About this time four years ago, while the US was prospering and enjoying a state of relative peace, President Bill Clinton was enduring the ultimate smirch on his career: impeachment proceedings precipitated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Now, a group based in New York has called for imposing the same fate on the current president, George W. Bush — not for misconduct related to romantic dalliances, but for what it calls " war crimes. "

Led by former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has put together a Web site, www.votetoimpeach.org, where those displeased with Bush’s handling of the Iraq crisis can vote to give him and his partners in crime — Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John Ashcroft — the boot. Clark has even gone so far as to draft Articles of Impeachment, citing as grounds the planned war against Iraq and the destruction of constitutionally protected rights at home.

" The US Constitution provides the means for preventing George W. Bush from engaging in a war of aggression against Iraq, and from advancing a first-strike, potentially nuclear pre-emptive war, " Clark said during a recent protest appearance. " It’s called impeachment. "

This last campaign marks the latest effort to keep all eyes on the peace movement, which has one of its biggest events coming up on February 15 in New York City. At noon that day, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to converge in Midtown, symbolically joined with millions around the world, to stand against Bush’s plan for war in Iraq. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in South Africa, will headline a group of prominent speakers that includes Martin Luther King III, Danny Glover, and Harry Belafonte.

There is one hitch, though: Midtown Manhattan is a big place with lots of traffic, and organizers such as ANSWER and Not in Our Name are currently locked in a march-permit battle with the City of New York, particularly the police. New York’s finest don’t want the headache of stopping traffic yet again and have refused a permit. On Monday, federal judge Barbara Jones backed them up. Organizers of the protest will have to content themselves with gathering at First Avenue and 49th Street and just seeing what happens. While the city can’t prevent people from engaging in their constitutional right of assembly — i.e., they are allowed to " rally " — it can prevent them from marching, as happened in Washington, DC, a month ago. The showdown over this permit will move from the courtroom to the streets on Saturday, when protesters will battle not only government policy on Iraq, but also New York's police department.

The lack of a permit didn’t stop several thousand New Yorkers from marching from Times Square to the UN on February 5 in a demonstration called by ANSWER to protest Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council of evidence that Iraq hasn’t complied with UN resolutions to disarm. At first, the police tried to send the protesters home, but the size and determination of the crowd eventually forced police to allow the march to proceed.

Peaceniks may have to resort to more civil disobedience as the clock winds down on weapons inspections and authorities begin to tire of all the demonstrations. But rest assured, even if they aren’t protesting against Bush and this war, peace organizers will be conducting one campaign or another in cyberspace. The votes submitted online in the Votetoimpeach.org campaign will be delivered to the House Judiciary Committee next month.