Thank you, Debra

Friday, April 17, 2009

Urbano

I received this message from a World Can't Wait activist today:

"Read the Bush era torture memos in full as soon as you can. The premeditated, systematic sadism is beyond words and needs to be immediately and loudly exposed and denounced.
Nobody in society who is familiar with these memos can any longer claim any doubt about whether torture was/is sanctioned from the highest levels of government.

And, given that Obama is releasing these memos AT THE SAME TIME as he is officially announcing he won't prosecute those who carried all of this out means that nobody familiar with the release of these memos can any longer claim honest confusion about whether or not Obama represents "change."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20090416_memos.pdf

Finally, as you read the memos, consider the 2 quotes below:

1) George W. Bush, March 23, 2003 -- "I expect them to be treated humanely, just like we will treat any prisoners of theirs we capture humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."

2) Barack H. Obama, April 16, 2009 -- "In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution."

I've been searching the web for response and coverage:

Independent. UK, Obama Pledges to Protest CIA Torture Operatives: Barack Obama yesterday confirmed he will shield from prosecution CIA operatives who inflicted waterboarding and other extreme interrogation techniques against terror suspects during the Bush years, even as the White House released memos containing shocking new details of what was permitted in their secret prisons.

Four of the memos that were written by the Justice Department officials in the wake of the 11 September attacks offering legal justification for the use of special techniques on prisoners were made public in their entirety without any passages blacked out, as some observers had expected...Separately, last night, the US Attorney General Eric Holder reaffirmed that those CIA employees involved in past torture must be protected from prosecution. Indeed, the US government, he said, would provide them with lawyers in the event others tried to bring cases against them and pay for any monetary penalties they might incur.

Agence France Press: Obama Shields CIA Interrogators: "It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials," said the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has championed the legal rights of "war on terror" detainees. "Whether or not CIA operatives who conducted water boarding are guaranteed immunity, it is the high level officials who conceived, justified and ordered the torture program who bear the most responsibility for breaking domestic and international law, and it is they who must be prosecuted," it said. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZTpcxRFBXdANLn4p8jag4grEoSw

Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com: I vehemently disagree with anyone -- including Obama -- who believes that prosecutions are unwarranted. These memos describe grotesque war crimes -- legalized by classic banality-of-evil criminals and ordered by pure criminals -- that must be prosecuted if the rule of law is to have any meaning. But the decision of whether to prosecute is not Obama's to make; ultimately, it is Holder's and/or a Special Prosectuor's. More importantly, Obama can only do so much by himself. The Obama administration should, on its own, initiate criminal proceedings, but the citizenry also has responsibilities here. These acts were carried out by our Government, and if we are really as repulsed by them as we claim, then the burden is on us to demand that something be done. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/04/16/aclu/

And David Swanson, with whom I'll be doing a panel on Prosecution of Bush Era War Criminals Saturday at the Left Forum, Pace University, and Sunday at the Veterans for Peace event in Woodstock, NY: No Amnesty for Torturers. "On April 16, President Obama said he would not prosecute CIA agents who engaged in torture, because President Bush's lawyers told them it was 'legal.' President Obama also said Attorney General Eric Holder would use taxpayer dollars to defend torturers against lawsuits by torture victims, and to pay all judgments if they lost. These decisions are intolerable and unacceptable."

Support Matthis Chiroux, courageous IVAW vet who refused deployment to Iraq.

Army Separation hearing

Tuesday, April 21 9 am

1 Reserve Way, Overland

St. Louis, MO

More info at matthisresists.us

Write Matthis a support message which he can take to the hearing Tuesday.

Interview with Matthis

http://worldcantwait.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5525:matthis-chiroux-interviewed-rise-up-people&catid=117:homepage&Itemid=289

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