LaRouche to Hillary: Take the Lead To Impeach Cheney Now!
by Michele Steinberg and Jeffrey Steinberg
"If Hillary Clinton were to step forward to issue a clarion call for the immediate impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, she could win the Presidency by virtual acclamation," said Lyndon LaRouche on July 13, reflecting on the overwhelming response from Democratic constituents to the mere mention of Cheney's impeachment. On July 12, at a candidate's forum in Detroit, Michigan, at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)'s annual convention, Democratic Presidential pre-candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), received thunderous and sustained applause when he raised the issue of impeaching Cheney, which Kucinich has introduced in Congress as House Resolution 333.
Two days earlier, speaking on the radio interview program, The Ed Shultz Show, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) also won new support when she told Shultz that impeachment must be "on the table." Senator Boxer's remarks represented a clear break from the standing policy of the Congressional Democratic leadership—particularly that of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who has explicitly and repeatedly insisted that impeachment is "off the table."
On July 6, the American Research Group, Inc. released poll data showing that 54% of all Americans, 51% of independent voters, and 76% of all registered Democratic voters favored the immediate impeachment of the Vice President. Even 17% of registered Republicans embraced the Cheney impeachment idea, indicating the extent to which there is a nationwide groundswell, demanding the Vice President's ouster.
Buttressing the American Research Group findings, LaRouche emphasized that when the members of Congress were in their districts during the July 4 recess, they were "beaten up by constituents," who demanded that they act to impeach Cheney. On their return to Washington, the actions of Kucinich and Boxer reflected their response to the overwhelming demand from citizens. The reception that Kucinich received at the NAACP debate, in response to his H.R. 333 Cheney impeachment resolution, was even more important than the specifics of what he said, and other members of Congress, including the Democratic Presidential candidates, realize that too, commented LaRouche.
So, if Senator Clinton were to "issue a clarion call" for Cheney's immediate impeachment, in no uncertain terms, she could "win the Presidency by virtual acclamation," LaRouche repeated.
The simple fact is that so far, with the exception of Kucinich's demands for Cheney's immediate ouster, the Democratic Party Presidential hopefuls have dodged most of the fundamental issues that will determine the future of the United States and the world. This is, LaRouche has repeatedly warned, a recipe for political disaster—particularly for Hillary Clinton, the putative front-runner.
The Kennebunkport Opportunity
The issue of Dick Cheney's immediate ouster from office is now tied, inextricably, to the strategic opportunity that emerged from the July 1-2 Kennebunkport summit among President George W. Bush, former President George H.W. Bush, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the meeting, Putin proposed a strategic partnership between Moscow and Washington, along with Europe, to establish a cooperative system of ballistic missile defense, covering almost all of Eurasia.
Several days before the "Lobster Summit," former President Bill Clinton had stunned an audience at a strategic forum in Yalta, Ukraine, by directly calling for a revival of President Ronald Reagan's March 23, 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), for U.S.-Soviet cooperation on a global missile defense shield that would end the era of thermonuclear mutually assured destruction (MAD). As everyone knows, President Reagan's SDI policy came out of a collaboration with Lyndon LaRouche, who, in 1977, had first promoted the idea of a global cooperative effort to perfect defense systems, based on "new physical principles."
In his Yalta speech, Clinton said that he would wish to see the United States and Russia share in the benefits of such technological breakthroughs, ridiculing, in contrast, the low-tech incompetent and needlessly provocative scheme for so-called U.S.-run missile defense, being promoted by the Bush-Cheney Administration, with the proposed installation of radar systems and anti-missile missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The efforts by former Presidents Bush and Clinton—along with Russian President Putin—reflected a strong institutional desire, in both Moscow and Washington, to avert the kind of "new Cold War or worse," being peddled by Vice President Cheney.
In the environment at Kennebunkport, in the absence "the Dick," President Bush had responded favorably—and sanely—to the Putin offer, which would fundamentally alter the present global confrontation course and lay the foundations for a long-term strategic partnership, anchored in the United States and Russia, but also including China, India, and many other nations.
As one senior U.S. intelligence official told EIR, "The moment that President Putin's plane took off from U.S. soil, a ferocious faction fight erupted inside the White House over the proposed strategic partnership, with Dick Cheney leading the opposition to the Putin offer." A close associate of former President Bush seconded the observation, adding that G.W.'s behavior at Kennebunkport had finally convinced him that Cheney was the factor driving the President towards the suicidal confrontational policies of the last seven years—and that Cheney had to go if there were to be any hope of a "George W. Bush legacy," other than as the worst President in American history.
Unfortunately, this insider's observation was borne out. Once President Bush returned to the White House and to the Cheney environment, he returned to his mad, confrontational profile. At a speech in Cleveland, Ohio on July 11, and at a White House press conference the next day, Bush fulminated against Democrats in general, and all others who doubted the wisdom of the Iraq invasion and occupation, and the current "surge" strategy. Just hours before his Cleveland speech, the Washington Post, in a front-page story, had reported that the President was expected to signal a shift in Iraq policy. When no such policy shift occurred, the near-unanimous conclusion was that Cheney had "gotten" to the President, and filled his head with war-party blather.
War or Peace
As if to underscore that the Cheney issue is truly a matter of war or peace—perhaps before the end of the Summer—a number of actions were taken, as soon as Bush returned to the White House, aimed at accelerating the march to war against Iran. First, Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs, the ultra-right-wing Avigdor Lieberman, traveled to Brussels to confer with European and American officials, and returned to Israel only to announce that he had U.S. and European backing for an Israeli preventive strike against Iran's nuclear program. "If we start military operations against Iran alone," Lieberman said to Israeli Army Radio on July 11, "then Europe and the U.S. will support us."
On the same day, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), a close ally of Dick Cheney, introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill, demanding that American military, intelligence, and diplomatic services provide reports every 60 days about Iranian activities inside Iraq. The original draft of the amendment had been worded by Lieberman in such a way that it could possibly be construed as authorization to the President to go to war; however Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, insisted on an addition, that explicitly states that nothing in the measure "shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of armed forces against Iran." Nevertheless, when the amendment passed the Senate by a 97-0 vote, it was widely seen as a capitulation to Cheney and the Administration war party that is intent on attacking Iran—perhaps as early as this August, while Congress is on a month-long recess.
Lieberman's antics in the Senate are also coordinated with a quiet deployment of a White House team to Baghdad, to foment anti-Iranian propaganda from the front line. In June, Gen. Kevin Bergner, until recently, the military deputy to National Security Council Middle East chief and leading Cheney neo-con ally Elliott Abrams, was dispatched to the Iraqi capital, along with another former NSC staffer, Meghan O'Sullivan, to accelerate a "spin" campaign with two major objectives: to demonize Iran and lay the basis for an attack on the Islamic Republic; and to promote the idea that the "surge" is succeeding and should be continued for the foreseeable future.
On July 13, in response to the escalating insanity at the White House, Republican Senators John Warner (R-Va.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) announced they would be introducing an amendment to the same defense spending bill, declaring that the original October 2002 Iraq War authorization was no longer valid, and demanding an overhaul of U.S. Iraq policy beginning in September. Senator Warner, an institutional voice of the U.S. Navy and other military services, has been widely touted as the man to go to President Bush to demand Cheney's ouster—just as Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) had gone to Richard Nixon and forced his resignation as President.
Given the intensification of demands that Cheney must go, the American people and the world are looking for some sign of life from the would-be Democratic Presidential nominees. For Hillary Clinton, above all the others, this is the moment of truth.
