June 16th Rally Statements, After 'Downing Street' Congressional Hearing

• June 16 Rally Statement by Mike Ferner
  
• Member Veterans For Peace
  
• Working as a Navy Corpsman during the Vietnam War, I took care of hundreds of young men who came home minus their arms and legs and sight and sanity. Unlike the fortunate sons who became today’s powerful elite, working class kids of that generation were not able to claim “other priorities” to keep them out of the meat grinder. Many learned too late how to quit being good soldiers. So if my words today, spoken as young men and women die again for empire, sound a little sharp, I hope you will understand. Not long after the last election, you may recall a reporter asking quintessential fortunate son, George W. Bush, about accountability for the disaster in Iraq. The presidential reply, in that smarmy, lipless smirk was, “We just had an accountability moment. It was called the election.” In a growing number of cities across the nation, Veterans For Peace chapters are creating and displaying mini Arlington Cemeteries – neat rows of white crosses or tombstones – one for each U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. Together with our local peace group, my wife and I worked on “Arlington at Toledo,” painting about 300 tombstones in our kitchen. A few Saturdays ago, we started putting labels on them with the name, rank, and age of each G.I. killed. As we sat on our living room floor, surrounded by stacks of tombstones representing so many young men and women, we listened to an old Dire Straits album. The track titled, “Brothers in Arms” came on with these telling lines: “Every man has to die/But it’s written in the starlight/And in every line on your palm/We’re fools to make war on our brothers in arms.”Sue looked at the tombstone she was labeling with a 19 year-old’s Private’s name and dissolved into sobs crying, “He was someone’s baby…”We are here today to lift up the work of the congressional patriots who participated in Congressman Conyers’ hearing on the Downing Street minutes. We are here to congratulate and expand the work of the AfterDowningStreet.org Coalition as it publicizes the truth about this administration’s invasion of Iraq. We are here today to tell George W. Bush and his gang of criminals that their day of accountability for slaughtering someone’s baby – Iraqi or American – is yet to come!Veterans For Peace is part of the AfterDowningStreet.org Coalition because we agree that the truth must be exposed and publicized. We agree that the logical next step is for the House of Representatives to consider a Resolution of Inquiry into possible impeachable offenses. We believe that these are important steps; important but only preliminary. That’s why, on the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Veterans For Peace sent a letter to every member of the U.S. House and Senate demanding that George W. Bush be impeached!VFP is calling for Bush’s impeachment because – and this is important to understand – Article VI, par. 2 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that when the Senate adopts an international treaty it becomes part of the supreme law of the land, the same as an Act of Congress. This means that as Bush daily violates treaties and international laws he simultaneously violates federal law.We are calling for George Bush’s impeachment for violating treaties such as the Nuremberg Principles, thereby committing what are clearly defined as “crimes against peace…crimes against humanity…and war crimes.”…for initiating and continuing to this day what the U.N. Charter – also legally binding on the U.S. – defines as a war of aggression……for clearly and specifically violating the Geneva Conventions – also legally binding on the U.S. regardless of what Mr. Bush says about them – by torturing and killing prisoners, purposely targeting civilians, preventing delivery of medical relief…ALL of which are violations of the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996.Veterans For Peace is calling for impeachment because it our responsibility as citizens to do so. The words of a village sheik I spoke with in Iraq last year haunt me every day. Even as he assured me that he recognized the difference between the government and the people of the United States, he asked, “But you say you live in a democracy. How can this be happening to us?”It is not only our responsibility as citizens, but as a Veterans For Peace member put it, it is our sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and impeach this criminal president. As citizens of this nation, every one of us is complicit in Bush’s crimes. By virtue of that complicity, we are compelled by law, by morality, by history to do everything in our power to stop this war of aggression and these crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Tribunals following World War II did not look favorably upon the first nation the world determined had waged a war of aggression, nor its “good citizens” who obeyed their government. And bear in mind, the U.S. judge who presided over those tribunals made unmistakably clear that its decisions applied not just to Nazi Germany, but to every nation on Earth from that point on. If we refuse to be silenced and frightened by the high-class thugs across Pennsylvania Avenue; if we stop being stereotypically good soldiers and “good Americans;” if we do what history demands in this critical hour, we can get our troops home now. We can put an end to the suffering and the war crimes. We can begin to absolve our complicity. And we can give George Bush an “accountability moment” that he will never forget!
  
• June 16 Rally Statement by Stephen Cleghorn
  
• Member Military Families Speak Out
  
• Before this war began, with John Bonifaz as our able attorney, I was proud to join with four soldiers, other parents of soldiers, Congressman Conyers and other Congresspersons in a law suit against the President. We tried to void the blank check for war that the majority of Congress had shamefully given President Bush in October, 2002. We knew at the time that the evidence was being fixed, and we hoped that forcing the issue back to Congress for a declaration of war – as called for in our Constitution – would allow the facts to emerge that Iraq was no threat to our nation’s security. Sadly that was not meant to be as the courts, the press and Congress failed us in a time of national fear. Military Families Speak Out is comprised of over 2,200 military families in every state who have loved ones on active duty with the United States Armed Forces. Many have been to Iraq, some for more than one tour. Sixty of our member families have suffered the wrenching agony of losing their loved one to this damnable war based on lies. We are not anti-military. We get up every day and think about what we can do to support our loved ones, support our troops. Every day the answer is the same: “Bring them home now!” End this damnable war. My stepson John is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. He was awarded the Bronze Star for exemplary service during the 15 months he spent in Kuwait and Iraq. Thankfully he is home, for now, and safe. Because he is a career military officer, he did his duty in a war to which the Commander in Chief ordered him, even though he believed the cause of war had not been established. Once he was there, he worked tirelessly to protect his soldiers. I honor him for that. As much as we hate this war, we love our soldiers. I am the son of a career military officer. My dad also detests this war, yet he and my stepson share a love for the men and women with whom they have served in the Army. Our soldiers dedicate themselves to protecting our country on the trust that they will be led by just and responsible leaders. Our soldiers are willing to go into harm’s way, if necessary, but instead they have been thrust into an unnecessary war in Iraq and turned into harm’s ministers. The President abused my son’s dedication to protecting his country. He abused John’s military service by thrusting him into a war of choice, not necessity, that we know was planned by “fixing” the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to make the President’s grudge match with Saddam Hussein possible and to prepare Iraq for American oil extraction. We are now into the third year of a war that has killed 1,709 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians; and a war that has included – among others – the shameful war crimes of Abu Ghraib and the killing of innocent civilians in their homes in Fallujah.There is nothing more serious than sending men and women to kill and to die on a pack of lies. Fabricating the case for war is a “high crime” far more serious than having sex with an intern or even abusing government institutions to cover up your tracks as Nixon did after the Watergate break-in.Let me end by saying that today is a hard day in a long line of hard days. Imagine being a military family and wanting nothing more than to have a good reason for your loved one’s sacrifice, only to find that there was no just cause of war. How hard would it be to take in that information? Or imagine being one of our mothers who discovers that her son was killed while searching for weapons of mass destruction, and coming to know that the President who sent him on that search knew damn well there were no such weapons to be found. We understand why so many of our military families must for the life of them cling to some hope that this war was just, yet we know just as surely that it is not. So please be kind to our military families who say they support this war that killed their loved one. All we can do then is wake up every day and do what we can to end this tragedy. So I am proud to speak for military families and to stand once again with Congressman Conyers and his colleagues to deliver this letter to the White House with one-half million people seeking the truth. We honor those who have died and we honor the Constitution they swore to defend by appealing to the public and press to demand a full accounting of why we are in Iraq, and we support our troops by saying – bring them home now!
  
• June 16 Rally Statement
• by Kevin Zeese
  
• He told Americans there were unmanned Iraqi aircraft that could drop bombs over our cities. His own intelligence agencies told him this was inaccurate. He tied Saddam to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden – there was no evidence of that. He talked about Saddam being able to launch a strike on the United States in 45 minutes – there was no evidence for this. He talked about the potential of a mushroom cloud over the United States – a nuclear attack by Saddam – there was no evidence for this. He used fear mongering tactics to scare people into supporting an unnecessary war. President Bush did not lie to us once, he did not lie to us twice – he lied, and lied, and lied and lied – for month after month. Because he and his minions repeated the lies so often many in the Congress and the media were fooled by their drumbeat of war lies and as a result the American people were fooled – thousands of Americans were led to death or serious injury and more than 100,000 Iraqis were killed.The Downing Street Memos talk about the Administration “fixing the intelligence.” In fact, not only were they fixing the intelligence – they were manipulating it, misusing it, making statements that contradicted it. Lying about it.The truth was that as bad a dictator as Saddam was – and he was bad – he was no threat to anyone in the United States or any of the countries that surround Iraq. We had daily aircraft surveillance over most of Iraq. We were able to bomb at will. Iraq was weakened by economic sanctions. UN inspectors were searching the country even presidential palaces. Iraq had a dilapidated army. Saddam was an unpopular leader who controlled by fear – his country would not fight for him.All this was obvious and true before we invaded Iraq. But Bush's lies hid the truth – clouded U.S. thinking – and led us into an illegal, unjustified war that has turned into a worsening quagmire that makes the United States less safe, less secure and less respected around the world.What are we going to do about it?We are going to hold the president accountable. We are going to get the truth out. He cannot be allowed to lie repeatedly to the American people and send more than 1,700 soldiers to death, 20,000 with life changing serious injuries, kill more than 100,000 Iraqis and destroy many cities and towns in Iraq leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. The President is not above the law. He is subject to the law like any other American. His manipulation of intelligence and lies to go to war are obvious impeachable offenses. We need Congress to take action. We need the opposition party to truly oppose the President and introduce a Resolution of Inquiry – demand that the first step toward impeachment be taken. The truth cannot speak for itself. It needs a spokesperson – a messenger. You, all here today, the bloggers and webmasters who write about this and the hundreds of thousands who signed Congressman Conyers petition are the messengers of truth. If we all speak the truth it will be heard. It is being heard despite a corporate news blackout. If we demand that our elected officials speak the truth – is that too much to ask – if we demand they speak the truth, the truth will be heard. That is our task – it sounds simple enough – make sure the truth is heard so the big ball of lies can be untangled.The truth will come out. And as it does the president's credibility will diminish. The anchor of his lies to go to war will pull him down. It will pull down support for this war. When he speaks people will wonder – is he lying to us again? He will be diminished and the war – already unpopular with nearly 60% of Americans saying it is time for US troops to come home – will become less popular. And, the war will end – our troops will come home.Already – not just a majority but a landslide majority is opposing this war. It cuts across political party lines – Greens have been advocating against the war and for impeachment, as have Libertarians, Democrats and now some Republicans. This is an unpopular war and this will become an unpopular president.Already Republicans are calling for an end to the war and realize they were misled – Rep. Walter Jones – known for renaming the Congresses French Fries “Freedom Fries” – has called for withdrawal and acknowledged he was misled on the House Floor. More and more Republicans will face the truth as more information comes out. Then they will have to make a choice – do they cover-up for a lame duck president who deceived them and the American people on the most important issue faced by a president – sending troops to war – or do they side with the truth and join us as messengers for truth.And the evidence will compound. What will intelligence officials, Colin Powell and others in the administration or formerly in the administration say under oath? What kind of email, memorandums and other documents will come out when they are subpoenaed? The truth is there – it just needs to be set free. Just as lies led us into this war – the uncovering of lies and speaking the truth will get us out of this war.
• These Statements Can Be Found At: www.afterdowningstreet.org