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Stanford Antiwar Alumni, Students Call for Condi War Crimes Probe
Thursday 07 May 2009
http://www.truthout.org/050709S?n Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | Post
Stanford antiwar alumnus Lenny Siegel, with hammer in hand, is joined by Marjorie Cohn. They nailed a petition to the office door of Stanford's president, demanding that Condoleezza Rice, who has returned to the campus this year, be held accountable for violations of the law. (Photo: R. Robertson)
During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal
Veterans of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement had gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion during the weekend. The gathering featured panels on foreign policy, the economy, political and social movements, science and technology, media, energy and the environment, and strategies for aging activists.
On Sunday, surrounded by alumni and students, Lenny Siegel and I nailed a petition to the University president's office door. The petition, circulated by Stanford Say No to War, reads:
"We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (including ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities."
I stated, "By nailing this petition to the door of the president's office, we are telling Stanford that the university should not have war criminals on its faculty. There is prima facie evidence that Rice approved torture and misled the country into the
After the petition nailing, I cited the law and evidence of Condoleezza Rice's responsibility for war crimes - including torture - and for selling the illegal
As national security adviser, Rice authorized waterboarding in July 2002, according to a newly released report of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Less than two months later, she hyped the impending
A week before the nailing of the petition, Rice made some Nixonian admissions in response to questions from Stanford students during a campus dinner designed to burnish Rice's image on campus.
In October 1968, Stanford antiwar activists had nailed a document to the door of the trustees' office which demanded that Stanford "halt all military and economic projects concerned with
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at
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Published on Friday, May 8, 2009 by The
Memo Says Pelosi Knew About Use of Harsh Tactics
by Paul Kane
Intelligence officials released documents yesterday saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda suspects, seeming to contradict her repeated statements that she was never told the techniques were actually being used.
![[Intelligence officials released documents yesterday saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda suspects. (AFP/Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)]](cid:image003.jpg@01C9CFF3.8B79AEE0 "pelosi_torture.jpg")
Intelligence officials released documents yesterday saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda suspects. (AFP/Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress briefed on the tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House intelligence committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The memo, issued to Capitol Hill by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency, notes that the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered "EITs including the use of EITs" on Abu Zubaida. EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique, and Abu Zubaida, whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured. He also was the first to have the controversial tactic of simulated drowning, or waterboarding, used against him.
The issue of what Pelosi knew and when she knew it has become a tussle on Capitol Hill. Republicans have accused her of knowing for years about the interrogation techniques CIA agents were using and of objecting only when the tactics became public and antiwar activists protested.
In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi's office said yesterday that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal interrogation technique.
"As this document shows, the speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," said Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman.
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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