ACTION ALERT: Release the Report; Jail the Torturers

December 12th, 2014 - by admin

CODEPINK: Women for Peace & Meteor Blades / The Daily Kos & Dennis Kucinich / Kucinich Action – 2014-12-12 02:23:02

https://www.causes.com/actions/1775408-sign-the-petition-to-us-department-of-justice

ACTION ALERT: Save America’s Honor: Hold the Lying, Law-breaking Torturers Accountable

Torturegate: Hold the Criminals Accountable
CODEPINK: Women for Peace

Sign the Petition to
US Department of Justice

We call on the US Department of Justice to immediately file criminal complaints against senior officials in, and legal counsel to, the Bush Administration, starting with George W. Bush himself and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and including their lawyers Alberto Gonzalez, Douglas Feith, William Haynes, Jay Bybee, David Addington, and John Yoo for their roles in torture in violation of domestic and international law, as we did at the Nuremberg Trials.

As a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT), we are required to prosecute anyone who commits or is complicit in torture or inhuman treatment of people in custody.

Prosecution is not discretionary — our Department of Justice must indict and prosecute anyone for whom there is evidence of torture, and this includes policy-makers and lawyers who incorrectly decided that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” were legal. Torture is never legal, at any time, for any reason. The CAT prohibits acts that are inhuman or degrading as well; the CIA and military are clearly in violation of the law.

How this will help
On the release of the US Senate Report on Torture, we call for the prosecution of those who planned, coordinated and ordered the criminal acts, detailed in the report, committed by officials and agents of the United States government.

As citizens, we are gratified that we will finally get a clearer sense from the $50-million, 6,200-page report of just how outrageous and illegal the abuse of prisoners in CIA custody was, we are equally concerned that the guilt it reveals will never be acted upon. In particular, the acknowledged torture techniques used must not be allowed to go unpunished, such as the horrific waterboarding of one person 183 times.

Sign the Petition Here.


Udall Says CIA Still Lying and Calls for
Purge of Those Linked to Torture, including Brennan

Meteor Blades / The Daily Kos

(December 10, 2014) — In what will probably be his last Senate speech, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall blasted the Central Intelligence Agency Wednesday morning and repeated his call for the resignation of the agency’s director, the serial liar John Brennan, as he first did last July. He also may have revealed some classified information from an earlier report. But he did not choose to insert the full 6,700-page torture report into the Senate record as some civil libertarians and other activists, including Daily Kos, have urged him to do.

The Colorado senator, who lost his re-election bid last month, has been a leading advocate for declassifying the entire torture report instead of just the 524-page executive summary that was released Tuesday. He has also been aggressive in his pushback of CIA officials who have sought to discredit the report and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of which he is a member.

In his 48-minute speech, Udall said, “Director Brennan and the CIA are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture … in other words, the CIA is lying.” He noted that “there has been no accountability for the CIA’s actions or for Director Brennan’s failure of leadership.”

Udall also took aim at President Obama, saying, “Despite the facts presented, the president has expressed full confidence in Director Brennan and demonstrated that trust by making no effort at all to rein it in.” He also called on the president to “purge” the CIA of everyone linked to the torture program. “Torture just didn’t happen after all,” Udall said. “Real, actual people engaged in torture. Some of these people are still employed by the CIA”:

Udall said it was bad enough not to prosecute these officials, but to reward or promote them, Udall said, was incomprehensible. Udall called on Obama “to purge” his administration of anyone who was engaged in torturing prisoners.

“He needs to force a cultural change at the CIA,” Udall said.

Read below the fold to see how Udall did not stop at criticism of the administration for its continuing support of Brennan.

“One would think this administration is leading the effort to right the wrongs of the past and ensure the American people learn the truth about the CIA’s torture program. Not so. It’s been nearly a six-year struggle in a Democratic administration to get this study out,” Udall said. “For a while I worried, that this administration would succeed in keeping this study entirely under wraps.

“While the study clearly shows that the CIA detention and interrogation program itself was deeply flawed, the deeper more endemic problem lies in the CIA, assisted by a White House that continues to try to cover up the truth,” the senator added.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the senator also revealed information from a still-classified 2011 torture report carried out under former CIA director Leon Panetta. Asked about that by Politico after the speech, Udall was cryptic, “Of course I’m always aware of my role. But I also think the truth had to come out and the Panetta review needs to be declassified and released.”

That is especially the case if the Panetta review, said to be highly critical of the agency’s role in torture, conflicts with some information in the Senate panel’s report.

Originally posted to Meteor Blades on Wed Dec 10, 2014. Also republished by Colorado Community and Daily Kos.


ACTION ALERT: Release the Entire Torture Report; Hold those Responsible to Account
Dennis Kucinich / Kucinich Action

We the undersigned…
… call upon the US Senate Intelligence Committee to access and release the full, unredacted, unedited report on CIA torture.
We demand the creation of a US Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, modeled after such a commission formed in post-apartheid South Africa.

Congress and the President must appoint such a commission to invite torture victims and witnesses to provide written or in-person testimony. The commission should compel all those Americans involved in torture to testify with appropriate penalties for noncompliance and provision for amnesty for those who cooperate and tell the truth.

(December 10, 2014) — Yesterday, the US Senate Intelligence committee released its long-awaited report of the CIA torture practices. As some of you may remember, six years ago I brought some of the same information about illegal torture in Article XVIII of the Impeachment President Bush.

One surprising response in the Senate report is that the torture, called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ was “ineffective,” as if torture would have been OK if the torturers at the CIA had gained ‘useful’ information!

The CIA’s post-911 history of the use of torture, documented in the Senate report should cause every American to demand release of the full, unredacted report. There should be no hiding place nor refuge for anyone who was involved in the program. Torturers and those who authorized them ought to be brought to justice.

Sign the petition here demanding full release of the Senate’s Report on CIA Torture.

Once again we see the need for a US Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, where the American people can finally come face to face with the lies which our nation has been living since 911, address those lies and chart a new course of truth, at home and in the world.

It is imperative that the American people know what was done in our name and what continues to be done by our government and its agencies to promote division and war around the world.

Last week’s Kucinich Action post, “No War with Russia, Hot or Cold”, received a powerful national response, igniting a petition response and beginning a new debate over the direction of US–Russia relations, which are sadly bristling with violence. Thank you to everyone for their personal messages, which I am endeavoring to answer.

Today, December 10, 2014, is the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. I have been asked by Dr. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to make a special presentation, sponsored by the King Center, at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, in Atlanta, as part of the 50th Anniversary commemoration, celebrating her father’s life work for peace. I will send you the details of my presentation.

Please contribute to our on-going efforts to keep the American people aware of the truth and of a path to action to reclaim our nation. I am always grateful for your support ….

Dennis @Dennis_Kucinich
www.facebook.com/Dennis.kucinich
www.Kucinich.com