Pax-salon Mailing List: Sunday Aug 1: Fast Against Torture

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Patty is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Just in case any of you would like to join in this.  Patty


> From: Coleen Rowley <rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net>
> Date: July 30, 2010 9:29:14 AM CDT

> Reminder: 24 hour Fast Against Torture begins at 6 pm, Sunday,
> August 1st
>
> Wow! Over 300 people on Facebook have now pledged to Fast Against
> Torture beginning this Sunday, August 1, the eight year anniversary
> of John Yoo and Jay Bybee's writing of the "torture memos" that
> attempted to "legalize" waterboarding and other cruel and inhumane
> acts.  (Everything ?up to organ failure? was supposedly OK'd on
> August 1, 2002.)
>
> So alert the press and get more people to demonstrate their
> opposition to the practice of torture!
>
> If you have not joined the FAT, please take a look and help grow our
> numbers.  If you are in good health, you can fast anywhere in the
> world.  Water is encouraged however.  There are also anti-torture
> groups who are conducting vigils on Monday August 2 in front of
> their respective US federal courthouses, asking for investigation
> and prosecution of war crimes.  If nothing else, the 8 year
> anniversary furnishes a good opportunity to write an op-ed or letter
> to the editor that accountability for such war crimes is necessary.
> Pandora's box is still very much open at the present time.  Torture
> is a violation of jus cogens (with no exceptions for times of war)
> but the green light is still on since the U.S. opened the door.
>
> *The truth is that Bush had already signed off in February of 2002
> on a legal memo that said the Geneva Conventions no longer applied,
> and Condi Rice had given the Administration?s OK to waterboard to
> George Tenet in July 2002, telling him:  "It's your baby, go do
> it."  Yoo-Bybee's August 1 2002 memos were thus an after-the-fact
> attempt to provide a "golden shield" for the Bush Administration
> that they could claim to be relying upon legal advice.  John Yoo's e-
> mails and communications with the Bush Administration that would
> show his conspiring to provide the "golden shield" have mysteriously
> all disappeared and the 92 videotapes showing the waterboarding
> experimentation were destroyed.
>
> Silence is complicity!
>
> Let?s grow our numbers for the 24 Hour Fast Against Torture:
> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144988738849490