Conyers publishes massive report on ‘Imperial Presidency’
Raw Story- Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday January 13, 2009
Report demands investigation of Bush administration’s abuses of power
Everyone wants to know: will Obama order investigations into the Bush administration’s abuses of power? But, perhaps a better question would be: if he doesn’t, who will?
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), it appears, will at least try.
Conyers published a 487-page report (PDF link) Tuesday titled, “Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the presidency of George W. Bush.”
Conyers’ report makes 47 recommendations “designed to restore the traditional checks and balances of our constitutional system,” reads the foreward. Recommendations include the establishment of a ‘blue ribbon’ commission to fully investigate the Bush administration, and the launch of criminal probes.
“Even after scores of hearings, investigations, and reports, we still do not have answers to some of the most fundamental questions left in the wake of Bush’s Imperial Presidency,” Conyers said in a release. “Investigations are not a matter of payback or political revenge – it is our responsibility to examine what has occurred and to set an appropriate baseline of conduct for future administrations.”
On Jan. 6, Conyers introduced a bill that, if passed, would create the “Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties,” which would seek to root out President Bush’s abuses.
So, we shall see…
Our country needs to heal and move forward but still enforce the Constitution.
Conyers is a funny guy S-Q…
Conyers had his chance to Impeach George Bush but instead he sat on the mountain of evidence that he already had at the time.
He also had a ton of evidence that Dick Cheney committed treason by outing a CIA Agent and Cooking the intelligence to take the Nation into War with IRAQ which had nothing to do with Bin Laden or Al-Queda.
If Israeli leaders wanted to get rid of Saddam they should have done it themselves instead of getting American leaders through the AIPAC lobby to lie to the American people and do it for them.
But Conyers had the goods on them both S-Q and Pelosi and He chose not to do the right thing for fear of inciting Civil War in this country. However that’s already primed and ready to go because of the falling economy and there’s nothing that Washington can do about it.
It’s going to happen anyway to the shegrin of power brokers in DC.
However history will judge that Conyers and Pelosi could have stopped Bush and Cheney early after 2005 and that would have stopped Bushs economic policies which contributed greatly to the destruction of the US Economy.
The American consensus for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney was the highest among the American people that they had ever been at 75% in favor of it back in mid 2005.
They failed.
Conyers could have impeached George Bush but why bother when he knew he didn’t have the votes? Why waste his time? The Rethugs were in power and would have stopped the impeachment train before it could get onto the track.
Look we all know it’s a mess – and it will take major efforts to return our Republic back into a Constitutional Nation of Laws.
In my personal opinion, the Conyers publicity is worth it’s weight in gold….also exposing The Shloz for the partisan hack and idiotic DOJ slime that he was. All this stuff is coming out and will be dealt with … you cannot undo everything at once.
And Obama hasn’t even been inaugurated yet…
I believe that although you may be right about history’s judgment of Pelosi and Conyer’s lack of control of The Bush, that the actual Bush Administration will bear the blame, the complicity and always the reputation of the scum bags that they’ve been for 8 years.
You can blame Pelosi and Conyers – but the fact is, all of the sludge came from the top. The Rethugs enabled every bit of rotten garbage the Administration shoveled their way. Pelosi and Conyers did NOT have the VOTES to stop him.
Ultimately Bush/Cheney will bear the responsibiity for the criminal administration they create. Everything else is just woulda shoulda….
Until this country and its citizens stand up and toss these as*holes into prison where they belong…we don’t have the moral authority to cast blame. We LET THEM get away with all of this…WE DID. The Republican “majority” and voters who thought every time Bush spoke, it was “words of wisdom”…THAT is who is to blame.
That’s the false assumption they fed to the American people. The fact is that GOP constituents who favored impeachments could have pressured the politicians to vote for impeachment.
But they didn’t even try…
Also they could have acted early in 2006 when Democrats got control of Congress.
Oh come on now… we know the Repugs blocked/filibustered everything the Dems tried to do! Don’t blame the Dems… how many times did they try to pass laws that the Repugs blocked or filibustered? Or, Bush vetoed?
S-Q,
There’s equal blame goes to both parties for not doing the right thing which is what the Majority of the American people wanted.
They Both Disavowed the US Constitution.
That comment does not mention the Republicans and certainly looks like you are blaming only the Democrats!
PRESS RELEASE
January 14, 2009
NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S 269 WAR CRIMES
With a Foreword by former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz, the book George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes by Professor Michael Haas was released today by Greenwood Press. Further information is available at http://www.USwarcrimes.com
Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq, and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories—illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Haas accuses President Bush of conduct bordering on treason because he reenacted several complaints stated in the Declaration of Independence against England, ignored the Constitution and federal laws, trampled on the American tradition of developing international law to bring order to world politics, and in effect made a Faustian pact with Osama Bin Laden that the intelligence community blames for an increase in world terrorism. Osama Bin Laden remains alive, he reports, because Bush preferred to go after oil-rich Iraq rather than tracking down Al Qaeda leaders, whose uncaptured presence was useful to him in justifying a “war on terror” pursued on a military rather than a criminal basis without constitutional restraints.
Aside from going to war illegally, the worst war crime cited is the murder of at least 45 prisoners, some but not all by torture. Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thousands of children, some 64 of whom have been detained at Guantánamo. Sources document the use of illegal weapons in the war from cluster bombs to daisy cutters, napalm, white phosphorus, and depleted uranium weapons, some of which have injured and killed American soldiers as well as thousands of innocent civilians. Children playing in areas of Iraq where depleted uranium weapons have been used, but not reported on request from the World Health Organization, have developed leukemia and other serious diseases.
“Bush’s violations of the Constitution as well as domestic and international law have besmirched the reputation of the United States,” Haas writes. “In so doing, they have accomplished a goal of which the Al Qaeda terrorists only dreamed—to transform the United States into a rogue nation feared by the rest of the world and loved by almost none.”
“One reason for the adoption of the Third Geneva Convention,” according to Haas, “was a revulsion against German-run interrogation camps during World War II.” Yet, he writes, “Bush’s order to set up interrogation camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, and other secret locations “is directly contrary to the Geneva Conventions.” Nevertheless, Haas notes that Nazi Germany’s war crimes were wholesale offenses, whereas the scope of Bush’s crimes is retail, affecting fewer (a few millions) of innocent persons.
In view of the vast number of war crimes, Haas recommends a truth commission with the aim of educating the world on the nature of war crimes. He feels that stopping war crimes is a more important objective than prosecuting the offenders, some of whom may be brought to justice in foreign courts if they travel abroad and the American judicial system is uninterested.
The author, Michael Haas, has written over thirty books on government and politics in his academic career as a political scientist (Yale M.A., Stanford Ph.D.) at Northwestern University, Purdue University, the University of Hawai`i, the University of London, the University of the Philippines, and several colleges and universities in California. He lives in the Hollywood Hills and can be reached at (323) 656-5873. To order the book (only $40 in hardcover), contact http://www.amazon.com or http://www.greenwood.com
Hi Michael:
Welcome to the blog and thanks for posting the information regarding your new book!
I look forward to reading it soon! 🙂
“NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S 269 WAR CRIMES”
Kewl…important information which I hope will be applied by Obama in the near future. I put a link to Michaels book in my side bar on Geezerpower… 😎
Welcome Michael and thanks so much for posting info on your book – I also look forward to reading it..although for the next few days I plan to enjoy the heady giddy feeling of hope and newness that is permeating this country and D.C. in particular.
I agree that something needs to be done – but for now, let’s enjoy our enthusiasm, excitement and happiness that the Bush cabal has been banished from our atmosphere.