while a larger group protests outside:

Spanish Judge Opens Probe Into Guantanamo Torture

Wednesday 29 April 2009

by: Agence France-Presse  |  Visit article original @ Agence France-Presse

A detainee is escorted at Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba. (Photo: Getty Images)

Head of Obama's transition team calls for Bybee impeachment

Raw Story April 26th, 2009

9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee

Another voice has joined the chorus calling for federal judge and 'torture memo' author Jay Bybee to either resign or be impeached.

John Podesta, who oversaw Obama's transition team and was former president Clinton's chief of staff, said Sunday that "a simple matter would be to remove [Bybee] from office." Support for impeachment from Podesta, who heads the Center for American Progress Action, a think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, could foreshadow support for such a step from the president himself.

"There's still a lot we don't know, about how this all took place, how this went up and down the chain of command... Based on what we know now, it would indicate that the Department of Justice would be derelict in its duties to not follow the evidence where it might lead and initiate some sort of criminal investigation. Both of those who perpetrated it and those who ordered it -- the relationship between the lawyers who were assisting part of a criminal conspiracy. Because that's what we're talking about here. A criminal conspiracy to violate the U.S. law against torture." -

Carolyn Patty Blum, emeritus law professor at Berkeley School of Law and expert on international human rights law

see Pressure Mounts for Torture Prosecutions 

by Daphne Eviatar, The Washington Independent

The Trial of John Yoo

THE MOVING TARGET blog  April 21, 2009 

John Yoo

I have just returned from a debate on presidential power at Chapman University Law School.

In retrospect, the event should more properly have been called "The Trial of John Yoo."

And strikingly, it was Yoo who cast himself in the role of defendant.

UPDATE: AP coverage of event

Mike Morice, center, and other members of World Can't Wait group perform a live waterboarding demonstration outside the Spanish Consulate in Manhattan to urge prosecution in Spain of the alleged involvement of Bush administration officials in the torture of terror suspects, Thursday, April 23, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) - AP

The WORLD CAN'T WAIT called a public gathering at the Spanish Consulate to the United Nations today, April 23rd with a message from people here: PROSECUTE the torture team! 

While a group gathers outside the Consulate, a delegation will deliver a letter to the people of Spain praising Judge Garzon for considering investigation of John Yoo, William Haynes, Jay Bybee, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith and Alberto Gonzales for war crimes, specifically torture.

A waterboarding demonstration will also take place.

SIGN the letter to the Spanish people here.

HUFFINGTON POST  April 23, 2009

Rice Approved The Technique As Early As Summer 2002

Whereas 65 concerned United States citizens gathered on April 18, 2009 at the Chapman University School of Law, Kennedy Hall; and

 

Whereas it was unanimously agreed that John Yoo's legal advice to United States governmental officials as evidenced by "torture memos" including without limitation his August 1, 2002 memo, violated constitutional, statutory and international law by justifying torture, cruel, unusual and/or degrading treatment, and he was thereby complicit in the commission of crimes against humanity; 

 

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:

 

John Yoo should be discharged from his positions as Constitutional Law Professor at University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and visiting professor of law at Chapman University School of Law;

 

John Yoo should be disbarred as an attorney; and

 

John Yoo should be investigated and prosecuted by the United States Justice Department for crimes against humanity.

It's official: No U.S. prosecution of Bush officials

How Obama Excused Torture

update: Go Garzon! Spanish Judge Wants to Keep Hope for the Rule of Law Alive

The New York Times reports that there will be no Spanish probe of US officials...

Major General Taguba called for the Bush administration to be investigated for war crimes

Gen. Taguba: Accountability for torture does not stop at White House door

Andrew Kalloch

Harvard Law Record

Issue date: 4/16/09 

Major General Antonio Taguba called for an independent commission to investigate war crimes committed by senior members of the Bush Administration in remarks in Ames Courtroom on Tuesday, April 14. The event was sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.

Taguba, who was pressured to resign by the Bush Administration in 2007 following the 2004 leak of his report detailing abuses by U.S. armed forces in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, declared in the preface of the 2008 Physicians for Human Rights publication "Broken Laws, Broken Lives," that, "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

While the Obama Administration has "reaffirmed its commitment to valuing human rights and international law" by officially closing CIA black sites and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Taguba insisted that "there are a lot of stories that have yet to be told."

photo: Father Vitale at National Day of Protest: Close Guantanamo and End U.S. Torture Policies Everywhere, Market and Powell Streets in San Francisco, Sunday January 11)

Circle of Peace Speaking Tour Spring 2009
with Father Louie Vitale, OFM

Click here to see Fr. Louie's Tour Schedule! (in San Leandro April 18; see calendar in right hand column this page for details)

How do we relate with individuals and countries that believe differently that we do? How do we deal with our so-called enemies? Is torture morally acceptable? How do we respond to terrorism?

Father Louie Vitale has been grappling with these and other related questions for nearly half a century since he began his journey by enlisting in the air force as a young man, and having a conversion towards nonviolence. While all of our journeys take different paths, our hearts converge upon the commonality of Pace e Bene -- Italian for "peace and good."

from THE CHRONICLES of a BLAWGIRL

a blawg by julie anne ines

School dean and law prof at Chapman Law debate if former Bush adviser John Yoo fit to teach

10 APRIL 2009 10:51 AM

John Yoo

The Chapman University School of Law dean and a professor at the Orange County, Calif., law school gave LA Times readers a preview of what the upcoming debate between former Bush administration legal adviser John Yoo and professors at the school could look like.

Published in the LA Times Opinion section Thursday, Dean John C. Eastman and professor Lawrence Rosenthal wrote separate pieces arguing whether Chapman visiting professor John Yoo, who teaches at U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall, is fit to mold and Socratize young legal minds.

Mr. Rosenthal, whose piece ran above Eastman's, stated that Mr. Yoo should not be teaching because the memos he produced for the Bush administration, including one that said the president could allow torture, were flawed in their legal reasoning.

First sequel to Boumediene filed

Monday, April 6th, 2009   

Obama Official and GOP Are Protecting John Yoo

Dean Edley continues to defend John Yoo, on the basis of "academic freedom". But that is not what this is about.

  

Powell: I Don't Know Whether Torture 'Would Be Considered Criminal'

ThinkProgress

Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviewed former Secretary of State Colin Powell.Unlike many journalists, Maddow asked him about -- and pressed him repeatedly on -- his role in approving torture against detainees. Specifically, she asked him about reports that he was among nine White House "principals" who approved torture techniques so specifically that "interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."

Powell refused to acknowledge his role in these meetings, and claimed ignorance aboutlong-released legal memos that specifically authorized torture. Choosing his words carefully, he would say only that, "at least from the State Department standpoint," it was important to stand by the Geneva Conventions. Powell also questioned whether tactics like sleep deprivation, stress positions, or waterboarding were "criminal" -- despite specific U.S. statutes and international law forbidding torture:

MADDOW: If there was a meeting though at which senior officials were saying, were discussing and giving the approval for sleep deprivation, stress positions, waterboarding. Were those officials committing crimes when they were giving their authorization?

POWELL: You're asking me a legal question. I mean, I don't know that any of these items would be considered criminal. And I will wait for whatever investigations that the government or the Congress intends to pursue with this.

Throughout the interview, Powell shirked any responsibility to account for his actions by deferring to hypothetical "investigations" or pointing to the unreleased -- and possibly non-existent -- "written record" of these meetings as providing the ultimate final word. As Maddow pointed, it's unclear whether any such investigations will ever take place. Watch it:

Powell has gotten credit in the past for supposedly "breaking" with the Bush administrationon the issue of torture. However, his refusal to even acknowledge centuries-long definitions of torture is a discouraging indication that he is more concerned with protecting himself legally than getting to the truth of America's national disgrace.

Judge Rules Bagram Detainees Can Appeal to U.S. Courts

District Court Decision Could Have Far-Reaching Consequences for Prisoners Held by U.S. in Afghanistan

By DAPHNE EVIATAR 4/3/09 6:00 AM

Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan (army.mil)

Federal Court Rules Bagram Detainees Have Rights, Too

Chevron lawyer faces Spanish probe

"The Bottom Line", SFGate.com

More discomfort for San Ramon's Chevron Corp. and its chief corporate counsel, William J. Haynes II.

Spanish prosecutors are considering whether to bring criminal charges against Haynes, the Defense Department's former general counsel, and other members of the Bush administration, for their connection to detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

Haynes, as we itemized in December, figures prominently in a critical Senate Armed Services committee report on the subject. Earlier this month, the San Francisco chapter of the leftist National Lawyers Guild called on the State Bay of California to disbar, suspend or otherwise sanction Haynes for his reported role. We're seeking comment from Haynes and/or Chevron.

Two other Bay Area-connected figures are also targets of the Spanish probe: UC Berkeley law professor, John Yoo, the author of numerous memos on interrogation techniques when he was Justice Department counsel, and Jay S. Bybee, another former Justice Department official who is now a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Probably of most immediate concern to Haynes is whether to risk traveling abroad, where he could be served with an arrest warrant should the Spanish court choose to proceed.

Posted By: Andrew S Ross (Email) | March 30 2009