Writing in November 1998, Zinn added: "If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least 10 reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people."
Zinn cited such matters as missile attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan; Clinton's refusal to accept a Canadian proposal to ban land mines; continuation of "embargoes on Cuba and Iraq, causing widespread misery in Cuba for lack of food and medicine, and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq according to U.N. statistics"; and squandering vast funds on the U.S. military while people were suffering and dying at home and abroad due to lack of health care, nutrition and housing.
There was no second impeachment of Clinton after he used a "diplomatic" scam called the Rambouillet accords to justify launching intensive U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, without congressional authorization. Clinton persisted with a continuous air war for more than two months -- making history by blatantly violating the War Powers Resolution.
Trump -- like Barack Obama and George W. Bush before him -- was able to order missile strikes and deploy troops in numerous war-torn countries without congressional constraints. And there was no reason to be concerned that Congress might impeach him for war crimes. The reasons for such impunity are rooted in the history of "unimpeachable" offenses.
Consider the proceedings in Congress that forced President Richard Nixon to resign when impeachment was imminent in mid-1974. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment -- focusing on Nixon's obstruction of justice after the Watergate break-in by operatives for his re-election campaign, misuse of federal agencies to violate citizens' constitutional rights, and noncompliance with congressional subpoenas.
Unmentioned in the Nixon impeachment articles: the Vietnam War that he had prolonged with a vengeance while claiming to seek peace. With methodical deception, Nixon inflicted a massive horrendous war -- but his crimes against humanity were judged to be completely unimpeachable.
Also entirely excluded from the Nixon impeachment articles was the merciless U.S. bombardment of northern Laos that slaughtered people who lived on the Plain of Jars, making Laos "the most heavily bombed country per capita in history." The impeachment articles likewise made no mention of Nixon's ordering of the secret and illegal carpet-bombing of Cambodia, which began two months into his presidency and persisted year after year.
On July 31, 1973 -- nearly a full year before Nixon's resignation -- Democratic Rep. Robert Drinan introduced an impeachment resolution. He said it was triggered by the "recent revelation that President Nixon conducted a totally secret air war in Cambodia."
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