My Letter to the Berkeley City Council

December 6, 2008

Dear Sir/Madam:

I write to support the resolution that John Yoo be prosecuted for war crimes and dismissed from his position as Boalt Hall Professor of Law.

I am a sociologist, a criminologist, and co-editor/author of Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney.

The crimes committed by the Bush White House are widespread, extensive, shocking to the conscience, and undermine the rule of law. John Yoo has played and is playing a very significant role as a co-conspirator of the Bush White House’s crimes against humanity, declaring in writing and in speeches that the President’s power is not limited by separation of powers or by the law, whether national or international. That presidential power, according to Mr. Yoo, includes the right to commit horrific acts of torture and murder of detainees and suspects.

Berkeley has a proud tradition of standing up for justice. I can hardly think of a more important duty than to stand up for the victims of torture and to stand up against the acts of those in our government who have consciously facilitated monstrous acts of inhumanity as policy.

I feel deep shame as an American and as a Chinese American for Mr. Yoo’s deeds and for the deeds of the White House that he so willingly and enthusiastically served and serves to this day. The fact that reportedly Mr. Yoo is an engaging professor for law students does not gainsay the fact that he is a war criminal, the latter a fact that is beyond dispute.

War criminals should not face safe harbor anywhere. They should be and must be condemned for their acts and advocacy. People of conscience must speak up and fight against tyranny or the tyrants will prevail. Every generation faces its own tests and found either worthy or wanting. This generation faces an historic challenge, the outcome of which will reverberate for generations and generations to follow. What is at stake here cannot be overestimated.

I urge that you pass this resolution and go on record on the right side of history.

Sincerely,



Dr. Dennis Loo
Professor of Sociology
Cal Poly Pomona

***

Please send a letter or call the City Council and Mayor. See this posting for background and their contact information.

Slip Sliding Away and the Democrats: Is Torture Torture Or Not?

[Update: Feinstein's office added in a communication with Michael Scherer of Time magazine the following to what she had previously issued: Saying "that she still wants a law that mandates the Field Manual as the sole interrogation standard, but that she may be willing to be talked back from that position by the Obama Administration, if it chooses to do so." This confirms my assessment that Feinstein and Wyden were reacting to signals from the Obama team - DL.

Feinstein further added in her comments to Scherer: "I plan to introduce legislation in January that would close Guantanamo, make the Army Field Manual the single standard for interrogations, prohibit contractors from being used to carry out interrogations and provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with access to detainees."

This "addition" of hers, however, does not add anything to what she said previously. It merely restates her vacillation - DL.]

After consistently and unequivocally demanding that the Bush White House employ nothing other than the Army Field Manual in their interrogations, even introducing legislation to ensure that, Sen. Diane Feinstein – who is going to take over as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January - backtracked in a December 2, 2008 interview in the New York Times:

“[I]n an interview on Tuesday, Mrs. Feinstein indicated that extreme cases might call for flexibility. ‘I think that you have to use the noncoercive standard to the greatest extent possible,’ she said, raising the possibility that an imminent terrorist threat might require special measures.

“Afterward, however, Mrs. Feinstein issued a statement saying: ‘The law must reflect a single clear standard across the government, and right now, the best choice appears to be the Army Field Manual. I recognize that there are other views, and I am willing to work with the new administration to consider them.’"

The Times article goes on to further relate Sen. Ron Wyden’s remarks:

“Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, another top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said he would consult with the C.I.A. and approve interrogation techniques that went beyond the Army Field Manual as long as they were ‘legal, humane and noncoercive.’ But Mr. Wyden declined to say whether C.I.A. techniques ought to be made public.”

These remarks bode exceedingly ill for current and future detainees of the U.S. government and for American soldiers who might be captured, and of course, for the fate of this country and the world.

As Glenn Greenwald on December 4 noted at length, Feinstein and Wyden are now backtracking on their very public and consistent stands opposing the use of techniques beyond what the Army Field Manual proscribes.

The fact that no member of Congress filibustered, and thereby stopped torture forthwith, when the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was being debated, or when, even before that, torture was revealed to be going on (Nancy Pelosi knew in 2002), and the fact that no one outside of a handful of Congress, led by Dennis Kucinich, have moved for impeaching this White House of torturers, of course, would have - and still would - render all of these contortions unnecessary.

But so it goes – and continues to go: the Democrats, when left to their own devices, coalesce with the GOP, in the absence of a determined and irresistible mass movement that could force this government, Democrat and Republican alike, to do otherwise: that is, the right thing.

What’s going on?

Greenwald speculates that it was easy for Congressional Democrats to claim that torture must be avoided under all circumstances when anything they passed to that effect could be and was vetoed or signing statemented-away by Bush, but now if they pass such a law, Obama’s on record as saying that torture should be ended, and he would therefore have to sign such a bill. Therefore, the Senators are waffling because they don’t really want to such a bill to become law.

Certainly, Democrats have set the bar very high for world-class waffling and far be it from me to dispute that they might be doing so. But Greenwald’s explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

While he is right about the Senate Democrats backtracking, what’s in play here is more disturbing.

Let’s look closely at Feinstein’s remarks, which were not issued off the cuff but were reissued by her office to expand upon what she said to the Times:

“[T]he best choice appears to be the Army Field Manual. I recognize that there are other views, and I am willing to work with the new administration to consider them.”

Whose views are these “other views?” They could perhaps be originating from the GOP or the current White House, although if that is the source, this is a strange way of putting it since the White House’s views and practice on this are known to everyone and not new for that reason. No, the source of these “other views” is the incoming Obama administration. Yes, the same administration that has repeatedly said that torture is wrong and said that they will end it when they take office.

The Senate Democrats are not acting on their own and would not be issuing these new equivocal statements without first being signaled by the President-Elect’s team and possibly Obama himself that they are considering some “alternative sets of procedures” for interrogations. Party members don’t go off on their own in such a dramatic fashion without first checking with the leaders of their Party.

This shift by Feinstein and Wyden is, unfortunately, consistent with signals coming from the Obama team within the last few weeks on what they are planning to do about the Guantanamo detainees, about creating a new kind of court (“National Security Courts”), and about continuing “preventive detention.” If they do go ahead with these plans, they will have joined unequivocally the no man’s land realm that the Bush cabal has been occupying.

The Times’ piece, authored by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, begins by describing the withdrawal of Brennan from consideration as the next CIA chief:

“John O. Brennan, a C.I.A. veteran who was widely seen as Mr. Obama’s likeliest choice to head the intelligence agency, withdrew his name from consideration after liberal critics attacked his alleged role in the agency’s detention and interrogation program. Mr. Brennan protested that he had been a ‘strong opponent’ within the agency of harsh interrogation tactics, yet Mr. Obama evidently decided that nominating Mr. Brennan was not worth a battle with some of his most ardent supporters on the left.” [Boldfacing added].

Mazzetti and Shane “forgot” to mention that Brennan has also been an exponent of the massive warrantless surveillance of all of America.

By describing Brennan’s role in supporting rendition and torture as “alleged” Mazzetti and Shane were engaging in the equivalent of declaring that 2+2 = 4 (allegedly).

It’s like Hillary Clinton cagily saying during the campaign that Barack Obama isn’t a Muslim, “as far as I know.”

This is what Brennan said in a March 8, 2006 Frontline interview: ”I think George [Tenet] had two concerns. One is to make sure that there was that legal justification, as well as protection for CIA officers who are going to be engaged in some of these things, so that they would not be then prosecuted or held liable for actions that were being directed by the administration. So we want to make sure the findings and other things were done probably with the appropriate Department of Justice review.”

Why was there concern of possible prosecution for CIA officers? There would be no concern if these CIA figures were following the Army Field Manual. There was only concern because they were engaging in practices prohibited by the AFM and that are unequivocally categorized by the Geneva Conventions as torture.

Mainstream media can’t bring itself to name practices for what they are when it comes to calling out government officials for what they are doing, but Mazzetti and Shane have no trouble describing in derogatory terms the critics of rendition, torture and massive, felonious surveillance as “ardent supporters on the left.”

I suppose that being opposed to torture makes you a lefty and hence all right-thinking, non-ardent, middle of the roaders or righties are for torture?

Brennan isn’t an “ardent” supporter of rendition. No, ardent isn’t good. He’s merely an “alleged” supporter of such practices.

Is it then better that we be “allegedly critics of torture?”

Speaking of alleged critics of torture: quo vadis Obama and the Congressional Democrats?

Silence in a Time of Torture Signifies Tacit Approval

A message in support of a Berkeley City Council Resolution on John Yoo:

The Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission's recommendation to the City Council presents an important call for all Americans to stand in opposition to abetting John Yoo, University of California professor and author of the "Torture Memos" which were key to the establishment of a system of state torture. This Resolution calls for John Yoo to be prosecuted for war crimes and dismissed from his position as Professor of Law at Boalt Hall. The ramifications of the Resolution ensure that torture is not tolerated in the city of Berkeley and will serve as a model for other communities' efforts to hold high administration officials of torture to account. The passage of the John Yoo Resolution presents a critical step in investigating the codification, implementation, and acceleration of the authorization of torture—a responsible step that must now be taken to call for the end of torture as a pillar for endless war.

FireJohnYoo.org, a member of the No To Torture - John Yoo Must Go Coalition, supports the Commission's John Yoo Resolution and asks organizations and individual advocates to do the same. Fire John Yoo encourages directly contacting city council members to support the Resolution, and to visibly stand and speak out against torture before the City Council on December 8th. If you are unable to attend the Public Hearing, please write a statement that can be submitted to the Council. By taking these actions, we can have an enormous impact on the direction the U.S. will take in honoring its commitment to rescind the use of torture.

People of conscience demand the removal of John Yoo, legal architect of the Bush Regime's torture policies, from the employ of the University of California. How will the community of Berkeley respond when someone asks: "What did you do during this time?"

Linda Rigas
JD Candidate, New England School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts
Member of FireJohnYoo.org
Legal Intern, Physicans for Human Rights

Public Hearing Monday, December 8

2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way
City Council Meetings begin at 7:00 PM

A copy of the Peace and Justice recommendation can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/65oruh (see "Attachment #1").

Write and call Berkeley City Council Members to show your support for
recommended actions against John Yoo, Legal Advisor to the Bush
administration and author of memos giving the green light for torture:

Mayor Tom Bates mayor@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7100

District 1 Linda Maio lmaio@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7110

District 2 Darryl Moore dmoore@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7120

District 3 Max Anderson manderson@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7130

District 4 Jesse Arreguin jarreguin@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7140

District 5 Laurie Capitelli lcapitelli@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7150

District 6 Susan Wengraf swengraf@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7160

District 7 Kriss Worthington kworthington@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7170

District 8 Gordon Wozniak gwozniak@CityofBerkeley.info (510) 981-7180

The Mayor and Council Members may be reached by mail at:
2180 MilviaStreet
Berkeley, CA 94704.

Right-Wingers and Neocons Love Obama's Cabinet Appointments

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet

Posted on November 30, 2008, Printed on December 3, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/109160/

As Barack Obama's opus, Team of Rivals, continues its rolling debut, the early reviews are in and the "critics" are full of praise for the cast:

"[T]he new administration is off to a good start."
-- Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.

"[S]uperb ... the best of the Washington insiders ... this will be a valedictocracy -- rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes."
-- David Brooks, conservative New York Times columnist

"[V]irtually perfect ... "
-- Senator Joe Lieberman, former Democrat and John McCain's top surrogate in the 2008 campaign.

"[R]eassuring."
-- Karl Rove, "Bush's brain."

"I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain ... this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign ... [Hillary] Clinton and [James] Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for 'neo-liberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neo-conservativism.'"
-- Max Boot, neoconservative activist, former McCain staffer.

"I see them as being sort of center-right of the Democratic party."
-- James Baker, former Secretary of State and the man who led the theft of the 2000 election.

"[S]urprising continuity on foreign policy between President Bush's second term and the incoming administration ... certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush ... "
-- Michael Goldfarb of the neoconservative Weekly Standard.

"I certainly applaud many of the appointments ... "
-- Senator John McCain

"So far, so good."
-- Senator Lamar Alexander, senior Republican Congressional leader.

Hillary Clinton will be "outstanding" as Secretary of State
-- Henry Kissinger, war criminal

Rahm Emanuel is "a wise choice" in the role of Chief of Staff
-- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, John McCain's best friend.

Obama's team shows "Our foreign policy is non-partisan."
-- Ed Rollins, top Republican strategist and Mike Huckabee's 2008 campaign manager

"The country will be in good hands."
-- Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush's Secretary of State

**Team of Rivals will be playing all day, every day for at least the next four years**

Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/109160/

On Obama's Foreign Policy Apppointments

Max Boot, former McCain campaign staffer and neocon leader: "I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign."

This is an excerpt from Jeremy Scahill's "Barack Obama's Kettle of Hawks," posted today at truthout.org.

Iraq War Resister on the Importance of Creating a Culture of Resistance

The following is a presentation given by Matthis Chiroux, a U.S. Army Veteran, at the "Stopping the Endless Wars and Torture: Resisters Speak Out" event held on the evening of November 22nd, 2008, in conjunction with World Can't Wait's national conference in Chicago. [Go to worldcantwait.net for the video/audio].

My name is Matthis Chiroux.

I was in the Army 5 years. I was honorably discharged last summer. I received forced activation orders this past February, which I publicly refused in the U.S. Congress this past May. The U.S. Army has decided to prosecute me for my refusal to go to Iraq. That will probably be going down in January. I’m going to fight that tooth and nail as I promised to do last May.

I want to talk about this concept of military resistance, of soldiers and sailors saying “no” to this occupation and how we as American citizens can make that decision easier for them, because it is not something that is the slightest bit easy, even for the most progressive of us. I think out of all the people I met in the Army, I was pretty much the furthest left. The fact that I had to struggle for months over whether or not to deploy to Iraq is indicative of the fact that we do not have a society here which is ready to receive GI resisters as heroes rather than traitors.

That’s one of the first and most important things that we have to drive home about this concept of GI resistance. For GI resistance to be a reality, we have to have a society that’s willing to support it. The other vets in the room tell me if I’m wrong, but at least for me, when I was in the military, one of my biggest fears honestly was not physical pain or even getting blown up. My number one fear was being thought of as a coward. I didn’t want my fellow service members, I didn’t want my countrymen, I didn’t want the leaders of my nation to think that I, Matthis Chiroux, was a coward.

And that’s something that we’ve all been told we would be if we refused to go fight. It didn’t matter if that was in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or wherever they decided to send us, the idea of refusing to kill has been painted to service members as an act of cowardice. And it is something that unfortunately in this country is still reflected back at us, even among those who would like to call themselves progressives and Democrats.

The idea of service members saying, “No, I’m not going to do that!” is still unacceptable. And that’s a shame. More often than not, when I tell people that I refused to deploy to Iraq last summer – and this is in New York City, where I live, supposedly a very progressive center of the world – the first thing they say back to me is “well, aren’t you required to follow orders?” This is even very progressive people that I know. And I have to explain to them, “well, before that, there’s this part in the enlistment oath where you’re supposed to swear allegiance to the Constitution, and if you think something is violating that, it’s ultimately the authority.”

That’s crazy. I’m from Alabama originally, so when I got home, it’s just that amplified. That I think is the primary reason that soldiers, who otherwise believe the war is illegal, and know that we were lied to, to get in there, still continue deploying. Myself, it’s crazy to think I wasn’t scared of the jail time. I thought I would rather serve 20 years in jail than take one innocent life. The idea of going to jail didn’t scare me, the idea of having to sacrifice for what I thought was right, didn’t scare me, that’s sort of what gets us into the Army, the idea of sacrifice.

A lot of us, we want to make that sacrifice, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten in there in the first place. There’s something about being a martyr for the country that is moving to us. It wasn’t the jail time, it wasn’t the hardship, it was simply the fact that I didn’t want to be remembered as a coward that was going to drive me into participating in an occupation that Iraq Veterans Against the War ultimately helped save me from, and I’m eternally grateful to the organization, or rather more, the individuals in the organization for opening my eyes to so many realities.

I never went to Iraq, but I was in the Army as a journalist, and I spoke with thousands and thousands of soldiers throughout my years as an Army journalist. After hearing so many idiosyncrasies having to do with prisoner abuse and corpse mutilation, free-fire rules of engagement you kind of start to put together another picture.

But still I had never experienced that first-hand. So I thought if I say no now, people are going to think I’m a coward. But then I saw Winter Solider, and I realized, wow, there are so many people who stood up there and testified who sound a lot like me. Except the only difference is, they’ve got something to regret now. And that’s that they didn’t say no before. I saw so many people who said, had I just known beforehand, I would have said “no” and I’d feel better about myself today.

And I realized, this whole idea of deploying because I’m afraid of being a coward, to participate in something that I think is illegal, is only going to lead me back home to be part of the anti-war movement out of remorse, rather than out of desire to pre-empt all this stuff. So, I think Winter Soldier in a huge way plays into that need of this movement to forge a culture in the United States of acceptance, and even more than that, and I’m not trying to say this because I want anyone to jump up and give me a hug, but of adoration for resisters.

We have been inundated for the longest time with so much of this “America: we support the troops!” There’s this intense love and respect, and I know after I got out of basic training, I went back to my home town, and people were jumping off the sidewalks with tears in their eyes, people I didn’t even know, falling over themselves to thank me for my sacrifice. So all of this “support the troops” rhetoric makes it so much harder for service members to break away from the party line.

Because they see “I’m a hero right now. My country is so overwhelmingly moved by my sacrifice. If I walk away from this, I’m going to be letting all these people down they’re going to think I’m a coward, I’m going to think I’m a coward.”

You [from World Can’t Wait] were showing me the pamphlet [why we don’t support the troops]. I think it’s really important to drive things home right now; the message to be sending to the military is not necessarily “we support you regardless.” To continue to say that, to pile on this admiration and compliments on people who deploy to Iraq is only making them want to do that more. And it’s important that we take that idea of supporting the troops, and apply it to the alternative, which is resistance. Which are those who are maybe not even conscientious objectors – this might disappoint people, but I’m not actually even a conscientious objector, but this war is so blatantly illegal. It is a war of choice, it’s based on lies, money and corruption, and I’m not the only one that can see that. A lot of people can see that.

MATTHIS CHIROUX is part of the We Are Not Your Soldiers National Tour sponsored by The World Can’t Wait–Drive Out the Bush Regime! For more info on this tour contact youth_students@worldcantwait.org or call 347.385.2195.

To Those Who Believe That Torture Is Necessary and Works

From Matthew Alexander who led an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006, writing in the Washington Post on Sunday:

"I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."

Torture is wrong under any and all circumstances. But it is also appropriate to point out, as Matthew Alexander does above, that it is viciously counter-productive. Bush and Cheney know this. They use it because their goals aren't really to quell anti-state terror. Their principle goal is to terrorize because they know that they can't accomplish what they want - world domination - by persuasion and if people have freedom of thought.