Happy Monday. Welcome to the Dog’s letter writing campaign for torture accountability. This campaign is designed to keep the issue of accountability under the law for the Bush administrations torture program alive. Here is how it works, every Monday the Dog writes to one of the decision makers on the issue of torture accountability. You get involved (and increase the impact) by either cutting and pasting the letter over your own signature or just writing your own letter. The Dog even provides e-mail links so you can cc the letter to all the decision makers.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

This week we are back to writing the Attorney General, as he has the final say as to whether comprehensive investigations will accrue or not.

Dear Attorney General Holder:

I write you once again to urge your action on the issue of the Bush Administration’s apparent torture program. The legal reasons why you should act are clear. Torture is both a Federal and International crime. Under the International Conventions Against Torture, any signatory has the obligation to investigate every credible allegation of torture.

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Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s letter writing campaign for torture accountability. Last week was not a good week for the cause. The release of the Office of Professional Responsibility report with the conclusion that Mr. Yoo and Judge Bybee showed only poor judgment in their ginning up of legal cover for torture is a travesty. The Associate Attorney General David Margolis overrode the two previous versions of the report which called for them to be referred to their local Bar Associations for professional misconduct. Instead they are very mildly admonished and let go their merry way.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

There is still an avenue to pursue and that is House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. The Dog would love to tell you this was going to be a place where things will be different, but the reality is that it is likely to be a lot of smoke and very little fire. However giving up is not an option, at least for this dog. So lets take all the shots we can and keep this issue alive.

Today we will be writing to Judiciary Chair Conyers, below is this weeks letter:

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Dear President Obama;

I wanted to take the occasion of Presidents Day to write to you. Today is the day we celebrate the birthdays of two of our all time great presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

It is fitting that we celebrate the first of our presidents and the president who held the Union together and ended the precious practice of human slavery. These men stand as examples of what America can be and should be.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

It is with regret that I can not add your name to the list of great presidents. There is no doubt your election and presidency are historic, but where Washington and Lincoln are both famous for standing for the rule of law and the Constitution, your administration seems to sadly lacking in that regard.

Mr. President, there is an issue that you have consciously ignored, the issue of the Bush Administration’s torture program. As someone involved in politics and activism I completely grasp the level of acrimony you would experience from the Republicans and the conservatives of this nation if you fully investigate the ordering and carrying out of torture.

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One of the reasons the Dog has always argued for a full investigation of the treatment of prisoners by the U.S. government is that the truths is going to come out sooner rather than later. For those who want to hide from accountability under the law later is always the better goal. The longer it takes for the abuses of the Bush Administration torture program to come to light the less likely there is to be an outcry and the more likely those who ordered and carried out torture are to elderly or dead.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Today the British government lost its appeal and was forced to disclose a new piece of the torture puzzle. In 2002 a British subject by the name of Binyam Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan. He claims he was tortured there, then sent to Morocco where he was also beaten and finally in 2004 sent to Guantanamo Bay. If Mr. Mohamed’s name seems familiar to you, it should. He is the man who claims he was tortured by a scalpel slicing his genitals.

What makes Mr. Mohamed’s case particularly galling (as if genital slicing was not enough) is that he has been released without ever being charged either by the British or the U.S.

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Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s on-going campaign for torture accountability. The purpose of this series is to keep the issue of accountability under the law for torture alive. To do this every Monday the Dog writes a letter to one of the decision to makers who could move the issue of torture accountability forward. You get involved by sending your own letter, you can use the one the Dog writes, just pasted over your signature, or you can write your own. The point is to have some notice given that not everyone has forgotten about the issue of torture war crimes in the glare of HCR and the new season of American Idol.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

This week we are going to write to the Attorney General, as he is the single person that can really get the ball rolling with full-scale investigations. There will be copies to the President, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate, Judiciary Chairs Leahy and Conyers and ranking Judiciary Committee Member Rep. Jerry Nadler.

This week’s letter:

Dear Attorney General Holder;

I write you this week to ask a simple question; doesn’t it make you angry that you are being made a patsy by war criminals?

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Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s letter writing campaign for torture accountability. This series is a small attempt to assure the issue of accountability under the law for the apparent Bush administration torture program is not forgotten by those responsible for the investigation and prosecution of such acts. The way this series works is as follows; every Monday the Dog writes a letter to one of the decision makers involved and send copies to the rest. You get involved by either cutting and pasting the letter over your own signature or buy using it as inspiration for your own letter. The Dog even provides the e-mail links and where we are writing members of Congress who use filter the way to get past the filters.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

This week we will be writing the Attorney General (the fact is he is the sole person who can start and follow through with investigations) with copies to the President, Speaker of the House Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid, Judiciary Chairs Leahy and Conyers and Rep. Jerry Nadler of the House Judiciary Committee.

This week’s letter:

Dear Attorney General Holder;

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Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s letter writing campaign for accountability under the law for the apparent torture program of the Bush administration. The point of this effort is to keep the issue of accountability alive. We all know there are other critical issues, and the President and many in the Congress would rather deal with those than an issue that is going to be as divisive as this one.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

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The Dog knows that today will mostly be consumed with the Massachusetts Senate special election, but there are things going on in the realm of the Bush administrations war crimes that need to be discussed. Yesterday Scott Horton of Harper's magazine published some new reporting on the June 9th 2006 “suicides” at Guantanamo Bay which highlights the need for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to fully investigate the detention and torture of prisoners.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Something happened on the night of June 9th 2006. Three men died, their deaths were ruled suicides even though a Harper's says in his article:

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By David Swanson

The occupied government of Afghanistan and the United Nations have both concluded that U.S.-led troops recently dragged eight sleeping children out of their beds, handcuffed some of them, and shot them all dead. While this apparently constitutes an everyday act of kindness, far less intriguing than the vicious singeing of his pubic hairs by Captain Underpants, it is at least a variation on the ordinary American technique of murdering men, women, and children by the dozens with unmanned drones.

Also this week in Afghanistan, eight CIA assassins (see if you can find a more appropriate name for them) were murdered by a suicide bombing that one of them apparently executed against the other seven. The Taliban in Pakistan claims credit and describes the mass-murder as revenge for the CIA's drone killings. And we thought unmanned drones were War Perfected because none of the right people would have to risk their lives. Oops. Perhaps Detroit-bound passengers risked theirs unwittingly.

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Happy Monday and welcome to the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign for torture accountability. This is post is going up later in the day in the hopes that some of the late afternoon/early evening folks will get a chance to see it and participate. The way this series works is every Monday the Dog writes to the national decision makers urging them to move forward with accountability under the law for the state sponsored torture program of the Bush administration. You get involved by either using the letter as a jumping off point for your own or by pasting the letter over your signature and sending it off. The Dog even provides the links to contact the decision makers, so it very easy for everyone to speak up for the rule of law.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

This week we will be writing to the President, with copies to the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader and the Chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

Here is this week’s letter:

Dear President Obama;

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