Weekly Torture Action Letter 18 – AG Holder, The Time Is Now!

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Happy Monday and welcome the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign in support of accountability for the Bush Administrations apparent State Sponsored Torture program. The basic idea of this campaign is to keep the issue of torture accountability in the minds of the decision makers. To do this the Dog writes a letter every week that you the reader can then either use as the jumping off point for your own letter or can cut and paste and send it to the links provided.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Today we will be writing to the Attorney General with carbon copies to the President, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, and Judiciary Committee Chairmen Leahy and Conyers.

Dear Attorney General Holder;

Sir, the time for action is now. I refer, of course to the need to investigate and where evidence is adequate, to prosecute the fullest extent of the law the apparent Bush era State Sponsored Torture program.

There are plenty of people who argue that there would be difficulties in prosecuting those who ordered torture and those who carried it out. To them I say, let’s find out. We are not to that step yet and future potential problems should not deter the nation’s Department of Justice from investigating what, even to a lay man like myself, are prima facie crimes.

The Justice Department is as much a part of the protection of the United States as our military. Where the armed forces protect us from the dangers of those outside our nation, the DOJ is there to protect us from the excesses of our fellow citizens. Your department does not use bombs and planes in this task, but it is the sword and shield of the Law itself that is your armament.

News reports have said that you were sickened by the actions and reasoning revealed in the CIA Inspector Generals 2004 report on the actions of the Bush Administration in regards to prisoners taken in the spuriously named “War on Terror”. This is the right emotion to feel when confronted with callus justification and ordering of torture. No reasonable person can feel different. However, General Holder, you, unlike many of the citizens of this nation, are in a position to do something about it.

It is your choice, Sir, you hold the very machinery of justice in your hands. The dead and the injured, both mentally and physically, are waiting for your actions. They are our fellow human beings and no action on their part can every justify the suffering they endured in the name of our security.

You may feel there is little to be gained from perusing this, but you could not be more wrong. While investigating and prosecuting those responsible for these heinous actions will not do anything to remove the hurt these men have endured, you would do something more important. You would through your actions assure this would not happen again in our lifetimes.

It is a stark fact that if we do not prosecute those who tortured in the name of the Untied States, then sometime in the next 20 years it will happen again. That is when you will become culpable General Holder, because it will be the failure of your DOJ to investigate and prosecute that will be used to shield those future torturers from accountability.

There are times when it is hard to know what the right action is, but this is not one of them. All you must do is follow the Law, the sword and shield of our nation, to where it takes you. There is only one choice here, to start the investigation and follow through on it or to say that you, Attorney General Holder is willing to be responsible for future torture. It is not fair that you must make this choice, but there is no doubt it is yours to make and you will make one, one way or the other.

Sir, do the right thing, follow the law, the people of your nation, the people of the world and the people of the future are waiting for you to do so.

Regards

That is the letter, no all you need gentle reader and citizen activist is some links! You will find them below:

Department of Justice, attention AG Holder – [email protected]

The White House, Attention President Obama

Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Majority Leader Harry Reid

Rep John Conyers – Judiciary Committee Chair

Chairman Leahy

Now the choice is yours, will you act as the Dog has asked AG Holder to do? He needs to be pushed in this, as there will be a lot of push back when he does the right thing. Make sure it is clear to him what the right thing is.

The floor is yours.