here are so many kids who are being bullied.. but how can we get the kids to stop it if we don't ask our Government to stop bullying, torturing, and false imprisonment? Our Universities have law professors who educate their law students that torture, the ultimate bullying, is ok.
This weekend we are once again protesting at the Graduation of St Thomas Law School. We are there to continue the pressure on St Thomas to fire Law Professor Robert Delahunty who was legal council for President Bush and wrote a memo with John Yoo that the US could ignore the Geneva Convention and that the US has every right to "Bully".. whether they do it to innocents or not.
And as we stand there handing out a flyer of why we are there and what we are asking of St Thomas.. we get to hear from St Thomas Law students tell us that U.S. didn't do anything wrong. ... Professor Delahunty teaches the lawyers that it is ok to go to give legal reasoning for memos that say it is ok to torture and to call it by different names.
Here is out press release of our protest on Saturday. (we have wrote letters, ask to have Delahunty debate other lawyers, had panel discussions, and other protests in these last 9 years... some of our members are lawyers, alumni of St Thomas, Veterans)
Until we investigate, and prosecute those who authored and ordered and participated in torture.. then the kids won't listen or respect what the adults are asking.
PRESS RELEASE
Tackling Torture at the Top, a Committee of WAMM (Women Against Military Madness, www.worldwidewamm.org) will demonstrate outside the University of St Thomas Law School’s spring commencement on Saturday, May 12, 2012 from 11:30am - 1pm. The anti-torture group has consistently protested and questioned the school’s hiring and promotion of Professor Robert Delahunty, who prior to joining the St. Thomas law faculty, worked in the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush Administration. In January 2002, Delahunty co-authored with John Yoo the infamous memo stating that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to captured Al Qaeda, Taliban or other "non-State actors". This cornerstone memo set the stage for subsequent memos by John Yoo and other Bush lawyers attempting to create a “golden shield” of legal immunity for those in the Bush Administration who ordered or conducted waterboarding and other cruel tactics and abuse. Authors and researchers now link the widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at CIA black sites around the world, with troops and government interrogators being told they did not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions.
The protest takes place on Peavey Plaza, Nicollet Avenue and 11th St in Minneapolis, next to Orchestra Hall where the University of St Thomas Law School commencement exercises are held.
We will be distributing copies of a letter (the second in three years) signed by over 120 concerned citizens and organizations questioning the members of the Law School's Board of Governors and reminding them of their oversight responsibilities with regard to the law school’s hiring and promotion of Mr. Delahunty, especially based on the law school’s stated mission of “morality and social justice”. More than a month later, the Board of Governors still has not responded to the questions in the letter.
The United States has a long history of publicly supporting human rights and condemning torture, from George Washington telling his soldiers to treat their prisoners with respect to World War II and beyond. Until now, that is. Following the attack of September 11, 2001, the Administration worked quickly to establish ways to avoid accountability for prisoner abuse, including the Delahunty-Yoo and the Yoo-Bybee memos, establishing black sites and a program of shipping prisoners to foreign countries known to use torture tactics. Shortsightedly, President Obama declared his administration is "looking forward, not backward" regarding torture accountability, so former officials remain uninvestigated for this heinous crime, other nations use our example as an excuse for misbehavior, and people and groups against the US are emboldened to advocate for and plan aggression against the US.
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