Right now, activists from World Can’t Wait have created a model for taking action against accused war criminals that other citizens across the country could use to apply pressure for accountability and consequences for war crimes and crimes against humanity and most importantly, policies of torture like the ones Yoo created.
Stephanie Rugoff, project coordinator for War Criminals Watch, which is an organization being formed to track where accused war criminals have gone since they’ve left the Bush Regime
“We’re seeing where they are and what we hope to do by publicizing our website and reaching out to students in student organizations at universities where they go is to replicate the kind of organization that can be seen with Fire John Yoo at Berkeley,” said Rugoff.
As Rugoff sees it, what she and her organization plans to do is complementary to grassroots organizing going on throughout the country which is contributing to calls for a special prosecutor, a truth commission, etc.
Rugoff is “organizing people at a local level so that students can act at their local university” and contribute to a mass movement for accountability. Citizens are being empowered “to stand up against criminals who should have to face consequences for what they did.”
Calls for prosecutions, truth commissions, and accountability have been met with an Obama Administration eager to convince Americans to “move forward” instead of looking back. Obama presents this attitude that as long as they stop the policies of torture accountability and consequences may not be necessary.
Rigas addressed this attitude and approach and how closing Guantanamo does not guarantee torture will end.
“There are CIA black sites. Several people have speculated that extraordinary renditions will continue and that has been defined as a war crime and crime against humanity that can happen whether we had declared war or not. This keeps being put out as a most difficult legal question and that’s not true,” said Rigas.
Rigas added:
“Obama is trying to take any position he can to repeal any authority that the Yoo memos were given by the Executive Branch of the Bush Regime. He can issue out all these executive orders and he can close Guantanamo but the reality is that torture will still continue and laws won’t be repealed.
Even if Obama puts himself under the auspices of his Executive Branch authority, that doesn’t mean that the law that was codified by John Yoo and by others in the Office of Legal Counsel is going to end. In fact, a continuation of the Bush Regime is going to continue the more and more entangled the United States continues to engage with other countries in really dangerous crimes against humanity. They should absolutely be held to account on the international level.
Obama is walking a political line and his political line is really dangerous for the interest and the needs of humanity.”
Sharon Adams is of the opinion that the scariest thing about all this is that the Bush Administration “had to go to the position of having it be a war in order to justify this extensive reach by the president,” in order to justify the policies which the Yoo memos legally justify.
Fortunately, there are citizens in America like Rigas, Adams, and Rugoff who are fighting against the whole justification for torture.
Adams said, “people really feel strongly about the issue of torture.” And they should.
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