Tulsa Peace Fellowship

There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin

The TPF Steering Committee has signed on behalf of the Fellowship (submitted via webform, 4 march 2009 via http://www.afterdowningstreet.org)

Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or “truth” commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.

Drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committee
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/robertjackson

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A much wider co-sponsorship of the following petition, circulated in Feb 2011:

 

Dear Spain:
Please do what the U.S. won’t. Prosecute Torture.

Sign this letter and join our national campaign to reach out to the people of Spain, whose courts are considering prosecuting six of Bush's lawyers under international law.

March 1, 2011, is the deadline set by Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco to determine if he will prosecute the "Bush Six" – the group of Bush-era government lawyers, including then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for violating international law by creating a “legal” justification for torture. It was a court in Spain that indicted former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

 

The Obama administration declared last year that it would not pursue prosecutions, ignoring the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

 

To the people of Spain
From the people of the United States of America

We are writing to thank you and to ask for your support as your courts consider cases to bring American officials to justice for the crime of torture. A Spanish judge, acting under international law, will soon decide whether to investigate U.S. officials' roles in authorizing torture. We hope you agree that such cases must go forward, despite pressure from the Obama administration to drop them.

The organizations signing this letter represent hundreds of thousands in the American public who believe the U.S. government must be held to the same rule of law as other countries. We are profoundly disappointed that our own government refuses to prosecute former officials, despite open admissions and government documents showing that they approved torture.

It will take a public show of support for the case to withstand pressures from Washington. WikiLeaks cables show the extremes to which U.S. officials have gone to thwart any attempt by Spain or other countries to uphold justice. We applaud the courage shown by Spanish officials who insist on giving priority to the rule of law.

Despite earlier assertions by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder that waterboarding is torture, former President George W. Bush publicly stated three times last year that he authorized waterboarding and added proudly that he would do it again. In a TV interview aired on November 8, Bush said he considered waterboarding legal "because the lawyer said it was legal." Waterboarding and other forms of torture were banned by the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the United States in 1994.

If international law is to serve any useful purpose, other countries must condemn violations "by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment," in the words of the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg.

We sincerely hope that the citizens of Spain and its judiciary will dispel the notion that any country is above the law.

[insert your signature here]

 

 

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6503/p/dia/action/public/?action_...

 



Partner organizations behind this effort include CodePink Women for Peace, High Road for Human Rights, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, National Accountability Action Network, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Pax Christi USA, Progressive Democrats of America, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Robert Jackson Steering Committee, RootsAction.org, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Tackling Torture at the Top Committee of Women Against Military Madness, Veterans for Peace, Voters for Peace, War Criminals Watch, WarIsACrime.org, WeThePeopleNow.org, and World Can't Wait.

Additional signers include: Amnesty International USA, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Council for the National Interest, Democrats.com, Fellowship on Reconciliation, United for Peace and Justice, Velvet Revolution, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, War Resisters League, and Witness Against Torture.

 

[in bolded green, organizations to which TPF grassroots members are affiliated]

 

This action comes just days after former President Bush cancelled plans to travel to Switzerland after he learned the Center for Constitutional Rights and Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights sought indictment of him there for torture. George Bush has openly admitted authorizing torture on national television.

“If I had to narrow it down to one person … I think my prime suspect [in the 9/11 attacks] would be Dick Cheney.”

—Dr. Robert Bowman, Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from Caltech, former U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, and Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force in the Ford and Carter administrations

Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War  
from BillMoyers.com 

A documentary exploring how mainstream media failed to question the war in Iraq. (originally aired in 2007) 

http://vimeo.com/33033186

A decade’s gone by since the Iraq war began, but the media’s cheerleading role in the months preceding the invasion is as relevant and disturbing as ever. How did the mainstream press get it so wrong?

Transcript and viewer commentaries here:
http://billmoyers.com/content/buying-the-war/

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