud of the fact that Americans had no hesitation in electing a “black man from Kenya” as President of the United States.

The US Supreme Court knows what the constitutional condition of “natural born citizen” means. Even the most far left member of that court, Justice Ginsberg, is on record proclaiming that a “natural born citizen” is a birth child of TWO legal US citizens.

Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knows that Barack Hussein Obama is not eligible for the office of president, which is why she refused to certify the following language when certifying Obama as the DNC candidate for president in 2008.

This is the normal language for certification of nomination for president and vice president, filed by the DNC only in the state of Hawaii…



This is the language filed by the DNC in the other 49 states, however…



Note that the language which certifies that Barack Hussein Obama meets all constitutional qualifications is missing in the DNC documents filed in 49 of the 50 states. The certification of constitutional qualification for the office of president was filed only in Hawaii. That text is missing in the DNC certification filings for all other states.

Whereas the RNC filed the exact same certification document, including the constitutional text for John McCain in all 50 states, Obama was technically certified in only one state, Hawaii. A mere inconvenient technicality, I’m sure…

The US Congress knows that Barack Hussein Obama is not constitutionally qualified for the office he holds. Although the congress passed a resolution proclaiming Senator John McCain a “natural born citizen” as the son of two US citizens, no such congressional resolution exists for Barack Hussein Obama.

The press knows that Obama is not a “natural born citizen,” having written on several occasions about the “Kenyan born” senator from Chicago. A number of citizens have already been arrested and jailed for asking these questions.

Over four-hundred law suits have been filed across the country asking the courts to force Obama to become the “transparent president” he promised to be, and all four-hundred are being dismissed before discovery, all on the basis that “no citizen has proper legal standing” to ask who and what their president really is…

Over a half-million citizens have now signed a petition demanding to see Obama’s birth records.

Numerous members of the US Military have refused deployment orders from Obama, on the basis that he refuses to evidence his constitutional qualifications to issue such orders. In most cases, the soldiers have simply been reassigned, so as to avoid any disciplinary action that could end in “defense discovery” which might finally force Obama to open up his files once and for all.

Now an eighteen year veteran flight surgeon and active Lt. Colonel faces court martial as he makes his demands for proof that Obama is constitutionally eligible to issue orders as Commander-in-Chief.

Obama’s entire domestic, foreign and national defense agenda has proven to be wholly anti-American

Obama’s entire domestic, foreign and national defense agenda has proven to be wholly anti-American on every possible level. Still, the answers concerning who and what Barack Hussein Obama Jr. really is remain elusive in the face of unprecedented efforts to ask the right questions.

No matter who asks, how they ask or where they ask, not one single individual in Washington DC or even state government seems willing to weigh in on the most important issue of our era. Who and what is the man sitting in the people’s White House?

How in the hell did we get an overtly anti-American resident of the people’s White House without so much as a simple birth certificate to prove who this person really is?

And why won’t a single elected representative of the people engage in the effort to force an answer to this question?

The answers to these and many more questions are likely very simple and equally chilling…

The Speaker of the House does not refuse to certify her candidate as “constitutionally qualified” in forty-nine of fifty states by accident

Nobody spends $2 million in legal fees to hide an authentic birth certificate. The Speaker of the House does not refuse to certify her candidate as “constitutionally qualified” in forty-nine of fifty states by accident. A press that knew he was the “first Kenyan born senator” didn’t forget that he was Kenyan born when he decided to run for president.

Most importantly, the people DO have a right (read - proper standing) to ask who and what their president really is, in any court, any time. And soldiers are court-martialed for refusing orders, unless those orders were issued by an illegitimate Commander-in-Chief.

DC knows what most Americans have yet to figure out…

Obama is NOT a natural born citizen no matter where he might have been born. Obama’s birth father was at no time an American citizen and on this basis alone, Obama cannot be a constitutionally qualified resident of the White House.

They know something else that the American people have yet to figure out…

The US Constitution no longer stands as the governing law of this land. Obama’s many unconstitutional policies, Czars, executive orders and statements provide the proof, and the fact that nobody in DC cares whether or not Obama is constitutionally qualified to be president of the United States should send a shiver down the spine of every red blooded American citizen, no matter their partisan agendas.

The people willing to ask the tough questions are deemed crackpots and conspiracy theorists, racists or bigots. But those tough questions should be obvious questions to all Americans and every president should have to answer those questions, no matter race, creed, color or party affiliation.

I fear that those questions will only be answered at the tip of pitch forks and torches one day. Sooner or later, the people will run out of patience with a system built to exclude them. When that day comes, I fear what methods will be employed and whether or not there will be a country left to save by then.

But sooner or later, one way or another, Obama will have to answer those questions. One day, the world will know who and what this man is and there will be a day of reckoning like no other in American history.

The longer it takes for that day to arrive, the more dangerous the situation will become. A man not even qualified to hold the office is using that office to destroy the greatest nation on earth. How much patience can the people be expected to display?

Obama is not eligible for the office he currently holds and everyone in a position to know - already know.

What they don’t know is how much longer they can keep it all a secret, or what will happen next.

http://digg.com/politics/DC_Knows_that_O...for_Office
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22221

Here's some interesting history on the guy's past. It's speculative but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting the article's claims.

Barack Obama, former CIA Agent
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=32071

[NickHedge]

I am of the same school of thought as the Spaceman on this. I don't see him surviving the first term. But I believe that it will be the same people who installed him that will take him out. Much like JFK. If he fails to produce the desired results, he will have to be eliminated. Personal opinion.

I believe that he was created totally for the people. There is nothing real about him. The people have lost their control to the point that they don't know what to do. Clinton only needed to get a knob job before he was up for impeachment. But Bush did whatever he wanted and didn't suffer for it at all. Shows how much things change in a short period of time. So based on that measurement of time we can safely say that there is no impeachment in the future for Barry.

However, I do think it interesting that the $8K tax break (credit) that is being offered homeowners on their income tax returns is interesting. The media isn't giving it any attention, but if anyone takes advantage of that tax credit on their tax forms they are automatically being audited. Hmmmm.....how interesting. That is just one thing in a lllloooonnnnggggg line of weird shit that has gone on since Barry slithered into office.

Forget impeachment, forget any legal action, he will be terminated when he ceases to serve the purpose any longer. When that happens he will be hailed a martyr. Wait and see. This will also go a long way into bringing the country down even further.

Yes, I believe that the date Dec 21, 2012 is a significant date. I believe that the US will be a 3rd world country by the end of the year. I believe that Prince William (King Willie to his close friends) is the real Anti Christ - not Iran's Mahmoud Yabba Dabba Do.

Question: Why is Camilla Parker Bowles trying to jump to her death?

[FastTadpole]

Quote:I believe that the US will be a 3rd world country by the end of the year.

The US has a tremendous amount of wealth in natural resources, a relatively literate population, a powerful military, a developed infrastructure and some of the world's brightest minds. They have a strong tech sector, have the biggest entertainment industry, are the world's largest arms and drug dealers (legal and illegal). They are a golden goose in the eyes of the rest of the world it is diminishing and a population of good consumers well trained to buy and to sell. They are well positioned as a trade partner both on the Atlantic and the Pacific. They have a lot of foreign assets, well the corporations do. The corporations will go where they please and take the jobs with them. If they end up crashing the dollar then the banks are off the hook as far as the foreign debt goes so it's in a lot of countries best interest to prop up the US dollar or their debt is worthless. The US is being whittled down but it will take an awful lot more than what is being thrown at them for a longer time to bring it down to 3rd world status as a nation. Some cities are in a tough spot though due to lack of diversification. The biggest threat to the US economy would be further influx of immigrants IMO.

[NickHedge]

We are getting the immigrants and the next item on Barry's list will be just that. That is as soon as he is finished with Wall Street, the VAT Tax and Cap and Trade. After all he is a very busy man.

All foreign countries want away from the dollar when it comes to purchasing oil. Hell that's part of what got Hussein killed, he was trying to switch off the dollar to the Euro for Iraq. Once the dollar is no longer king, then its open season for the others (like the Euro).

The corporations do run the country and they will decide what is best for us. The plan now is to bring all the people down to welfare level. Health care and no jobs will be the main ingredients there. Prices going up - jobs going down? That doesn't help the economy.

Optimism is not enough, not in the face of reality. You can't walk around saying affirmations all day long while Rome is burning. Well you can....but that would be idiotic.

Alot of serious shit can happen in 8 months. It may not be officially 3rd world, but it will be damn close. Remember, once you cross a point of no return......

[TheQleaner]

Perhaps A More Suitable Job For Obama ?