Sunday, October 16, 2011
QUIT Consultation in Durham Cancelled
The QUIT Consultation November 11 & 12 2011 in Durham NC has been postponed due to lack of response. Future activities will be posted.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
QUIT Consultation Meeting -Nov 11 & 12 Durham NC Envision the Future
Dear Friend,
Can Quakers help end US-sponsored torture, and bring accountability for such practices?
Did we make a difference on slavery? The rights of women?
Yes.
But as with abolition and suffrage, ending torture won't be easy or quick.
And as this history shows, a quality Quaker contribution depends ultimately on whether a small, dedicated group of Friends will take up this concern and stick with it.
Are you one of those Friends? Do you think you might be?
If so, please join a special consultation on November 11-12, sponsored by QUIT, the Quaker Initiative to end Torture. There we will work together to find out, and continue the work.
The situation with official torture today is that it is rampant in US prisons, and very likely going on overseas behind a veil of military & intelligence secrecy. It's also being flaunted in "victory laps" by the architects of Abu Ghraib & the "black sites" -- and the American public is being told to accept and forget about all of it.
In Washington, Congress is silent. The White House backs impunity. The courts are closed to the victims. Stalemate.
In other countries afflicted by official torture (Chile, Argentina), a small, dogged opposition refused the forgetting and acceptance, until the wall of impunity finally cracked and accountability began in earnest.
Similarly, in the US today the few challenging voices are scattered and marginal. The dissenters are persistent "peculiar people" who decline to "go with the flow" of the manipulated mainstream.
People like Quakers.
QUIT has been at work since 2005. We've held several conferences, visited Monthly and Yearly Meetings, kept up a website, published an accountability pamphlet. All on a shoestring, all volunteer. We have refused to be silent, to forget, or accept.
And we haven't given up.
In the grand scheme of things, QUIT's efforts don't amount to much.
Yet compared with the deathly silences echoing through the halls of law and government, these few voices matter.
But to keep up this long work, QUIT needs more Friends to join its steering committee. Friends like you.
We'll gather on November 11 at Durham Friends Meeting in North Carolina to assess where we've been, and plan how to keep it going.
Will you join us?
For details, contact Chuck Fager at: chuckfager@aol.com, or call him at: 910-323-3912
Our current schedule:
Friday afternoon, November 11 -- Gather at Durham Friends Meeting
Dinner and a celebration with North Carolina Stop Torture Now of its six years of front-line anti-torture work (Find out more about NCSTN at: http://ncstoptorturenow.org/ ) NCSTN has set the pace for local-regional accountability work; there is literally no other group that compares. We will have a special opportunity to learn about what they've been doing, and how they've kept going.
Saturday we'll spend some time learning more about Stop Torture Now's work, then turn to QUIT's efforts, and undertake focused discernment on how we can move forward. The session will finish by late afternoon Saturday November 12.
This consultation will be a simple, no-frills event. We'll be arranging hospitality for attenders from a distance; we'll ask for a $25 donation to cover meals and incidentals.
Friends from the Durham area are welcome to sit in on the sessions; but please note that it will be a working meeting, and those who attend will likely be asked to take up various tasks.
- - - - - - - - - -
Here's the Things to Do list -- By All Means Add to it
Quaker House
Front-Line Peace Witness Since 1969
223 Hillside Avenue 910-323-3912 Fayetteville NC 28301
qpr@quaker.org www.quakerhouse.org
Some Suggestions for Torture Accountability Work
For Asheville Stop Torture Now -- September 6, 2009
-- STUDY! There's much to learn about the American "Torture Industrial Complex" (TIC), its extent, history, and danger to our lives and community (as well as the world). Also, equip yourselves to refute apologists for torture, who are noisy and active. A beginning reading-links list is at: http://www.ncstoptorturenow.net/resourcesreading.html
-- Get familiar with the many NC torture connections.
-- Learn about how psychologists and health care professionals have been complicit; call for accountability in these professions.
-- Keep the issue in the public eye and community discussion. Some ways to do this:
-- Write OpEds for area papers. (700 words max).
-- Letters to the Editors of area papers: keep a steady stream of them coming!
-- Arrange interviews for visiting accountability activists with are media.
-- Make presentations to area church and other groups.
-- Gather signatures on petitions for accountability to pass on to officials.
-- Periodic public vigils (E.g., for ìTorture Migration Day,î Sept. 16),
-- If a notorious torture supporter comes to town, protest!
-- Do research to uncover TIC connections in your area. Publicize your findings.
-- Work with other groups: e.g., western NC ACLU chapter.
-- "Adopt" a Gitmo prisoner.
-- Pester public officials about taking ACTION on accountability, including:
-- State officials, governor, Attorney General, SBI.
-- Members of Congress from Western NC. (They probably won't do much -- but get it on their agendas! Show up for public appearances.)
-- US Senators Hagan & Burr. (Ditto!)
-- Monitor accountability work at the national/international levels.
-- When torture defenders come to or near your town, protest!
-- Be Creative! Think of new things to do!
Can Quakers help end US-sponsored torture, and bring accountability for such practices?
Did we make a difference on slavery? The rights of women?
Yes.
But as with abolition and suffrage, ending torture won't be easy or quick.
And as this history shows, a quality Quaker contribution depends ultimately on whether a small, dedicated group of Friends will take up this concern and stick with it.
Are you one of those Friends? Do you think you might be?
If so, please join a special consultation on November 11-12, sponsored by QUIT, the Quaker Initiative to end Torture. There we will work together to find out, and continue the work.
The situation with official torture today is that it is rampant in US prisons, and very likely going on overseas behind a veil of military & intelligence secrecy. It's also being flaunted in "victory laps" by the architects of Abu Ghraib & the "black sites" -- and the American public is being told to accept and forget about all of it.
In Washington, Congress is silent. The White House backs impunity. The courts are closed to the victims. Stalemate.
In other countries afflicted by official torture (Chile, Argentina), a small, dogged opposition refused the forgetting and acceptance, until the wall of impunity finally cracked and accountability began in earnest.
Similarly, in the US today the few challenging voices are scattered and marginal. The dissenters are persistent "peculiar people" who decline to "go with the flow" of the manipulated mainstream.
People like Quakers.
QUIT has been at work since 2005. We've held several conferences, visited Monthly and Yearly Meetings, kept up a website, published an accountability pamphlet. All on a shoestring, all volunteer. We have refused to be silent, to forget, or accept.
And we haven't given up.
In the grand scheme of things, QUIT's efforts don't amount to much.
Yet compared with the deathly silences echoing through the halls of law and government, these few voices matter.
But to keep up this long work, QUIT needs more Friends to join its steering committee. Friends like you.
We'll gather on November 11 at Durham Friends Meeting in North Carolina to assess where we've been, and plan how to keep it going.
Will you join us?
For details, contact Chuck Fager at: chuckfager@aol.com, or call him at: 910-323-3912
Our current schedule:
Friday afternoon, November 11 -- Gather at Durham Friends Meeting
Dinner and a celebration with North Carolina Stop Torture Now of its six years of front-line anti-torture work (Find out more about NCSTN at: http://ncstoptorturenow.org/ ) NCSTN has set the pace for local-regional accountability work; there is literally no other group that compares. We will have a special opportunity to learn about what they've been doing, and how they've kept going.
Saturday we'll spend some time learning more about Stop Torture Now's work, then turn to QUIT's efforts, and undertake focused discernment on how we can move forward. The session will finish by late afternoon Saturday November 12.
This consultation will be a simple, no-frills event. We'll be arranging hospitality for attenders from a distance; we'll ask for a $25 donation to cover meals and incidentals.
Friends from the Durham area are welcome to sit in on the sessions; but please note that it will be a working meeting, and those who attend will likely be asked to take up various tasks.
- - - - - - - - - -
Here's the Things to Do list -- By All Means Add to it
Quaker House
Front-Line Peace Witness Since 1969
223 Hillside Avenue 910-323-3912 Fayetteville NC 28301
qpr@quaker.org www.quakerhouse.org
Some Suggestions for Torture Accountability Work
For Asheville Stop Torture Now -- September 6, 2009
-- STUDY! There's much to learn about the American "Torture Industrial Complex" (TIC), its extent, history, and danger to our lives and community (as well as the world). Also, equip yourselves to refute apologists for torture, who are noisy and active. A beginning reading-links list is at: http://www.ncstoptorturenow.net/resourcesreading.html
-- Get familiar with the many NC torture connections.
-- Learn about how psychologists and health care professionals have been complicit; call for accountability in these professions.
-- Keep the issue in the public eye and community discussion. Some ways to do this:
-- Write OpEds for area papers. (700 words max).
-- Letters to the Editors of area papers: keep a steady stream of them coming!
-- Arrange interviews for visiting accountability activists with are media.
-- Make presentations to area church and other groups.
-- Gather signatures on petitions for accountability to pass on to officials.
-- Periodic public vigils (E.g., for ìTorture Migration Day,î Sept. 16),
-- If a notorious torture supporter comes to town, protest!
-- Do research to uncover TIC connections in your area. Publicize your findings.
-- Work with other groups: e.g., western NC ACLU chapter.
-- "Adopt" a Gitmo prisoner.
-- Pester public officials about taking ACTION on accountability, including:
-- State officials, governor, Attorney General, SBI.
-- Members of Congress from Western NC. (They probably won't do much -- but get it on their agendas! Show up for public appearances.)
-- US Senators Hagan & Burr. (Ditto!)
-- Monitor accountability work at the national/international levels.
-- When torture defenders come to or near your town, protest!
-- Be Creative! Think of new things to do!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
New Recordings
Dear Friends,
I recently gave a plenary on American Torture at a national Quaker conference. This talk was recorded and is now available. It is an mp3 audio file called To Go Where There is No Light. I discuss America’s use of torture and the Quaker Initiative to End Torture's (QUIT) call to end it.
To hear a preview of the talk, go to-
www.fgcquaker.org/gathering/social-media/john-calvi.
To purchase the whole talk as an mp3 audio file go to-
http://www.quakerbooks.org/to_go_where_there_is_no_light.php
Also – here is a link to a radio interview I did in July on Healing and Torture with Northern Spirit Radio-
http://www.northernspiritradio.org/index.asp?command=showinfo&showid=569667511687
The FGC plenary mp3 file is $5. The radio interview is $10. The money goes to these organizations- not to me or The Quaker Initiative to End Torture – QUIT!
I think both turned out well and I hope you will share this news with friends.
Thanks, John
I recently gave a plenary on American Torture at a national Quaker conference. This talk was recorded and is now available. It is an mp3 audio file called To Go Where There is No Light. I discuss America’s use of torture and the Quaker Initiative to End Torture's (QUIT) call to end it.
To hear a preview of the talk, go to-
www.fgcquaker.org/gathering/social-media/john-calvi.
To purchase the whole talk as an mp3 audio file go to-
http://www.quakerbooks.org/to_go_where_there_is_no_light.php
Also – here is a link to a radio interview I did in July on Healing and Torture with Northern Spirit Radio-
http://www.northernspiritradio.org/index.asp?command=showinfo&showid=569667511687
The FGC plenary mp3 file is $5. The radio interview is $10. The money goes to these organizations- not to me or The Quaker Initiative to End Torture – QUIT!
I think both turned out well and I hope you will share this news with friends.
Thanks, John
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Avoiding Impunity- Marjorie Cohn July 8 2011
Avoiding Impunity: The Need to Broaden Torture Prosecutions By Marjorie Cohn July 8, 2011
http://jurist.org/forum/2011/07/marjorie-cohn-torture-investigation.php
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says that all instances of torture must be investigated as violations of US and international law and a failure to do so will allow impunity for those who authorized these actions...
"Nobody's above the law," President Barack Obama declared in 2009, as Congress contemplated an investigation of torture authorized by the Bush administration. But Mr. Obama has failed to honor those words. His Justice Department proclaimed its intention to grant a free pass to Bush officials and their lawyers who constructed a regime of torture and abuse. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced last week that his office will investigate only two instances of detainee mistreatment. He said the department "has determined that an expanded criminal investigation of the remaining matters is not warranted."
Holder has granted impunity to those who authorized, provided legal cover, and carried out the "remaining matters." Both of the incidents that Holder has agreed to investigate involved egregious treatment and both resulted in death. In one case, Gul Rahman froze to death in 2002 after being stripped and shackled to a cold cement floor in a secret American prison in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit. The other man, Manadel al-Jamadi, died in 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, which were bound behind his back. Tony Diaz, an MP who witnessed al-Jamadi's torture, reported that blood gushed from his mouth like "a faucet had turned on" when al-Jamadi was lowered to the ground. These two deaths should be investigated and those responsible punished in accordance with the law.
But the investigation must have a much broader scope. More than 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, many from torture. And untold numbers were subjected to torture and cruel treatment in violation of U.S. and international law. Gen. Barry McCaffrey said, "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."
Detainees were put in stress positions, including being chained to the floor, slammed against walls, placed into small boxes with insects, subjected to extremely cold and hot temperatures as well as diet manipulation, blaring music, and threats against themselves and their families. At least three men were waterboarded, a technique that makes the subject feel as though he is drowning. Pursuant to the Bush administration's efforts to create a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. Abu Zubaydah received this treatment on 83 occasions.
American law has long recognized that waterboarding constitutes torture. The United States prosecuted Japanese military leaders for torture based on waterboarding after World War II. The Geneva Conventions and the U.S. War Crimes Act make torture punishable as a war crime.
Lawyers in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, including John Yoo and Jay Bybee, wrote the torture memos. They redefined torture much more narrowly than the Convention against Torture and the War Crimes Act, knowing interrogators would follow their advice. They also created elaborate justifications for torture and abuse, notwithstanding the absolute prohibition of torture in our law. When the United States ratified the Convention against Torture, it became part of U.S. law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. The convention says, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Yoo have all said they participated in the decision to waterboard and would do it again. Thus, they have admitted the commission of war crimes. Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba, who directed the investigation of mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, wrote, "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." Taguba’s question has been answered. None of those lawyers or officials will be brought to justice. Outgoing C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta said, "We are now finally about to close this chapter of our agency's history." Ominously, David Petraeus, incoming C.I.A. Director, told Congress there might be circumstances in which a return to "enhanced interrogation" is warranted. That means torture may well
continue during Obama's tenure. This is unacceptable.
Not only is torture illegal; it doesn’t work and it makes people outside the U.S. resent us even more. High-level interrogators such as F.B.I. agent Ali Soufan have said the most valuable intelligence was obtained using traditional, humane interrogation methods. Former F.B.I. agent Dan Coleman agrees. "Brutalization doesn't work," hobserved. "Besides that, you lose your soul."
Marjorie Cohn is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and she lectures throughout the world on international human rights and US foreign policy. Cohn is also a news consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV, and provides legal and political commentary on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Air America and Pacifica Radio. She is the editor of The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse (NYU Press 2011)
http://jurist.org/forum/2011/07/marjorie-cohn-torture-investigation.php
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says that all instances of torture must be investigated as violations of US and international law and a failure to do so will allow impunity for those who authorized these actions...
"Nobody's above the law," President Barack Obama declared in 2009, as Congress contemplated an investigation of torture authorized by the Bush administration. But Mr. Obama has failed to honor those words. His Justice Department proclaimed its intention to grant a free pass to Bush officials and their lawyers who constructed a regime of torture and abuse. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced last week that his office will investigate only two instances of detainee mistreatment. He said the department "has determined that an expanded criminal investigation of the remaining matters is not warranted."
Holder has granted impunity to those who authorized, provided legal cover, and carried out the "remaining matters." Both of the incidents that Holder has agreed to investigate involved egregious treatment and both resulted in death. In one case, Gul Rahman froze to death in 2002 after being stripped and shackled to a cold cement floor in a secret American prison in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit. The other man, Manadel al-Jamadi, died in 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, which were bound behind his back. Tony Diaz, an MP who witnessed al-Jamadi's torture, reported that blood gushed from his mouth like "a faucet had turned on" when al-Jamadi was lowered to the ground. These two deaths should be investigated and those responsible punished in accordance with the law.
But the investigation must have a much broader scope. More than 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, many from torture. And untold numbers were subjected to torture and cruel treatment in violation of U.S. and international law. Gen. Barry McCaffrey said, "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."
Detainees were put in stress positions, including being chained to the floor, slammed against walls, placed into small boxes with insects, subjected to extremely cold and hot temperatures as well as diet manipulation, blaring music, and threats against themselves and their families. At least three men were waterboarded, a technique that makes the subject feel as though he is drowning. Pursuant to the Bush administration's efforts to create a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. Abu Zubaydah received this treatment on 83 occasions.
American law has long recognized that waterboarding constitutes torture. The United States prosecuted Japanese military leaders for torture based on waterboarding after World War II. The Geneva Conventions and the U.S. War Crimes Act make torture punishable as a war crime.
Lawyers in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, including John Yoo and Jay Bybee, wrote the torture memos. They redefined torture much more narrowly than the Convention against Torture and the War Crimes Act, knowing interrogators would follow their advice. They also created elaborate justifications for torture and abuse, notwithstanding the absolute prohibition of torture in our law. When the United States ratified the Convention against Torture, it became part of U.S. law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. The convention says, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Yoo have all said they participated in the decision to waterboard and would do it again. Thus, they have admitted the commission of war crimes. Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba, who directed the investigation of mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, wrote, "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." Taguba’s question has been answered. None of those lawyers or officials will be brought to justice. Outgoing C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta said, "We are now finally about to close this chapter of our agency's history." Ominously, David Petraeus, incoming C.I.A. Director, told Congress there might be circumstances in which a return to "enhanced interrogation" is warranted. That means torture may well
continue during Obama's tenure. This is unacceptable.
Not only is torture illegal; it doesn’t work and it makes people outside the U.S. resent us even more. High-level interrogators such as F.B.I. agent Ali Soufan have said the most valuable intelligence was obtained using traditional, humane interrogation methods. Former F.B.I. agent Dan Coleman agrees. "Brutalization doesn't work," hobserved. "Besides that, you lose your soul."
Marjorie Cohn is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and she lectures throughout the world on international human rights and US foreign policy. Cohn is also a news consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV, and provides legal and political commentary on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Air America and Pacifica Radio. She is the editor of The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse (NYU Press 2011)
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