Accountability is important: Join the Aug. 1-2 Fast Against Torture (FAT)

[annm4peace]

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/62806

By: youmayberight Saturday July 31, 2010 10:26 am



Accountability is pretty much off the radar of the anti-war movement. At the recent United National Peace Conference in Albany, no workshop dealt with the issue of holding accountable those who committed/are committing crimes in our names.

People sometimes ask me, "Why do you focus on torture? The wars are a much bigger issue; the drone attacks alone kill many more people." Some point out that legal memos justifying aggressive wars were more damaging than memos "legalizing" torture. I’d respond that there’s something especially reprehensible about the one-to-one, face-to-face aspect of torture. Plus the political spectrum opposed to torture is much wider: those who want to protect our own soldiers, limited government advocates, law-and-order types, plus the human rights/anti-imperialist/peace activists.

I was missing the more important point: the issue of accountability. Accountability is crucial to preventing the third, the fourth, the fifth war coming down the pike. Whether it’s Kyrgystan or Uzbekistan or Myanmar, if we begin to hold government officials accountable now, those are the wars we might prevent. And though I don’t relish putting anyone in jail, locking up those responsible for crimes of war might be the way to do just that.

But we’re not going to lock up government officials for prosecuting aggressive wars. There’s no public appetite for such accountability yet. But the officially and proudly proclaimed policy of torture gives us just such a possibility. As Rahm Emanuel has said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do." Don’t let the callousness of that statement blind us to some truth within it.

That’s why accountability for torture is vital. We can create this mindset of accountability that may make future warmongers think twice.

August 1 is the eighth anniversary of the John Yoo/Jay Bybee torture memos. Eight is enough! Join the 24-hour Fast Against Torture (FAT) beginning at 6:00 p.m. that day. Go to your local federal building on Monday, August 2, for whatever time you can, to demand accountability. We in Minneapolis are having a 12-hour vigil that day. Call the U.S. Attorney in your area and ask: With all the allegations and confessions of torture from high government officials, why has no one ever been prosecuted for it? (The only person ever prosecuted under the Federal Torture Statute was Chuckie Taylor, and that was for torture done for the country of Liberia.) Contact President Obama and Attorney General Holder. Write a letter. Wear an "8" on your forehead on Aug. 1-2. Help us create a climate of accountability.

Accountability is the ultimate in anti-war work. Let’s prevent the wars of future decades; they need not be inevitable.



http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSk4xGeCUClSwhG9_fwIkP0Q64yO7ldr-Y7FnPgosVMgK81bPM&t=1&usg=__qveZg8SDDgW_D58I3pEnvb_hO48=

[phasma ex machina]

1. K&R

[azul]

2. The question is is the media up for it?

People have been let down by the media coverage of war protests, and are not so easily shaken out of the resultant helplessness funk. By design?

The perps are getting away with horrible crimes done in our names with our dollars, and we are shamed yet still burning for justice.

The media is there to police the government and big businesses for the people's best interests. It has turned into a weapon to be used against such.

It just is finally going to take overwhelming numbers of protesters to find justice in this corrupted mess of a system. Or else some trickery and imagination.

That said, organize and protest with all your might because it is the good fight, and actions do count. And people take action and get inspired by seeing those already doing it: contagion. It's what the corporate media is trying to contain.

[annm4peace]

3. No the corp media isn't up for it. But that has never and does not stop us

History will judge those who chose to condone or condemn what happened.

[annm4peace]

4. You can sign up to do the fast on Facebook

sorry, I forgot to include this in my post. You can join us for anywhere

You do continue to drink water, and juices if needed.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144988738849490&ref=ts

[EFerrari]

5. K&R

[annm4peace]

6. ret. FBI agent asks you to join the Fast. on Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/join-the-fat-fast-against_b_651972.html

Please consider participating in a 24 hour Fast Against Torture in memory of all those illegally and unethically tortured around the world, including, most importantly, those tortured and waterboarded by the Bush-Cheney Administration.

Sunday August 1, 2010 is the eight-year anniversary of the writing of the "torture memos" by Office of Legal Counsel lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee. After Bush, Cheney and other White House principals approved of "dark side" methods, they got their lawyers to "legalize" various forms of torture through the series of OLC memorandums that culminated with the "torture memos" written on August 1, 2002. Recently Congressman Conyers released what Bybee, who is now a 9th Circuit Judge, told the House Judiciary Committee in his recent non-public interview. While Bybee did not admit any wrongdoing, he did blame Yoo for being too close to the White House when Yoo apparently formulated the memos that attempted to "legalize" torture. Not surprisingly, thousands of Yoo's e-mails during this time have suspiciously disappeared.

Coincidentally, the statute of limitations (SOL) specifies eight years as the time period for bringing a prosecution under the Federal Torture statute. So legislation is desperately needed at this point to extend the SOL as it soon could run, for instance, on certain acts of waterboarding begun as a result of Yoo-Bybee's (August 1, 2002) "torture memos." Obama's insane slogan about "looking only forward" to ignore past crimes has begun to wear thin. Legal authorities as diverse as FOX News Judge Andrew Napolitano are appalled at the lack of accountability and New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler argues that "failing to prosecute former Bush administration officials complicit in the use of torture would create a dangerous precedent and place America on a path to 'tyranny.'"

Just one day after announcing the Fast Against Torture on Facebook, people from all over the world have committed to participating. Those with good health who can do so, have pledged their intention to fast (except for water) from 6 pm on August 1 to 6 pm on August 2, 2010. Many are also pledging to contact President Obama, Attorney General Holder, their US Senators (most importantly those who sit on the Judiciary Committee), their Congressperson, other elected officials and/or their local newspaper.

Speaking of writing letters to the editor, a good one was published today by the Minneapolis Star Tribune entitled "Liberia gets justice. What about America?" It turns out that since the Federal Torture Statute was passed in 1994 following the ratification of the Convention Against Torture, only one person has ever been charged under that statute. His name was Chuckie Taylor, and he was the son of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia. The torture Chuckie committed was as head of his father's "Anti-Terrorist Unit." The irony of convicting a Liberian for torturing in the name of anti-terrorism is nothing but seeing the speck in another's eyes but not the log in our own.

For those who live in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, you are invited to also come join our all-day vigil anytime during the day (Monday) of August 2 in front of the US Courthouse, 300 4th St. S, Minneapolis, Minnesota. "Tackling Torture at the Top" (a committee of Women Against Military Madness) began this daily noon hour vigil in October 2009 but it will go all day on Monday, August 2nd. So come stay for a few minutes, an hour or the entire day as we fast, hold signs and hand out leaflets. Look for us in the orange "Close Gitmo" jumpsuits.

[annm4peace]

7. Washington Post Opinion: also speaks of 8 years since the illegal memos were written

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/30/AR2010073002674.html


Eight years after the torture memo, Obama should take a hard look back

By David Cole
Sunday, August 1, 2010


Eight years ago today, two Justice Department lawyers -- John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- put the finishing touches on a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales with the anodyne title "Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. § 2340-2340A." With this document, better known as the "torture memo," and a second memo issued the same day approving specific interrogation techniques, the United States officially authorized torture for the first time in its history -- including sleep deprivation for up to 11 days straight, confinement in cramped boxes, the use of painful stress positions for hours at a time and waterboarding.


Today, Jay Bybee is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. John Yoo is a tenured law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. And no one responsible for authorizing these tactics has been held to account: not Yoo, not Bybee, not Daniel Levin and Stephen Bradbury, the Justice Department lawyers who succeeded them and continued to authorize brutal techniques until President Obama took office, and not former president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney, both of whom have, since leaving office, admitted in public statements to giving these tactics the green light.

When asked about accountability for torture, Obama has insisted that we should look forward, not back. But on this issue, we cannot move forward without looking back. Unless we acknowledge that what the United States did was not just a bad idea, but illegal, we risk treating torture as simply another policy option. As the new government in Britain has recently shown, it is possible to be responsible about allegations of torture even when it means examining the sins of a prior administration.

and it goes on....

[Coleen Rowley]

8. Fast will begin at 6 pm local time today! Not too late to participate.

Andy Worthington, author of a book on Guantanamo abuses, wrote an article today too: http://www.eurasiareview.com/201008016252/fast-against-torture-on-eighth-anniversary-of-torture-memos.html

We have about 360 Facebook friends all over the world who have committed to participating in the Fast Against Torture. Many who live in the Twin Cities will be standing vigil all day tomorrow in front of the U.S. Courthouse in Minneapolis.

[MNmom]

9. I'll see you there!

It is unconscionable that torture was done .......and then just forgotten about!!! Thanks for your work!

[annm4peace]

10. do DU want to see Justice for US torture?

I just finished a book the DC Underground railroad.

Just like those of us who have tried to seek justice for those who advocated, ordered or participated in torture, the abolitionists were also frustrated by the apathy of the general public.

Just like we have actions all over the country to bring light to how US torture happened/happens, so do the anti-slavery people.

they traveled around and spoke out, raised money, supported politicians who tried to outlaw slavery.

I thought there would be more DU supporting our fast, (you can still support and not fast) so I guess there is still a lot of apathy.