Report on the ” Speaking the Unspeakable: Is the Bush Administration
Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” Tour at Harvard Law
School and M.I.T.
(from left to right: Craig Murray, C.Clark Kissinger, Janis Karpinsky and Stephan Sonnenberg at Harvard Law School)
After
the tour went through Boston, Harvard Law Students staged an action on
campus to challenge students to Take a Stand Against Torture on the 2nd
anniversary of the Abu Gharib torture scandal.
Very good link that includes audio, pictures and commentary on the Harvard and M.I.T event by Freeman Z.
Twenty-five faceless figures cloaked in black robes and
masks. We linked arms to form a circle in the middle of Harvard’s
campus and marked the 2nd year anniversary of the release of the
torture pictures from Abu Girhab that shocked the world.
Two
years after the release of photos from Abu Ghirab; Arab and Muslim men
are still being tortured in hellish prisons and the Administration
culpable for these illegal and immoral policies are still in power.
The event was organized by Harvard Law Students
and followed two days of powerful testimony and talks by speakers on
the Bush Crimes Commission Tour. 175 people packed into Langdell
Hall at the Harvard Law School library to hear the truth straight from
the whistle blowers and experts themselves. Craig Murray – former
UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Janis Karpinsky – the former U.S.
Brigadier General whose 800th Military Police Brigade was in charge of
17 prison facilities in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib and C. Clark
Kissinger – convener of the Commission, spoke to an audience of
mainly Harvard Law students and professors about the criminal acts of
torture the Bush Administration is committing in our name and the
urgency for people to act now and resist these brutal acts of torture
that do in fact rise to the level of crimes against humanity.
The tour hit the campus of M.I.T the following night and
included Larry Everest, author of “Oil, Power, and Empire: Iraq and the
U.S. Global Agenda”. The event painted the full scope and level
of crimes against humanity being committed by the Bush administration
and necessity for that to be the terms in which people discuss the
policies and actions of the Bush Administration.
225 people had
the opportunity to hear Craig Murray describe the real life reality of
torture and the current logic that will lead us straight into fascism
unless the people act now and reverse the course of history.
As
one volunteer for the tour remarked; “Hearing Janis and Craig speak at
Harvard really did feel like you were part of something
historic”. In walking around M.I.T, I came across a glass display
that featured a history of M.I.T. The display notes the
university grew tremendously during World War II due to the major
backing of the U.S defense department and since then has been major
military think tank that has provided the grounds for many talented
young minds to develop weapons of death and destruction. Students
attend classes in lecture halls named after Lockheed Martin, the #1
military contractor and arms exporter. Many Harvard Law students
walked back and forth to classes with Final Exams right around the
corner and took flyers for the Bush Crimes Commission event that
reminded them they will enter into a world where everything about the
law is being torn apart by the Bush administration and we are becoming
a country of torturers.
Many students we talked to desired a
campus more alive with resistance and a student at M.I.T commented that
she hates the fact that her school tution supports the American
government’s ability to carry out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Talking
with students and professors only deepened my understanding and
conviction for this tour to transform the campuses and bring forward a
campus movement dedicated to driving out the Bush Regime.
-Allen Lang
More reports, pictures and text from the speakers will be coming soon.