Letter to Rep. Patrick Murphy

A nine-member delegation including representatives of Amnesty, the ACLU, and the Coalition for Peace Action met with Rep. Patrick Murphy to ask for his support for a commission of inquiry into the treatment of detainees since 9/11 and an investigation by the Justice Department. Following is our thank-you letter:

May 31, 2009

Rep. Patrick Murphy
1609 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Patrick,

Thank you so much for meeting with us on the 27th and being so generous with your time. In response to your request for information about Amnesty, research revealed that there are 1,326 donor members in your district and many more student activists whose contributions are primarily in terms of service hours. Incidentally, there are over 20,000 donor members in PA.

Inquirer columnist Mark Bowden wrote a piece on May 17, "Damage done by allowing torture," that reinforces the argument for a commission of inquiry. There is a link to the whole article on the Opinion page of http://www.amnestybucksmont.org/. The disturbing part is that he is predisposed to believe Cheney's claims about the effectiveness of torturing Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed—that it helped gain information that thwarted attacks, though he concedes, "A complete independent investigation is the only way to find out" (italics added).

Bowden's real outrage is directed elsewhere: "We don't know all the facts yet, but the failure to control abuses at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and other military prisons strikes me as the real horror here." It goes without saying that Guantánamo is on that list, where Jeremy Scahill (http://www.alternet.org/story/140022/?) reports the abuse continues, at the hands of the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) teams.

One of the goals of http://www.amnestybucksmont.org/ and http://amnestybucksmont.blogspot.com/ is to document the depth and breadth of the anti-torture sentiment in this district and region, as evidenced by the collection of writings at the Opinion tab and the notices of anti-torture events on the homepage, such as the town hall meeting featuring General Richard O'Meara last October.

But again, to have any hope of reaching the vast audience for 24, Congress is going to have to launch an inquiry in one form or another that will finally tell the whole story, and there must be accountability. You will be doing the president and the country a much needed service.

Why we need an independent commission

"Why Obama Needs to Reveal Even More on Torture," by Robert Baer, Time, April 20, 2009: "Not everything related to abusive interrogations can be declassified, but nonetheless should be looked at by a blue-ribbon presidential commission. . . . On a more public level, a thorough clearing of the air will go a long way toward discrediting the idea that we either torture terrorists or die. This false choice is played out week after week in the popular TV show 24, leaving people with the notion that had the FBI somehow caught one of the hijackers in the hours leading up to 9/11, torture would have led to the arrest of the other 18 before those planes took off. We need to put the last nail in the coffin of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz's idea of torture warrants. . . ."

For a presidential commission on torture

Thomas R. Pickering and William S. Sessions, washingtonpost.com, March 23, 2009: "Moving Forward by Looking Back: Why a Presidential Commission on Torture Is Critical to America's Security."

Petition for Commission on Accountability

Sign the petition for a Commission on Accountability
We call on the President of the United States to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001. The commission, comparable in stature to the 9/11 Commission, should look into the facts and circumstances of such abuses, report on lessons learned, and recommend measures that would prevent any future abuses. We believe that the commission is necessary to reaffirm America ’s commitment to the Constitution, international treaty obligations, and human rights. The report issued by the commission will strengthen U.S. national security and help to re-establish America ’s standing in the world.

Co-Sponsors for CommissiononAccountability.org
Amnesty International USA
The Brennan Center for Justice
The Carter Center, Human Rights Program
The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University, School of Law
Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, UC Davis
The Center for Victims of Torture
The Constitution Project
Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watch
International Center for Transitional Justice
International Justice Network
The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
National Institute of Military Justice
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
The Open Society Institute
Physicians for Human Rights
The Rutherford Institute

"Obama Open to Prosecutions"

"Obama Open to Prosecutions in Interrogation Abuses," NYTimes.com, April 21, 2009: "President Obama on Tuesday left open the door to creating a bipartisan commission that would investigate the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects, and he did not rule out taking action against the lawyers who fashioned the legal guidelines for the interrogations."

Petition for an independent commission...more

1) We call for the establishment of a nonpartisan, independent commission of distinguished Americans to examine, and provide a comprehensive report on, policies and actions related to the detention, treatment, and transfer of detainees after 9/11 and the consequences of those actions, and to make recommendations for future policy in this area.
2) Official reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross warned senior officials in the U.S. government that the treatment detainees were subjected to in black-site prisons amounted to torture. We call on Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a criminal investigation into the torture and abuse of detainees and to hold those responsible for such conduct accountable.
3) We urge our members of Congress to introduce or support a Dear Colleague letter calling on the administration to immediately produce and publish all the relevant policy memos that argued for and established the basis for coercive interrogation, detainee treatment and policy in the last administration.
Sign AmnestyBucksMont's petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/call-for-an-independent-commission-on-torture-abuse.