What are You Gonna Do Now?
From World Can’t Wait, San Francisco
The Department of Justice has released the results of its Office of Professional Responsibility’s five year “investigation’ into John Yoo and Jay Bybee, lawyers who were key players on the Bush administration’s Torture Team. The report mildly chastises Yoo and Bybee for “poor judgement”.
These are men covered with the blood of countless victims of unspeakably cruel torture, rendition, and imprisonment without any recourse to trial in hell hole dungeons across the planet. The OPR report essentially exonerates Yoo and Bybee – and those who ultimately called the shots for them, Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the rest of the criminal gang – and clears the way for embedding the practices of torture as an integral, condoned element of U.S. policy. These practices are, in fact, continuing today under the administration of Barack Obama, as they did in the years of the Bush Regime.
If this were all happening under Bush or McCain, what would many good people be saying, and doing?
And what are far too many people today NOT saying, and NOT doing?
The OPR report is far from the last word. There is nothing more important that people inside this country could do right now than to mobilize and organize ourselves to stand up to the crimes of our government, no matter who is in the White House. The OPR report IS an insult to the torture victims, and to everyone who has been in one way or another standing up to demand real accountability for the crime of torture, and to set limits for the future – saying we will not tolerate torture. But the OPR report needs to be seen as a challenge: it represents another move against us in the ongoing fight against the war crime of torture, and to bring to justice the war criminals from Bush and Cheney on down.
Every person in this country has to ask herself or himself: are you for torture, or against it? Is torture part of a world you want to live in, or isn’t it? And if you think torture is wrong and it must stop – and your government insists torture is necessary and therefore OK – then what will you do? We need a powerful resistance from the people. The world can’t wait.
The Obama DOJ is obviously following in the footsteps of the Bush administration,and I’m not surprised,but rather,outraged and disappointed at the decision to let John Yoo and Bybee off the hook. They should be disbarred for their approval of torture and extraordinary rendition,and they are clearly war criminals in every aspect of what that conveys.
I have sent letters,made phone calls and emails—I have participated in many demonstrations here on the West coast,and although I cannot always travel,I have done everything that I could to express my concern,but I wonder at this point if ANYONE in Congress or in Obama’s cabinet is really listening.
Obama talks in mindless platitudes about how much he cares about the plight of Guantanamo detainees and their families,yet the facility is still open. He sent more troops into Afghanistan,and they have killed civilians,including women and children. The war in Iraq continues,unabated. Health care reform is hardly about reform because Obama has caved in to the insurance companies and drug corporations,who have contributed millions for his campaign. It will be a miracle if we ever have universal or single payer health care in this country as long as we have legislators who don’t give a damn about 50 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance.
Obama is NOT about change. Instead,he TALKS about it,but will not act on the numerous promises he made when he campaigned for the presidency.
We MUST elect individuals who will carry out the courage of their convictions,and hold them accountable if they don’t.
All of these crises are symptoms of a government that does not act on behalf of the governed. They walk away with millions while the rest of us barely survive. A very tragic situation indeed.
The current occupant of the White House may be nothing but a phony. Many of us who supported him believed from his biography that he possessed a strong moral compass. Anyone who supports war and torture cannot be trusted. Torture does not conform to a standard of right behavior. “Down With The Empire”!!
There has been very little justice. since, Bush took office.
The republicans act more like a gang of professional bandits than responsibe legislators.
Old George Washington must be turning over and in his grave at what has happened to his dream.
I was on a site that kept repeating how the only way to get Obama to do what we elected him to do was support him. WTF? The only way to get any government official to do what they are supposed to do is protest and elect someone else. There seems to be quite a bit of interest in a Paul/ Kucinich/McKinney/Nader type ticket.
I can hardly believe what we have witnessed, but like you said, if this was the Bush regime we’d be screaming all the way to DC. So, black or white, dem or rep, so what, they are all crooks and crooks alliances.