Tortured logic of the Bush Administration

"Tortured Reasoning" by David Rose, Vanity Fair, December 16, 2008.

Rumsfeld et al. held responsible for torture

"Report on detainee abuse blames top Bush officials" by Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 12, 2008.

Frank Schaeffer re Religious Right

Fresh Air/WHYY, December 9, 2008: Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.

Investigate human rights violations under Bush

WHYY's Radio Times, December 8, 2008: "With pressure on president-elect Barack Obama to abolish torture, there are increasing calls for the establishment of a commission to explore what many say are human rights violations committed by the Bush Administration. We talk about the value of such an investigation, what it would accomplish and what it might look like. Our guests are attorney Scott Horton and former Congressman Mickey Edwards." Horton is the author of "Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration," Harper's, December 2008. WBUR's Here & Now, December 9, 2008: CIA veteran Robert Baer also advocates an investigation of the CIA's role in torture and rendition.

"Rejecting the torture legacy"

by Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, December 3, 2008.

An interrogator speaks

“I'm still tortured by what I saw in Iraq,” by Matthew Alexander, Washington Post, November 30, 2008. Matthew Alexander is the author of How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq.

Glenn Greenwald re MSM and torture

"How the media talks about torture and the rule of law," by Glenn Greenwald, Salon, November 26, 2008.

The 'Connell Anomaly' Part 1

From the Ecological Options Network, posted November 2, 2008, featuring author Mark Crispin Miller, King Lincoln lead attorney Cliff Arnebeck, and cyber security expert witness Stephen Spoonamore. Full story at BradBlog.com: "Federal judge compels GOP IT guru Michael Connell to give deposition in Ohio '04 election case" and RoveCybergate.com.

Congressional scorecard re torture

Thanks to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture for putting out this Congressional scorecard on the issue of torture.

The Uprising by David Sirota

PA Healthcare Symposium, April 12, 2008

Chuck Pennacchio, Ph.D., HealthCare4AllPA.org, describes the publicly funded, privately provided option in the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act," HB 1660/SB 300; State Reps. Katharine Watson and Scott Petri offer alternative programs to "Cover All Pennsylvanians," represented in twelve separate bills; Donna Cooper, Secretary of Policy and Planning, presents Gov. Rendell’s proposal, “Prescription for Pennsylvania,” HB 700. Hosted by BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, moderated by the League of Women Voters.

Voice for Middle East peace

Visit JStreet.org

Peace Voter Guide, 2008 Primary

The nonpartisan Peace Voter Guide to PA's April 22 presidential primary is now available online at PeaceCoalition.org as a printable PDF. Please help spread the word!

Yes, we can!

Close Guantánamo! Six-Year Anniversary

JANUARY 11, 2008, is the six-year anniversary of the first arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Click here for ACLU-sponsored events.

Letter to the Editor of the Intelligencer, December 8, 2007

To the Editor:

Yes, apparently it is "Wishful thinking: No impeachment for Bush, Cheney" (your editorial, Dec. 4) to expect that those who swear to defend the Constitution will actually uphold their oath. Never thought we'd see the day when our so-called leaders would find so many excuses to let the rule of law slip away.

Maher Arar's Story

Visit the Center for Constitutional Rights' website re Maher Arar. Watch the video.

Demonstrate against the War October 27

On Saturday, October 27th, people will gather at 11 sites around the country for massive regional demonstrations organized by United for Peace and Justice.

Ride the R5 Peace Train from Doylestown or Lansdale in central and upper Bucks, both preceded by pre-boarding rallies with speakers and music.

Doylestown: 10:30 a.m. Meet at Rep. Patrick Murphy's office, 60 N. Main St., then proceed to train station for rally there; departure at 11:23.

Lansdale: 11:15 a.m. Rally at train station (Main & Green); departure at 11:46.

In Philadelphia, you can join the Human Chain for Peace, which will extend from the V.A. Hospital at 38th St. & Woodland Ave. to Independence Mall, beginning to assemble at noon. At 1:00 p.m. the march to the rally will begin at the V.A., picking up the "links" in the Chain as it proceeds north and east toward Independence Mall. Or join the big Rally/Concert on Independence Mall from 2:00 to 5:00 pm, with speakers and music/poetry at this landmark event! More info here.

Conscience of a Conservative, Jack L. Goldsmith

See New York Times Magazine article by Jeffrey Rosen, September 9, 2007.

Charlie Savage: Takeover

"Fresh Air from WHYY, September 5, 2007 · Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage won a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for a series detailing how often President Bush used "signing statements" — controversial assertions of a chief executive's right to bypass provisions of new laws.

"Now Savage has written a book describing how the Bush-Cheney administration has expanded executive power. It's called Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy."

Anti-Defamation League on Stephen Walt

"Fresh Air from WHYY, September 4, 2007 · In The Deadliest Lies, Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman responds to The Israel Lobby, arguing that Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's work 'serves merely as an attractive new package for disseminating a series of familiar but false beliefs' about Jews and Israel."

Stephen Walt on 'The Israel Lobby' on NPR

"Fresh Air from WHYY, September 4, 2007 · In The Israel Lobby, which grew out of a controversial 2006 article in the London Review of Books, Stephen Walt and co-author John Mearsheimer examine the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. They argue that American support for Israel cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds.

"Walt teaches international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government."

Close Guantanamo! Restore our Constitution!

"Restore the Constitution, close prison at Guantanamo," Intelligencer, July 26, 2007, posted at AmnestyBucksMont.org.

Sami Al-Hajj, Prisoner 345 at Guantanamo, was arrested in December 2001 while traveling to Pakistan as a cameraman for Al Jazeera. He has been on a hunger strike since January 7, 2007. More at NPR's On the Media, July 29, 2007, and Prisoner345.net.

Olbermann to Bush & Cheney: Resign

Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice June 26

To the Editor:

Another June as Torture Awareness Month has arrived, while the Bush-Cheney administration finalizes secret new rules for "enhanced interrogation techniques." As conservative Andrew Sullivan blogs for the Atlantic (May 29), the Nazis coined the phrase (Verschärfte Vernehmung) in 1937. One objective was to avoid leaving marks that could be cited as evidence in court.

Unlike Bush and Rumsfeld, the Nazis initially drew the line at hypothermia and waterboarding, but about 1943 the French Gestapo experimented with what was euphemistically termed the "cold bath" technique on Resistance captives, later exporting it to Norway and Czechoslovakia. In Norway in 1948 three Nazis were found guilty of war crimes for "enhanced interrogation," despite a defense that is "almost verbatim that of the Bush administration."

Sullivan continues, "Freezing prisoners to near-death, repeated beatings, long forced-standing, waterboarding, cold showers in air-conditioned rooms, stress positions [Arrest mit Verschaerfung], withholding of medicine and leaving wounded or sick prisoners alone in cells for days on end—all these have occurred at US detention camps under the command of President George W. Bush. Over a hundred documented deaths have occurred in these interrogation sessions. The Pentagon itself has conceded homicide by torture in multiple cases."

No one is equating Bush with Hitler, but the United States fought World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War without descending to torture. In the words of Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission, "The cool, carefully considered, methodical, prolonged, and repeated subjection of captives to physical torment, and the accompanying psychological terror, is immoral." And as the New York Times (May 29) reports, "Experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable."

It's past time for Congress to rein in—since the Democrats haven't yet found the courage to impeach—a team that our own intelligence experts acknowledge has on balance only fueled terrorism.

Amnesty International, the ACLU, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and others will hold a DC rally and lobbying Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice on June 26—details at www.AmnestyBucksMont.org. If you can't join us for the trip, sign the petition and call on Congress to support the restoration of habeas corpus, the repair of the Military Commissions Act, and an end to torture.