Green Party of Michigan
http://www.migreens.org
June 12, 2005
For More Information Contact:
----------------------------
Douglas Campbell, Vice Chair/Green Party of Michigan
e-mail: naderladuke2000detroit@yahoo.com
John La Pietra, Media Committee/GPMI
e-mail: jalp@internet1.net
Michigan Greens Agree with National Party that
Downing Street Memo Is Evidence for Bush Impeachment
====================================================
Call on People to Join Non-Partisan Drive, Sign
Petitions by Conyers and Others to Demand Answers, and Show How We
Support and Value the Troops -- By Bringing Them Home
The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) joins the
national Green Party of the United States (GPUS) in citing the
"Downing Street memo" as further evidence of the
deceit of the Bush administration in its rush to
unconstitutional, unjustified, and undeclared war in Iraq -- and as
reason for citizens of all parties (or none) to call for the end of
the occupation and the impeachment of George W. Bush.
GPMI welcomes the efforts of Michigan's 14th
District Congressman John Conyers, Jr. on these issues. Conyers has
written to the White House, with the backing of 88 other House
members, demanding explanations of the revelations in the memo from a
top-level meeting of the British government.
With the help of a wide spectrum of citizens'
groups, Conyers and others have collected almost half a million
signatures on petitions supporting the demand for the truth.
Conyers will also be holding a committee hearing
next Thursday the 16th on the memo writer's testimony that
intelligence about the situation was being "fixed around the
policy" -- that the decision had already been made to attack
Iraq.
GPMI vice-chair and 2002 Green gubernatorial
candidate Douglas Campbell echoes the answer Daniel Ellsberg has been
giving to people who ask him whether there aren't big differences
between the Iraq War and Vietnam: "Of course, there are
differences. In Iraq, it's a dry heat. And the language that none of
our troops or diplomats speak is Arabic rather than Vietnamese."
There may be another parallel -- in that the
Vietnam War lasted almost exactly as long as US military forces went
on occupying the country, and ended "just about the day after we
bailed out," as Campbell puts it.
And, like Vietnam, undeclared war in Iraq -- and
Afghanistan before it -- has had a lot of support from elected leaders
in both "major" parties.
Just recently, Campbell reminded a crowd in Benton
Harbor, every one of the 100 U.S. Senators -- all the Republicans and
all the Democrats, including Michigan's Senators Carl Levin and Debbie
Stabenow -- voted to spend another $82,000,000,000 for the illegal
wars.
Stabenow is up for re-election next November.
As Campbell pointed out at a voters' rights and
justice rally called by the Black Autonomy Network Community
Organization (BANCO), a billion for each of the states and a billion
for each of America's 32 largest cities would go a long way t
eliminating their deficits -- and/or softening the depression here at
home . . . which, he adds, is going to get a lot more painful very
soon when 25,000 GM employees hit the unemployment line.
Another cost has also continued to grow. According
to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Web site, U.S. military deaths in
Iraq and Afghanistan are approaching 2,000 . . . 53 of them from
Michigan. And that does not count the deaths of coalition military
personnel, con- tractors and mercenaries, civilian government
employees, embassy staff -- or tens of thousands of civilian
bystanders.
And Campbell is concerned about the impact having
thousands of Michigan National Guard members deployed in Iraq and
Afghanistan will have on emergency preparedness. "What will we do
during the next blackout or major natural disaster -- or in case of
riots here at home?" he asks. "Governor Granholm is
apparently unaware of the role the Michigan National Guard has here in
Michigan, or else she just doesn't think it's important."
Montana governor Brian Schweitzer has asked the
Pentagon to send his state's overseas National Guard members home to
provide much-needed help as the wildfire season arrives there.
Grassroots movements in other states are gathering public support for
calls to their governors to do the same.
After about a dozen governors resisted Ronald
Reagan's sending National Guard units to Honduras in 1986, Congress
passed the Montgomery Amendment -- which bans governors from
withholding their consent for the President to use National Guard
troops for "active duty outside the United States because of any
objection to the location, purpose, type or schedule of such
duty."
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the amendment in
1990, ruling that it reflected legitimate Federal authority to direct
overseas "training" of the National Guard.
- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -
For more information on Rep. Conyers's letter to
the White House about the Downing Street memo (and the 88 other
Representatives who have signed, including Dale Kildee and Carolyn
Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan), and his planned committee hearing,
visit: http://www.johnconyers.com
Information about the memo and the Conyers letter
(including the latest available count of people who have signed onto
that letter) is available at: http://www.downingstreetmemo.org/
A coalition of groups supporting action in the
wake of the memo can be contacted via:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/
Other online petitions on the subject include:
* Bob Fesmire of DowningStreetMemo.com to George
W. Bush
http://www.petitiononline.com/dsm/petition.html
OR http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/dsm3/
[CAUTION: you will face *SEVERAL* offers to refuse
before this site finishes processing your signature]
* Sen. Ted Kennedy to other Senators
http://www.tedkennedy.com/page/petition/downingstreet
* Military Families Against the War to Tony Blair
http://www.petitiononline.com/mfaw/petition.html
For more information about the Green Party of Michigan,
including links to other Green Party organizations and past
Green statements on the illegal war in Iraq, please visit
the GPMI Web site: http://www.migreens.org
Green Party News Release
Downing St. Memo Is Evidence for Bush Impeachment
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_06_09.html
Thursday, June 9, 2005
