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Adding The "Remembering" Back Into Memorial Day
By mickielynn on 2009-05-23 18:27:44
Try to remember those days in November when we all thought Obama mellow...
Deep in the spring now our hearts should remember and follow, follow, follow.
**(with a nod of appreciation to Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, writers of "The Fantastiks")**
Although I worked for and voted for Barack Obama for President I never held out hope that he could or would easily change
all of the patterns that were so firmly set in place by previous administrations and held in place by Congress and powerful
corporate and military interests.
However there were some areas in which he held out great promise for change. He stated clearly that his administration
wouldn’t tolerate torture of detainees and that he would close the notorious torture prison in Guantanamo Bay during the
first year of his term as President. His promises to end the peculiar military tribunals, uphold human and civil rights, and
treat prisoners humanely were inspiring ones.
During the past month, as the new torture photos from Afghanistan and Iraq, and memos with high level authorization of
torture became available, it looked at first as if he were going to "do the right thing" and release the information so that the
American public and the world would know what had occurred. Public acknowledgement could then lead to legal actions
that would bring perpetrators and enablers of such acts to justice.
But then, under extreme pressure from top military leaders and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, President
Obama changed his mind about releasing the photos.
President Obama also allowed the fear mongering about the detainees and their superhuman threats to national security to
derail his promises to allow them to be tried in civilian criminal courts under federal antiterrorism statutes. In the case of
those very few prisoners who were actually captured on the battlefield, military trials conducted with full rights to defense
and rules of evidence could also be used.
As a New York Times editorial from May 17, 2009, aptly titled Photographs and Kangaroo Courts stated:
".,.Just as Mr. Obama was wrong to reverse field on the military tribunals, he was wrong to do so on the release
of photographs showing American soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in ways reminiscent of the
crimes of Abu Ghraib. Federal district and appellate judges have ordered the government to release the pictures,
and Mr. Obama initially said he would.
But last week, he changed his mind, offering a jumbled set of explanations including his fear of inflaming anti-
American sentiment and jeopardizing American soldiers. We share that concern, but these pictures will come
out — through the courts or through the press. It is better for those same soldiers for Mr. Obama to release
them, while declaring how he plans to change policy to ensure that these abuses are never repeated.
It was particularly distressing to hear Mr. Obama echo Mr. Bush by saying that releasing the pictures would not
add "to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals." This was not
the fault of a few individuals. It was widespread, and systemic, the result of policies set at the highest levels of
the Bush administration.
Mr. Obama was elected in part because of his promises to correct these lawless policies. He must create clear
tules to deal with prisoners. And there must be a full accounting of what went so horribly wrong and how.
Otherwise, Mr. Obama risks turning Mr. Bush’s mistakes into his own or, in the case of the photographs, turning
Mr. Bush’s cover-up into his own. More important, he risks missing the chance to make sure the misdeeds and
horrors of the Bush years are never repeated."
Some peace and justice groups aren’t waiting for the Obama administration to take action. Instead they have joined a
coalition called the "velvet revolution" calling for several actions on the part of Congress and urging us to contact our
representatives and ask for the following actions--- [This is taken from a mailing done by one of these groups, Voters For
Peace.|
"Since we joined with allied organizations and took action to challenge the bar license of Bush-Cheney torture
lawyers people have been coming forward to express support..
The issue of the United States having a program of torture seems to cut many Americans to the bone. And, they
see Washington, DC stuck and unable to face up to the issue or deal with it. So many in DC are conflicted due
to 40 congressional briefings by the CIA, the Attorney General's admission that he approved rendition, the
president's decision to not release thousands of photos showing torture and abuse despite a court order and the
appointment of General McChrystal to head the war in Afghanistan despite his command of troops involved in
torture.
But, application of the rule of law will not happen unless pressure builds from the grass roots for getting the
facts on the torture program and holding people accountable for the actions they took to facilitate it.
[caption id="attachment_840" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Disbar the "dirty dozen""]
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DISBAR THE DIRTY DOZEN
WWW. VOTERSFORPEACE.US [/caption]
e (1) holding the torture lawyers accountable by disbarring them from the practice of law;
e (2) the Congress holding public hearings that bring out the truth about how this torture program was put
in place and how it was carried out; and
e (3) the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate, gather all the facts and apply the law without
political partisanship intruding."
Finally I personally find indefinite detention without trial as a potential treatment of detainees one of the most shameful
possibilities mentioned by President Obama. Creating a special category for those picked up, detained and tortured so that
they supposedly cannot be tried to determine their innocence or guilt is as heinous as the creation of the category "enemy
combatants" in the first place and continues the abuses of habeus corpus and of human rights that followed from that
original illegal decision.
It’s another form of torture to deny any hope for justice to those who are thrown into prison but never get a chance to even
find out why, to face their accusers, or to defend themselves.
As we remember those who have sacrificed their lives throughout our history for our freedom and our rights to justice and
the rule of law, we also need to remember the violations of those rights and to make sure that they never happen again.
Remember that in previous speeches President Obama has asked us to "make him do the right thing." Here’s an important
area where the will of the people for a return to true justice needs to be strongly expressed. One way of doing that is to make
public the extent of the abuses and hold those responsible to the standards that our laws require.
