April 2014 Archives

The University of California welcomed 'torture memos' author John Yoo's return to academia in 2004 and continues to refuse investigation of misconduct charges against the professor. We demand application of ethical standards former dean Christopher Edley chose to ignore.

Say NO to normalization of crimes against humanity 

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2012 graduation photo by Ashley Chen, c/o The Daily Californianribbons worn as statement against torture

Berkeley Law Graduation, Saturday morning, May 10 


7:30  Distribute orange ribbons to graduates, Kroeber fountain, Bancroft & College Ave

8:00  Flyer arriving guests, Hearst Greek Theatre

8:30  Greet Processional

9:00  Commencement ceremony begins

Yoo's rulings caused immeasurable suffering: thousands have been subjected to torture, tens of thousands incarcerated, tens of millions spied upon, and a million have died in U.S. imperialist wars.

Despite repudiation by peers, and rejection of his work at the Office of Legal Counsel by the same (Bush) regime that hired him to legalize the unconscionable, Yoo continues to be given credence, advocating for militarization of outer space, a lethal strike on Iran, and the current president's killer drone program.

A university that allows a war criminal to teach constitutional and international law courses to the next generation of lawyers and judges under prejudice of 'academic freedom' is protecting war crimes.

It is our responsibility to call out criminals and enablers alike

do UC hypocrisy?

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The U.S. [and, apparently the Human Rights Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law] upholds a series of double standards on international criminality. It is the number 1 advocate of international criminal justice for others, but refuses to subject its own officials to the jurisdiction of the ICC [International Criminal Court], even going so far to threaten the use of military force in the Hague if the ICC indicts any US citizens. Richard Falk argues that the rule of law must be implemented consistently for people to take it seriously, and not only when it's convenient.

Fernando Boter's Abu Ghraib 57 (photo, left) hangs outside the library of Berkeley Law School, home of 'Torture Professor' John Yoo.

Berkeley's historic role in advancing human rights [sic]

Prolonged incarceration without formal charges, evidence withheld, limited access by the public, defendants subjected to torture after their capture, severely limited rights to object by the defense, hunger strikes, etc. Now government spying on the defense. All this and more is what passes for justice at Guantánamo...

From tragedy to farce


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/19/4067653/from-tragedy-to-farce.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/19/4067653/from-tragedy-to-farce.html#storylink=cpy

a reminder that, no matter how much the proceedings at the island military prison resemble a familiar American trial, the invisible hand of the United States government is at work there in ways unlike anything seen in typical courtrooms

Friday April 18 about a dozen activists challenged the appointment of "Torture Professor" John Yoo to head a new corporate think-tank at UC Berkeley. 

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The Korea Law Center launch comes on the heels of the U.S. - Korea Free Trade Agreement, which opens up the republic's legal market to U.S. law firms a press release informs, and will enable students to learn about issues vital to Korea's emergence as an economic powerhouse

The continuing employment of war criminals at universities across the United States threatens to 'normalize' government programs of arbitrary detention, assassination and illegal surveillance, policies deemed necessary to maintain a system of global exploitation and domination. 

Protest outside the research center's Inaugural Conference (photo, left) represented a reunion of sorts; participants have been working to 'fire, disbar, and prosecute' John Yoo for years, and are preparing for the annual Berkeley Law demonstration outside the graduation ceremony May 10.

A university that allows a war criminal to teach constitutional and international law courses to the next generation of lawyers and judges under prejudice of 'academic freedom' is protecting war crimes. Faced with the challenge of moral relativism popularized in today's schools, will students find the courage to speak out against the crimes of their government?

That question continues to be raised at Boalt Hall Commencements every year. By refusing to investigate charges of misconduct against John Yoo, Berkeley Law abdicates responsibility for ethical leadership of its students. And assumes complicity in advancing the usurpation of constitutional powers prescribed by the professor's 'Unitary Executive' theory ('if the President does it, it's legal'). 

End the silence. 

Say NO to the culture of violence that enables torture. 

Fire, Disbar, and Prosecute John Yoo and All the Torture Lawyers. The world can't wait.

nor should we

U.S. war-makers are using drones and secret operations for extrajudicial killing, making war seem easy and cheap to politicians; attractive to a public attuned to video games, while sowing fear, hatred and revenge among those subjected to genocide.

Spring Days of Action 

World Can't Wait supports the campaign to End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global Militarization. We urge you to sign the Call. Organizers will provide the public with information they need in order to more fully educate their communities. The campaign will encourage activists to win passage of laws that prohibit domestic and international use of weaponized drones.

A growing list of specific actions can be found on the KNOW DRONES website.

some other things you can do

The world can't wait for institutional reform or a change in "attitude" of the politicians who purport to represent their constituency. We need to do no less than change the way Americans think about the rest of humanity:

·         put yourself in "their" shoes... American lives are not more important than other people's lives

·         demand answers... the truth is often not pretty, but unavoidable

·         speak out for those who can't... resist the complicity of silence

·         know what you're talking about... and we don't mean just facts and figures here; FAQs help to delineate the basis of our outrage, but can't replace the moral conviction that targeted killing is a crime

·         hold true to personal values... we don't need legal "opinion" to know right from wrong

·         find courage in the knowledge that it doesn't have to be this way...

a better world is possible

cheers to Pablo Ruz

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Bay Area activists say NO to "Monsters in the Sky."

CIMG2368.JPGWeekly vigils against remote killings of civilians continued in downtown San Francisco yesterday outside one busy entrance to the city's subway system (Montgomery Street BART station).  Inspired by photographer Noor Behran's documentation of brutal U.S. drone strikes on the people of Pakistan, demonstrators challenged passersby to confront the human cost of their government's targeted assassination policy.

Every picture tells a story.

On Valentine's Day 2009, just weeks after President Obama assumed office, a CIA drone attack struck a village in South Waziristan. Approximately 30 people died in the bombing, including
Noor Syed:

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Maezol Khan and his son were sleeping in the courtyard of their home when a missile from a drone struck a nearby car. As a result of the explosion, a missile part flew into the courtyard, killing Maezol's eight-year-old son.

At the funeral, the boy's mother was out of her mind with grief and began coloring the boy's face with her lipstick, perhaps to restore the color of life to his waxen features.




On August 21, 2009 Syed Wali Shah was killed in an air strike on Dande Darpa Khel (Pakistan):

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By the time photographer Noor Behram reached Bismullah Khan's mud house, partially destroyed in the strike, Khan's youngest son had already died. Behram watched as the boy's body was laid out on a prayer rug, a "very small" one, in preparation for his funeral. "The body was whole," Behram recalls. "He was found dead." The villagers wrapped a bandage around the boy's head, even though they had no chance to save his life. Behram doesn't know who the target of the Dande Darpa Khel attack was. ("You'd have to ask the CIA that," he says.) But he observed people's anger as they prepared bodies for burial and cleared the wreckage. "The people were extremely angry. They were talking and shouting against the U.S. for the attack," Behram says.

We can't begin to name all those murdered by your government's weapon of choice; the above represent a handful of hundreds identified. Death by these "monsters in the sky" continues to escalate under the Obama administration.

Our last photo identified Naeemullah, wounded at Datta Khel on October 18, 2010:

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Pakistan's Express Tribune reported a drone attacked "two suspected militant hideouts" near Mirin Shah. Photographer Noor Behram never saw the scene. He headed instead to a near-by hospital, where he heard residents had frantically driven one of the strike's victims, a boy of about 10 or 11. Naeemullah was said to be injured after a missile struck the house next door. Shrapnel and debris travelled into Naeemullah's house, wounding him in "various parts of his body," Behram says. "You can't see his back, but his back was wounded by missile pieces and burns." 

An hour after Behram took this picture, Naeemullah died of his injuries. 

Join CodePink, World Can't Wait, Know Drones, Occupy SF Action Council and others every week, same time (5:30 pm) and place (northwest corner of Montgomery and Market Streets) to say NO to the President's assassination program.
leaked disclosures prompted another round of the endless 'Does torture work?' debate. This is precisely what the defenders of torture want us to focus on, since it keeps us away from the central issue... The reason to fully examine the CIA's torture program isn't that it was ineffective. It's that it was immoral.
350px-CIA_illegal_flights.svg.pngFor decades -- nay, for over two centuries -- the idea that the United States would develop a systematic torture regime, and that the United States would justify that regime with threadbare legal opinions from government lawyers and protect it with entire barricades of misinformation thrown up by the intelligence community -- was as distant from what we believed about ourselves as whooping cough was from the nation's elementary schools...

criminals at large

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Rather than be held accountable, the top-level government officials responsible for authorizing torture and other crimes have been given comfort in the public sphere. Condoleezza Rice returned to Stanford University as a political science professor. John Yoo, who authored the torture memos, is a law professor at UC Berkeley. Jose Rodriguez, a former CIA officer in the Bush administration, vigorously defends torture in his autobiography and interviews. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are able to rest comfortably in retirement and continue to defend their records...

At Guantánamo Bay, military doctors and nurses have medicalized the water cure.  They are now using excessively thick nasogastric feeding tubes to force as much as two-thirds of a gallon of fluid into hunger-striking detainees in as little as 20 minutes, twice each day, while they are tightly strapped to a specially-made restraint chair.   If a detainee vomits during the process--which is common--it starts all over again...

University of Minnesota faculty and students vote today on a resolution asking that Rice be disinvited from delivering their "Distinguished Northrop Lecture" on April 17.

UC Berkeley Billboard

press conference, protest, photos, video, reports

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Events & Calendars

War Criminals Watch Events



Important Reading

Physicians for Human Rights
Broken Laws, Broken Lives

NLG White Paper
ON THE LAW OF TORTURE...

The President's Executioner

Detention and torture in Guantanamo



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This page is an archive of entries from April 2014 listed from newest to oldest.

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