5/12 protest St Thom. Law School professor Delahuny, coauthor of torture memo

[annm4peace]

Demonstrate Against Torture
Saturday, May 12, 11:00 a.m. Sidewalk in front of Orchestra Hall, 11th Street between Marquette Avenue and Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis.

Come demonstrate against torture outside the University of St. Thomas Law School commencement ceremony.

Robert Delahunty (later hired as professor by St. Thomas Law School) co-authored the January 2002 cornerstone memo with John Yoo that “legalized” torture and cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees by telling George Bush that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to “non-state actors” captured by the U.S. The Law School will not admit that Delahunty-Yoo’s “torture memo” was wrong and its students are still apparently led to believe that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the “war on terror.”

Recently the law school hosted former Attorney General Michael Mukasey who declared that waterboarding is not torture.

Please join us! This will be the 3rd time we’ve held anti-torture signs, handed out leaflets and wore “Gitmo orange” (extra suits available) outside the school’s commencement. Organized by: WAMM’s Tackling Torture at the Top (T3) Committee.

Don't let Delahunty get away with war crimes,,,nor St Thomas for hiring and keeping him. It is sad this sick person is teaching others about law.

[annm4peace]

1. come join and take a stand for Justice, rule of law, and christ like behavior

It is horrible how St Thomas continues to employ this war criminal and pay for him to teach others to be lawyers.

I don't know if it angers me more as a citizen or as a Catholic.

Come join us.. we have lots of banners and extra jumpsuits to borrow or buy.

we often grab a bite to eat and drink after.. and have great conversations

[annm4peace]

2. Prisoner of War rules are out of date

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/150671705.html


I never thought there would be anything that President G.W. Bush and I would agree upon. But maybe it is time to re-think the Third Geneva Conventions -- the treaty dealing with the treatment of prisoners of war. Maybe its rules really are quaint and out of date.

Signed by some 40 nations in July 1929, the conventions, for the first time, spelled out in plain language how nations at war were to treat captured enemy. It also stipulated that if one of the nations at war had signed the treaty and the other had not, they were both still obligated to uphold the treaty.

The United States was home to over 400,000 Axis POWs from late 1942 to early 1947. They were held in 660 camps throughout the nation -- 220 in the upper Midwest, 11 in Minnesota. Outside of Texas, no state had more camps than Wisconsin.

No POWs have been treated so well, before or since. The U.S. military was determined to uphold not only the letter of the conventions but the spirit as well. Our treatment of the German POWs was an island of humanity in the ocean of inhumanity that was World War II.

They were treated so well and liked America and Americans so much that about 30,000 of them came back to the U.S. after the war and became citizens.

Germany had signed the conventions. Japan had not, but was still obligated to follow it. They did not. Of the 40,000 American troops captured in the Pacific theater, only 10,000, or 25 percent, survived. In Europe 81,000 out of 90,000 Americans captured survived, 90 percent.


snip


Now we find ourselves in a war with not one nation but a loose conglomeration of people bent on wreaking havoc anyway they can. This is something the Geneva Conventions did not foresee or address. Terrorists have no code of honor or ethics to follow -- the very antithesis of the Conventions. So how do we deal with them?

Torture has never worked as a fruitful intelligence-gathering tool. But are we under any obligation to treat terrorists humanely? They certainly show no mercy to their victims.

But in acting like our enemy do we become him?

Our country has killed people without trials in this new age, with the war on terror forcing us to be judge, jury and executioner in one.

If we had captured Bin Laden to hold for trial, some terrorists somewhere in the world might have attacked a hotel and taken all the guests as hostages and then started killing them until he was released, forcing that country's government to retake the hotel with untold bloodshed.

This is what terrorists do. It is the new type of warfare we have to learn to deal with. The 1929 Geneva Conventions don't.

The Geneva Conventions need to be reworked and updated for this new type of warfare, if that is even possible. Then again, maybe it is a noble experiment whose time has come and gone.

-------------------

Irving Kellman, of St. Paul, is assistant director of Traces Center, a WWII history museum focusing on the treatment of American and German POWs.

[annm4peace]

3. Press Release of protest of Law Professor Delahunty

There 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.

[annm4peace]

4. there were around 40 of us,, but no news on it

it was probably are biggest turn out in the 6 years we have protested at the St Thomas Law School graduation.

I wish I had brought my camera but I didn't. This year Delahunty didn't walk by us but many of the graduates and faculty did.

Although we were right across from WCCO.. 40 of us were enough to make the news.. nor the fact we have a not yet prosecuted war criminal down the street for the station.

Many of these protesting and calling for St Thomas to fire Delahunty are Veterans.. that alone should have counted for some news coverage. Maybe next time we will put on some tea party hats.