JOHN BERG
Professor and chair of the government department at Suffolk University in Boston, Berg is author of Unequal Struggle: Class, Gender, Race and Power in the U.S. Congress. His doctoral dissertation, “Why the Doves Failed,” analyzed the failure of Congress to end the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He said today: “The Democrats seem more interested in hurting the Republicans than in ending the war. They come up with things that seem designed to be embarrassing to vote against rather than move to actually bring an end to the war in Iraq. The Bush administration has made quite clear that it’s not interested in cooperative policy-making, so anything short of cutting off funding is mere posturing. This was the clear lesson of the Vietnam years, when repeated congressional resolutions calling for withdrawal were ignored by President Nixon.”
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Rev. LENNOX YEARWOOD Jr.
Currently in New York City, Yearwood is president of the Hip Hop Caucus and just wrote the piece “Race is the Tripwire for the Progressive Movement: John Conyers and Impeachment.” He said today: “Impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney is about accountability, and ending the war in Iraq is about humanity, and we can’t proceed on one without proceeding on the other. Otherwise, what is to stop the executive branch from doing the same in the future? … On July 23, Cindy Sheehan, Ray McGovern and I met with U.S. Rep. John Conyers about the issue of impeachment. We delivered a petition for impeachment with one million signatures. …
“Impeachment begins in the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, which Rep. John Conyers chairs. He is in the position to begin the impeachment process or keep it from happening, and no other human being is in that position. In addition, Rep. Conyers is the recognized authority on Capitol Hill both on impeachment and on the impeachable offenses of Vice President Cheney and President Bush. He and his staff literally wrote the book on them before the Democrats won the majority last November.” [Conyers’ Report] More Information
TINA RICHARDS
Based in D.C., Richards is the director of Grass Roots America and the mother of Marine Cloy Richards. She said today: “I attended the MoveOn.org rally last week where Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid discussed how they were going to ‘end the war’ and ‘bring our troops home’ with the Levin-Reed Amendment. When I asked if they meant all the troops, I was quickly told to ‘shut up’ and muscled aside by security. …
“The Amendment provides for our troops to come home, except for the following three reasons: (1) To protect United States and Coalition personnel and infrastructure; (2) To provide logistical support for Iraqi security forces; (3) To engage in counter-terrorism operations against international terrorism groups and their local affiliates.
“I had an opportunity to ask Leader Reid about how many troops will be abandoned in Iraq. He bluntly stated, ‘we haven’t spoken to the military yet, at this stage we don’t know.’
“We don’t know? They have pushed and prodded for this amendment and they don’t know? If Members of Congress do not have any idea how large of a future force this amendment calls for, then how can we as military families possibly support it?”
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For more information, contact the Institute for Public Accuracy at (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan at (541) 484-9167.
