An Amazing Anti-Torture Week in the Puget Sound Area

An Amazing Anti-Torture Week in the Puget Sound Area
See posts below for these events:

• Mon Nov 9, Seattle, Nan Aron on Bringing Justice to Torturers event canceled, to be rescheduled
• Weds Nov 11, Seattle, Mark Danner on "Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War"
• Thurs Nov 12, Seattle; Ray McGovern on "Why Accountability for Torture Is Crucial for Human Rights, Our Security and Our Souls."
• Sat Nov 14, in Seattle, Jeff Robinson on his experience representing detainees in Guantanamo Bay (at ACLU dinner)
• Sun Nov 15, in Tacoma; Ray McGovern on Does Torture Work? 'Let's Have Both Sides of the Story'
• Mon Nov 16, in Olympia; Ray McGovern on "Why Accountability for Torture Is Crucial for Human Rights, Our Security and Our Souls."

Torture Opponent Ray McGovern, Sun. Nov. 15 in Tacoma

Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture,
UW Tacoma's Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Concentration, and United for Peace of Pierce County present

Ray McGovern on
Does Torture Work? 'Let's Have Both Sides of the Story'

Sunday November 15, 2009, 7:00 p.m., at UW-T, Carwein Auditorium, 1900 Commerce St, TacomaFree, public welcome. Free parking in C-St. lot next to UWT.

Ray McGovern is active in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and has been an outspoken critic of the flawed intelligence used to justify the Iraq war and of the use of torture.

Ray McGovern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_McGovern won the Intelligence Commendation Medal, and prepared the president's daily intel briefing in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. A Roman Catholic, McGovern recently published a stinging commentary on a 2009 poll result according to which most regular churchgoers (54 percent) believe torture can be "justified."

Co-sponsors include ACLU-Washington; American Friends Service Committee - Pacific NW; Amnesty International Puget Sound; Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War (SNOW); Washington Association of Churches; Veterans For Peace Chapter 134 Tacoma; and Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Information http://www.wsrcat.org or http://www.ufppc.org/local-news-mainmenu-34/9071/

letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, July 11, 2009

July 11, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

The Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture, affiliated with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, urges you appoint a Special Counsel in order to initiate a criminal investigation into all violations of federal law since 2001 related to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in the "war on terror," including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In March of 2009, excerpts of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report were released that concluded that detainees had been subjected to torture – a crime under both domestic and international law. Evidence contained within the DOJ memos released in April, the Senate Armed Services Report, as well as several other credible sources, strongly suggests that felonies have been committed and were authorized at high levels of the previous administration. This is not a matter, as has been alleged, of criminalizing policy differences. The anti-torture laws are clear. Their enforcement is not a discretionary matter.

Both the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture obligate such an investigation, and if evidence warrants, prosecution. The War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C., 2441, provides for jurisdiction in the courts for acts or conspiracy to commit acts of torture and cruel or inhuman treatment, both identified as punishable war crimes. The federal anti-torture statute, 18 U.S.C., 2341A, also creates jurisdiction in U.S. courts.

There are compelling political reasons for the appointment of a special counsel, not least of which bear upon the good name and moral and legal standing of the United States in the world. By far the most important reason, however, is that when the government itself
flaunts the law, the rule of law is put in grave danger. The cornerstone of any viable legal order is that no one should be above the law. No office should protect individuals from the willful violation of law. No bureaucracy’s legal interpretation designed to evade the law should be allowed to have the practical standing of law, indemnifying government officials from accountability under the law.

If the Department of Justice does not act, if those responsible for violating the law are not held accountable, we fear that a culture of impunity will take hold and that nothing will prevent future leaders in times of fear or threat to act once again outside the law.

We join the National Religious Campaign (NRCAT), the Presbyterian Church USA; the American Civil Liberties Union, Representatives Jerrold Nadler and John Conyers, and others in asking you to appoint a Special Counsel.

Sincerely,

Robert Crawford, facilitator,
Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture

cc: Senator Harry Reid, Representatives Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, and Jerrold Nadler; and the Washington State Congressional Delegation.

anti-torture events Nov 1 in Tacoma, Nov 12 in Seattle

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Public Forum
The Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture (WSRCAT) presents "Torture, America's Moral Authority and the Question of National Security: A Pre-Election Ecumenical Forum".
Saturday, November 1, 2008, 7-9:15 p.m,
at St Mark’s Lutheran Church by-the-Narrows, 6730 N 17th Street, Tacoma; co-sponsored with several TACOMA congregations and Assocciated Ministries. The forum will include a talk by WSRCAT co-founder, Prof. Rob Crawford, a panel of responders, and time for discussion.

Keynote Address
“Torture and the American Future- a Moral and Political Reflection”
Speaker: Professor Rob Crawford is professor of modern history and culture at the University of Washington, Tacoma, where he teaches, among other courses, Post 9/11 America and Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Since 2004, he has been active in the anti-torture movement and in 2006 co-founded the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture.
Panel Discussion with Moderator: Mr. Rick Samyn, MSW, Pastoral Assistant for Social Justice Ministry - St. Leo Catholic Parish

Panelists:
Mr. Michael Collier is chair of First United Methodist MICAH Project and is a graduate from
Washington State University-Pullman. His post-graduate education included University of Washington, Concordia Lutheran College (Portland), Carthage College, Kenosha, Wisconsin, and University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Pauline Kaurin holds a PhD in Philosophy from Temple University, Philadelphia and is a specialist in military ethics, just war theory, philosophy of law and applied ethics. She is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at PLU and teaches courses in military ethics, warfare, business ethics and philosophy of law. Recent articles include: Nothing New Under the Sun At Guantanamo Bay: Precedent and Prisoners of War and When Less is not More: Expanding the Combatant/Non-Combatant Distinction.

Andrew Williams, a former Lt. commander in the U.S. Navy, is now a practicing Silverdale attorney. In the Navy he was a Judge Advocate who served both at Naval Submarine Base, King’s Bay, Georgia, and on the USS NIMITZ. Mr. Williams recently resigned his commission in the Individual Ready Reserve due to torture and other improprieties committed by U.S. forces.

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Public Forum
The Church Council of Greater Seattle (CCGS) and
the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture (WSRCAT) issue
A Call to End All Torture!
November 12, 2008, 7:30–9 pm, in Seattle
University Congregational UCC, 4515 16th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA
Introduction: Rev. Monica Corsaro, CCGS
Speakers:
*Brig. General Stephen Xenakis, US Army (Ret). M.D. Psychiatrist, former Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical command; board member of NRCAT and works with Physicians for Human Rights on the issue of torture.
*Jorge Quiroga - Board member of CCGS, and an organizer for SEIU Local 6. He was tortured for three years in Argentina in the late 1970s.
*David Marshall, J.D. - Seattle attorney who represents three prisoners at Guantanamo in cooperation with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
*J. David Kinzie, M.D. - Professor of Psychiatry and Director of The Torture Treatment Center of Oregon.
*The Rev. Michael Denton - Conference Minister, Pacific North West Conference for the United Church of Christ.
WSRCAT and the Church Council have invited Washington’s Congressional representatives to this event. Rob Crawford, facilitator for WSRCAT, will present signatures calling for an Executive Order to Ban Torture Without Exception.
Co-sponsored by Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation
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Torture is a Moral Issue
Revised August 26, 2008
by Tom Ewell

The well-established, universal ethic of our common humanity, honored by all major religions, is the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or its negative corollary, "Do not do to others what you would not want done to you." Every child, every person, in every culture, knows and understands at some level the crucial importance of this bedrock, moral principle that honors our capacity for empathy, recognizes our mutual humanity, and establishes the most basic guide for teaching us to treat each other with respect, kindness and civility.

Torture is a violation of this Golden Rule. We know we personally do not ever want to be tortured, and we do not want our soldiers or our family members or our friends ever to be tortured. We know it is wrong whenever and on whomever it is used, and we need to stop our government from trying to convince us otherwise. We need to unequivocally condemn its use and to reclaim an America that respects international law and honors the humane treatment of others as we ourselves want to be treated.

We should not even be discussing the possible use or expediency of torture. It seems so below the America we can truly believe in. Americans are better than being torturers or complicit with torture.

A friend of mine, Charles Arbuthnot, now deceased, was an army chaplain who survived the invasion of Italy in WWII and went on to represent the World Council of Churches in the formulations of the Geneva Conventions that made torture illegal under international law. When the use of torture at Abu Ghraib by American forces was disclosed he was heartsick. He told of having to constantly fend off the temptation facing our soldiers to torture prisoners. He argued that the brutality of torture negated everything we were fighting for. "If we allow our sense of national identity to be lowered to the point that we can justify the use of torture in the name of protecting our sense of freedom and democracy," he said, "we do not have a freedom and democracy worth protecting." When our nation openly condones torture, we are morally bereft criminals who arrogantly violate the Golden Rule and international law.

The disclosure that our government produced an official policy to justify torture is not only a betrayal the values fought for by heroic veterans like Charles Arbuthnot, it is a betrayal of all Americans who fight for and believe in the American democratic ideals of respect for our common humanity.

The use of torture is wrong. It must be condemned, stopped, forbidden, and if used, the offenders must be held accountable and prosecuted. Let us work together to stop this outrageous justification and use of torture as a national policy in our name.

Tom Ewell is a Quaker who lives in Clinton, Washington. He is an active member of the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture that is affiliated with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. For more information see http://www.nrcat.org or http://www.tortureisnotus.org .

Tom Ewell
tewell@whidbey.com
360-341-1457