Vermont Petition to Impeach George Bush

War in Iraq Grounds for Dismissing President

Last month, on the 7th of March, Vermonters in 37 towns across the state backed resolutions to impeach President George W. Bush.

The resolution was brought up on the annual town meeting day, and Vermont firmly staked its position at the head of a nationwide grassroots movement to impeach Bush over his handling of the war in Iraq.

This pure form of democracy happens the first Tuesday of March, year after year in gyms and and town halls. On March 7th, the resolution read:

Whereas George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have:

1. deliberately misled the nation about the threat from Iraq in order to justify a war,

2. condoned the torture of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention and US law,

3. approved illegal electronic surveillance of American citizens without a warrant, and, whereas these actions have undermined our Constitutional system of government, damaged the reputation of America, and threatened our national security, therefore, the voters of the town of Richmond, Vermont, call upon the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate these charges, and if the investigation supports the charges, vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney as provided in the Constitution of the United States of America.

Town meetings have a long tradition of face-to-face, cordial debate: what better place to talk about difficult issues? The resolution said nothing about bringing the troops home and focused solely on the constitution. The resolution was not calling for impeachment itself, rather for investigation as seems merited by a substantial amount of evidence.

The moderator called for a paper ballot rather than the normal hand or voice vote, as the issue seemed divisive.While our occupation of Iraq is supposedly to create democracy, that same idea of democracy is rapidly eroding in the United States.

Cheney and Bush do not listen to the people or to Congress. Congress does not listen to the people, and the constitution is being ignored. A recent Gallup poll showed only 18% of Americans think escalation of the war in Iraq is a good idea. A Newsweek poll in January found that 67% of Americans feel Congress is not standing up enough to George Bush.

One of the primary authors of the constitution, George Mason, said that the power of impeachment was the most important part of the entire constitution. If the American people did not have the power to impeach the President of the United States, Mason said that the rest of the constitution was rendered irrelevant.

Though the constitution does not mention God once, nor campaigns, nor political parties, it does refer to impeachment six times. Our forefathers did not take it lightly, nor should we. Now is the time to bring impeachment investigations to the table to show all future presidents that they too will be held accountable for their actions.

We must show the American people and the world that no American is above the constitution, even in a time of war. We must show our children that if you make an oath, then you must suffer the consequences if you break it. We must show the world that the American people do not stand for torture, for aggression, for lies.

Thomas Jefferson said that he and the founding fathers had created a "near perfect union." "But will they keep it?" he asked. He imagined the potential for a day when a president would be elected who turned out to be corrupt, and perhaps it would coincide with a weak Congress, at a time when the press was no longer a free press.

In this state of affairs, they rested all their hope with the people. They, better than anyone, knew what it was like to live under the rule of a tyrant king named George.