Torture News Roundup

One regular feature of this blog will be updating readers on the various campaigns to eradicate torture. This has a global scope, but, being a U.S. citizen, a major emphasis will be ending the torture and "torture lite" practices of the U.S., especially those carried out in the name of the so-called "war on terror."

• Jamie Leigh Jones was working in Iraq for a subsidiary of Halliburton when she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by several coworkers. For the last two years, she's been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable, but the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren't subject to US or Iraqi laws. I just signed a petition urging Congress to investigate the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law. Can you join me at this link?
• Republicans in the U.S. Senate (led by one-time anti-torture advocate Lindsay Graham (R-SC) ), have just blocked a bill that would ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other "harsh interrogation techniques." The bill would have compelled the CIA to use the same standards as the U.S. Army Field Manual, which, in turn, is based on both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war. Graham now thinks that the CIA should not be held to the standard of the Army Field Manual.
• Not surprisingly, the United Nations suspects the CIA has tortured and abused the "detainees" held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
• The American Civil Liberties Organization outlines the reasons why we need a special prosecutor to investigate the taped waterboarding and its destruction. (Duh! We can't trust the most politicized Justice Dept. in history to investigate any part of the Bush govt. and, since Speaker Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats have been implicated in at least knowing about the tape as far back as 2002, we can't trust Congress to investigate, either!) Former Nixon lawyer (turned good guy), John Dean, speaks about how the ACLU lawsuit could force revelation of what actually happened--and maybe the beginnings of accountability.
• More on Pelosi and torture here. (Make no mistake, folks: I am a progressive Democrat, but BY NO MEANS do I give the Dems a free pass on torture, Iraq, or anything else. This blog will keep everyone honest. And when I get it wrong, I expect my readers to correct me.)
• The connections between torture in Latin America, Iraq, and the U.S. are pointed out by Greg Grandin here.
• Ray McGovern is a former CIA intelligence analyst (once responsible for the daily briefing of the first Pres. Bush) who now works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of Washington, D.C.'s Church of the Savior, and who founded VIPS: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. In light of the constant torture scandals and the relative lack of outrage of the public (e.g., the popularity of Jack Bauer and "24"), McGovern asks, "Are Americans Really 'Better Than That?'" When I think that future generations of this nation will look back on this era the way contemporary Germans look back on the cooperation with Naziism and the death camps, I feel so ashamed.
• Journalist Robert Scheer talks about "Waterboarding Our Democracy."
• The National Religious Campaign Against Torture, a coalition of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faith-based organizations, is asking congregations to show the film "Ghosts of Abu-Ghraib" and hold discussion/action sessions afterword.
• The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has strong Anti-Terrorism campaigns that include an anti-torture campaign.
• Evangelicals for Human Rights is an organization of evangelical Christians against torture. Includes "An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture" written by my friend David P. Gushee, now Professor of Christian Ethics at McAfee School of Theology (Mercer University), Atlanta, GA.
• Human Rights First has a campaign to Elect to End Torture in '08 which seeks to get all presidential and congressional candidates of any party to pledge to end torture and "harsh interrogations." It also has a campaign to end Prime Time Torture, supposed TV fictional dramas which actually act as propaganda for torture.
• No2Torture has numerous resources, including DVDs, literature, petitions, etc.