Uof MN students showing Film about Dr Rice this Thurs. 4/10 at 7pm (Condi Rice biographer at event)

[annm4peace]

(please share with others) It is free and room holds around 150 people so bring a friend *

A screening of the award-winning film: American Faust: from Condi to Neo-Condi--discussion to follow--
will be held at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, in Nicholson Hall, room 155, on Thursday April 10th at 7pm.


We will begin by showing the film and end with a public discussion led by author Antonia Felix, one of Rice's main biographers featured in the film.

see trailer here:

On April 17th, the University of Minnesota will be honoring Dr. Rice with a prominent public forum. If this were instead an opportunity to seek some accountability for her conduct as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, the anti-war community would be the first to say "let her speak." But the lecture Rice will be giving will not be about accountability; she talking about civil rights.

And that is the problem: we’re expected to treat her conduct in government as something that just happens to be true of her, not something that needs to be addressed– not something she needs to answer for– but an incidental detail.

Planning and ordering of torture is a jus cogens crime of the highest magnitude under both domestic and international law. Some believe officials in the George W. Bush administration should be investigated for this crime as well as other crimes. Among these officials of course is Condoleezza Rice.

When our government refuses to hold its officials accountable for crimes committed in our names, the responsibility falls on us. If these individuals are in fact not guilty, then they have nothing to hide. If however they are, it is then up to the American people to bring them to justice.

Those of us who object to Dr. Rice's upcoming appearance at the University of Minnesota have invited her to engage with us while she is here. That invitation went unanswered. In lieu of this we will be hosting a public conversation with the biographer Antonia Felix, the author of “Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story,” the first biography written about Rice.

To stimulate conversation we will also be showing a documentary about the life of Condoleezza Rice, and her role in the Bush Administration. This event will serve as an opportunity to engage in a critical discussion about Rice's conduct, and the University of Minnesota's decision to offer her a platform– but only if all views are represented. For that reason we are extending an invitation to the general public.

The film screening and forum will be held at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, in Nicholson Hall, room 155, on Thursday April 10th at 7pm. We will begin by showing “American Faust: Condi to Neo-Condi,” and end with a public discussion.

[annm4peace]

1. more info about Condi's visit to U of MN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024773088

we are going more and more momentum in opposing her visit but it is amazing how much local media ignores her war crimes and how many young people don't know what she has done.

But there is a coalition of students and other peace groups making sure they educate U of MN of Condi and her Legacy of Torture.

[annm4peace]

2. facebook invite for Condi Rice protest 4/17

great way to see what the students are up to and to invite your friends to the protest.

https://www.facebook.com/events/283852731772887/?notif_t=plan_edited

[annm4peace]

3. "10 Percent Intellectual": The Mind of Condoleezza Rice

interesting article.. http://www.prwatch.org/news/2008/05/7327/10-percent-intellectual-mind-condoleezza-rice
just a snip...

Born in the USA

The insulated setting of Rice's deep-South youth, a home-based environment controlled by her doting parents, was an important factor in making it difficult for her, even as an adult, to think creatively beyond the frontiers (or mindset) of the United States. Her upbringing did not include much domestic travel, let alone visits to foreign countries. (She did, however, make it to Coney Island on one occasion with her parents.) Sequestered Titusville, her native neighborhood, was her sheltered bubble for the early years of her life. In the words of Mabry, Rice spent "the most formative years of her life willing away realities she did not want to see."

When Condo, as her pastor father called her, was in her mid-teens, the Rices moved to Denver, Colorado, far away from the "Bombingham," of Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, the Ku Klux Klan 1960s Public Safety Commissioner who was responsible for so much of the violence there. (Rice would later say that Connor "fascinated" her "because he was kind of the personification of evil.&quot In the mile-high city, Rice went to a then-minor heartland learnery, the University of Denver. ("Very few people go from a doctorate at the University of Denver to a first class research university ," said Donald Kennedy, Stanford president from 1980 to 1992.) It was not until her late years in college that her intellectual interests, until then limited to ice skating and piano playing, were expanded to the field of foreign affairs. As she mentioned recently at the State Department:

I was in college at the University of Denver trying to figure out my way in life and coming to the realization that if I stayed a music major I would end up playing at Nordstrom or perhaps at a piano bar -- (laughter) -- and I tried courses in English literature, and State and local government. And I hated them all. And then one day, I walked into a course in international politics taught by a Soviet specialist, a Czech émigré, a man named Josef Korbel, Secretary Albright's father.

"Before Korbel's class," Mabry points out, "Condoleezza had only glimpsed the world of international power and intrigue while sitting with her father watching the nightly news, worrying about Castro's missiles." Korbel was a defender, according to Mabry, of the Stalin-Hitler pact, which the Central European-born professor saw "as another example of Stalin's strategic genius and his success in building the Soviet state." According to Elizabeth Bumiller, when Rice heard him lecture, she

fell in love" -- the phrase she has used in virtually every interview she has given about this moment in her life. ...

The lecture that so transfixed Rice was about the ruthless maneuvering and consolidation of power that allowed Stalin to propel himself from general secretary of the Communist Party to effective dictator of the Soviet Union. ... Terry Karl, a Stanford political science professor who later taught with Rice, [said] ... "Like some political scientists of the time, she was impressed with the efficiency and effectiveness of how the Communist parties exercised power."

A Stanford faculty member quoted by Mabry noticed that when Rice became the university's provost in the 1990s, communicating with her "was like talking to a brick wall. You'd try to say something, and she would say [banging on the table], 'No, no, no!' All I could think of was Khrushchev banging the shoe at the UN ... She was a Sovietologist; she learned her lesson well from her subjects."

[annm4peace]

4. Crime Alert sent to Chief of Police of U of MN campus for 4/17

Dear Chief Hestness,
Every victim of a crime deserves our sympathy and has the right to feel safe at the University of Minnesota. But we feel that recent steps taken to enhance campus safety are more an over-reaction to fears generated by reports of University officials than due to a real threat of increasing crime. We believe our campus is fairly safe and that the reaction to the increased reporting can create more dangers than it solves.

However, from time to time, truly dangerous people do come to our campus. We would like to alert you to the imminent presence at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, of such a person. On April 17, 2014, Dr. Condoleezza Rice will be present at Northrop Auditorium at 5:00 p.m. and for some time thereafter.

There is probable cause to believe Dr. Rice has been involved in massive criminal activity. A summary of the evidence, with links and multiple references to further documentation, can be found at this website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/index.php?title=Condi_coalition_letter_draft. I have also attached the document to this email.

As an update to the evidence, with respect to the allegations of conspiracy to torture, Dr. Rice has said her decisions were always pending Justice Department approval. But in her 2011 book, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington, she is clear that she doubted whether the legal interpretations and how they would be implemented would be legal. On pages 104-105, she wrote of her misgivings of how the views of David Addington, the Vice President's legal counsel, were infecting the legal advice. She wrote about John Bellinger, the National Security Council lawyer:

But in terms of bureaucratic warfare, he was no match for David Addington, the vice President's legal counsel. Addington, with the full support of the Vice President, had a view -- an expansive view -- of presidential prerogatives during wartime and, drawing on opinions by lawyers such as Jay Bybee and John Yoo in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was determined to push the boundaries of executive authority...That means that the State Department, the military, and even the attorney general were outflanked on occasion.

At a minimum, the evidence shows that Dr. Rice has violated the following statutes:
18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340A(c), which criminalizes a conspiracy to torture, which underlying offense is codified in Sec. 2340A(a) and defined in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340.
18 U.S.C. Sec. 2441 -- War Crimes, in particular the violations codified in Section 2441(d)(1), which concerns acts prohibited by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Some of these alleged offenses have resulted in the deaths of the victims of Dr. Rice's conduct, so there should be no Statute of Limitations problems with respect to those cases.
Moreover, for these types of crimes, jurisdiction is clear. As President Ronald Reagan said at the time he signed the Convention Against Torture, which was later ratified by the U.S. Senate:
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

That is, for these types of crimes, any court in the world may charge and try an alleged perpetrator located within its jurisdiction.
Dr. Rice is a 59-year-old African American woman, 5'8" tall, and will be present on Northrop Auditorium's main stage at the aforementioned time. If you need a picture of her, one will be provided, but it might just be easier for you to access one online.
We are copying the University's Office of the General Counsel on this email, who may be able to elaborate on how serious these allegations are. We are confident that you will at least bring Dr. Rice in to be questioned. We hope, however, that you do not employ the interrogation techniques she so willingly approved.

If you need any further clarification or assistance, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you very much for helping to make our campus safer for all of us.