On the National Day of Resistance to U.S. Torture, the San Francisco Bay Area World Can't Wait, along with members of the San Francisco National Lawyers Guild's Committee Against Torture, Code Pink, Common Cause, and the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists gathered at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to publicly repudiate Jay Bybee's lifetime appointment to the federal bench. About thirty people responded to World Can't Wait's demand to disbar and prosecute Bybee for codifying specific torture tactics under the auspices of the law and for giving high administration officials immunity protections from both civil and criminal suit.

A super-sized banner reading "Torture is a War Crime! Release the Torture Photos! Prosecute the War Criminals!" lined one corner of the courthouse in downtown San Francisco. The adjoining side of the street featured "The Bush and Bybee Museum of Torture," an exhibit which included the fourteen torture methods Bybee auhorized in an August 2002 memo--sleep deprivation, stress positions, waterboarding, forced nudity, cramped confinement in a dark space, water dousing, wall standing, walling, facial slaps, abdominal slaps, insects placed in a confinement box, facial holds, attention grasps, and dietary manipulation. Each torture method was enlarged on a poster board so as to be easily visible and included a short description how the abuse was used. For instance, wall standing was illustrated as the following: "To induce muscle fatigue, the detainee is forced to lean with only his fingers for support against a wall four to five feet away from where he is standing." The museum also displayed photographs of torture from Abu Ghraib corresponding with the torture descriptions. Brilliant orange outlining the museum of torture underscored the visible resistance against torture that must be furthered among the people. Individuals in orange jumpsuits silently posed in the midst of the display, augmenting the question that Fire John Yoo organizer Curt Wechsler posed: "Who speaks for the detainees that continue to be tortured under Obama?"

student organizer Linda Rigas reports on day's actions

On Saturday May 16, the Fire John Yoo protest at the UC Berkeley Law School Commencement furthered a visible resistance in the Bay Area against torture. With super pickets (large backpack-like signs) displaying the messages "Silence + Torture equals Complicity," "Fire and Dis-Bar John Yoo," and "John Yoo is A War Criminal," Bay Area members of World Can't Wait along with community members, lawyers, activists, and students engaged the Berkeley Law Class of 2009 graduates and their family and friends to wear an orange ribbon and resist the continuance of torture in our names. World Can't Wait also originated the following string of messages and placed them strategically, emphasizing a torture apparatus and the presence in the Bay Area of five war criminals and what actions they took to make torture state policy:

photos courtesy of J, http://tinyurl.com/prfgh4

As graduates and their guests proceeded to the entrance of the graduation ceremony, they passed World Can't Wait activists dressed in orange jumpsuits, silently posed, representing those who have been tortured around the world by the U.S. government. Between one-third to one-half of the graduates, faculty, and their guests took ribbons, and perhaps 20% wore them and supported the World Can't Wait call for the release of the torture photos and the prosecution of the war criminals.  A few graduates ran back to ask for a handful more to give to others.

In a clear ploy to prevent the graduation processional from encountering the protest at the main entrance - where the processional traditionally enters the Greek Theater - without public announcement, law school officials routed them in the back way instead.  Alerted, the large group of protesters, jumpsuit groups and all, sprinted to the other entrance and re-set up, just in time to still greet the hundreds of graduates as they arrived.

and am not about to be silent about this story coming out of the NYTimes:

Charges Seen as Unlikely for Lawyers Over Interrogations

please send your comments to info@FireJohnYoo.org so that I can post them to this site.

Comments:

"Regarding the draft report that Yoo and Bybee should not be prosecuted, a comment.  This report is consistent with the approach that President Obama (and Pelosi before him) has taken toward the crimes of the Bush administration from the beginning--"bad stuff, but let's move on."   That consistency raises the question as to whether the report was truly independent or constructed (like the Torture memos) under White House Guidance.  Even if the White House did not direct the findings, If the Justice Dept finds no need for prosecution of these crimes they will have damaged the new Administration seriously because of the following implications: first, that the new Administration is trying to minimize the crimes committed by the prior administration so as to maintain its own options and standing among criminal elements within the US ruling elite.   Second, that the laws and Convention against torture can be disregarded by the US (much as Bush maintained).  Third, that the new Administration is reinforcing the Right's mantra against government, promoting impunity, and the idea that these people are above the law.  This then encourages common people to feel there is no way to achieve justice, and so, like Bush, the new Admin will end up encouraging lawlessness." - Marc Sapir

passage c/o George: The words of the US chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Justice Robert Jackson, are relevant. Jackson was adamant that the true test of what was done at Nuremberg would be the extent to which the Allied victors, including the US, applied these principles to themselves in future years. In his opening statement to the Court, Jackson placed the issue of 'victor's justice' in context: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well. We must summon such detachment and intellectual integrity to our task that this Trial will commend itself to posterity as fulfilling humanity's aspirations to do justice." Such "aspirations to do justice" included for Jackson applying the law equally and fairly to all. "If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes," he stated, "they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." -- David Krieger, "The War on Iraq as Illegal and Illegitimate," http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2005/03/00_krieger_war-illegal-illegitimate.htm

yes we must do something very vocal and very public and not be dissausded.  What about like the boots memorial  we do a field of paper maiche hands with blood dripping and the names of the torture advocates or likenesses attached? 
Other ideas? - PEhret

I wanted to share my thoughts about the May 6th,
New York Times article Torture Memos: Inquiry Suggests
No Prosecution. 
I'm just floored by the fact that some internal
inquiry by the Justice Department says that there will be no prosecution and as
the way things look today, they're right.  Like who gave them the final
word! It seems that this article is shaping the people to believe that,
sanctions or disbarment, is the most the people should expect. But then that
doesn't surprise me.
What has happened, regarding torture, is
disgusting, horrific and I thought, illegal.  The German counterparts to
today's lawyers had to stand trial at Nuremberg but Yoo, Bybee etc are going on
with their lives.  Again, i'm not surprised.
I think a lot of people are outraged but then that
outrage is tempered by jadedness.  It's like, "Sure we're upset, but
this sort of things happens all the time, throughout the history of this
country. We can't change anything." 
Glancing at the War Criminals Watch webpage, I
think what they're calling for is good, but I have a question in how does World
Can't Wait fit into that? After reading the article, i was thinking that
education and thus action was needed and I thought WCW should be on the
forefront of this.  I also thought a more centralized action at some point
in the future would be important. Mass independent political action to change
the terms of the debate.
(I know things are planned on May 28th, the date
the govt is set to release more pictures. And my birthday no less, what a
gift?!?) So it seems like this is a fluid situation. I'm just trying to wrap my
head around these things.
jamilah

» Bush officials interfering with Justice report?

"no criminal prosecutions headline that is getting a lot of attention tonight -- I'm not sure that's quite as significant as people think," DOJ report will be a bombshell

photo c/o R. Robertson 

STANFORD ALUMNI NAIL "CONDI" WAR CRIMES PETITION TO THE DOOR OF STANFORD PRESIDENTS OFFICE

SUNDAY, MAY 3, 12:00 NOON
STANFORD UNIVERSITY INNER QUAD
PRESIDENT'S OFFICE - BUILDING 10

This Sunday, May 3 at noon Stanford Alumni returning to the campus for a reunion marking the 40th anniversary of the anti-war April Third Movement joined current students in nailing a petition to the door of the University President's Office (Building 10) in Stanford's Inner Quad. The petition asks that Condoleezza Rice and other high government officials be held accountable for serious violations of law.

The petition, being circulated by Stanford Says No to War, states:

"We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (including ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities."

meanwhile, Rice Teaches Torture's Necessity To Fourth Grades