J'accuse!

For the couple of weeks the commutation of the sentence of convicted felon Irving Lewis Libby by the President of the United States has been festering inside me the way a bowl of gnocchi sits in your stomach. I finally realised that this perverse and offensive action by the president of my country was the final straw and that I must firmly stand for his removal from office. I do not care if he goes of his own free will through resignation or whether the American people have to kick him into the street through impeachment.

Why do I feel this way? I think my justifications fall into two separate areas: I believe that he has broken the law of the United States and international law as well and that he has repetitively and disdainfully betrayed the trust of the American people to whom he is ultimately responsible.

First of all what are the circumstances in which I believe that he has broken the law.

1. I believe that Mr. Bush and officials of his administration intentionally distorted facts as they knew them and lied to the American people in order to "justify" an invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq; that this invasion was not approved or ordered by the United Nations Security Council making it a violation of the United Nations Charter, to which the US is a signatory, and therefore in violation of Article VI of the US Constitution.

2. That Mr. Bush authorised US intelligence agencies including, but not limited to the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to violate the privacy of American citizens by circumventing court protections, including evading those mechanisms especially created for the purpose of allowing the government great latitude for surveillance in anti-terrorist operations, through illegal wire tapping and other electronic methods of surveillance.

3. That Mr. Bush violated US and international law by authorising the abduction and imprisonment without charge, counsel or trial nationals of other nations both witin and without US territory.

4) That Mr. Bush violated US and international law by authorising the extreme treatment of foreign nationals and US citizens under interrogation by American military and intelligence forces including the use of methods that qualify as torture.

5) That Mr. Bush has violated the provisions of the US Constitution wherein Congress is responsible for the development and passage of legislation and the Executive is responsible for enacting and enforcing these laws by using "signing statements" to prevent the implementation of specific provisions laws that were legally passed by representatives of the American people, which he signed into law and which he, like all other Americans, is obliged to obey.

Secondly these are the circumstances in which he has violated the trust of the American people (order not significant):

1) By allowing his Vice President Dick Cheney to secretly convene an "energy task force" in which only those with significant commercial interests were represented and also by allowing the Vice President to keep the subject matter discussed and the conclusions reached hidden from the American people who he has sworn to represent.

2) By the intentional suppression of dissent and free speech on occasions when he was acting or speaking as the President of the United States, rather than as a private individual or even a political candidate, through manipulation of attendance and the repugnant creation of "free speech zones" where protesters and any who refused to sycophantically follow the President's agenda were isolated from the President, from the media and from the American people.

3) Through the commutation of the custodial sentence given to former highly placed White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, which was well within the sentencing guidelines that his Attorney General has admonished judges to treat as a minimum, for the obstruction of justice and lying to Federal officials. We, the American people, rightly expect our public servants to adhere to both the letter and spirit of the law as they perform their duties and, when found guilty of violating the law, we expect them to pay a higher price for any violations than an ordinary citizen would pay for the same offence not to suffer a lesser punishment.

4) That the administration under President Bush has continually suppressed scientific findings and edited scientific materials, paid for by the taxpayer, to fit a narrow political agenda. This is clearly a broad strategy of the President and his staff and has been executed across virtually even government department. This manipulation of science has led or may lead to distorted policies in areas as diverse as climate change and reproductive health.

5) That even before he was elected he violated the basic principles of democracy that arguing that it was more important to have an election result that to ensure that the votes of all citizens were counted; and through winning this argument becoming President against the wishes of the majority of the American people.

6) Through the politically motivated sackings of several US Prosecuting Attorneys attempted to divert the Justice Department from its primary responsibility, the rule of law and the US Constitution, and to make it a vehicle of political manipulation.

So Mr. President I ask you to consider your sins; to repent your sins; and then resign.

Should you refuse to do so I feel obligated to demand that the US House of Representatives do its duty and find that you must face an impeachment trial on these high crimes and misdemeanours.

In any case you must go. You must go now. You must take your underlings with you.

I bid you adieu!