Marjorie Cohn: Demanding Accountability from Condi

[babylonsister]

Demanding Accountability from Condi

By Marjorie Cohn
May 6, 2009


Editor’s Note: Condoleezza Rice has been a longtime Washington favorite, praised for everything from her intellect and supposed moderation to her social grace and wardrobe. So there is a strong disinclination to hold her accountable for a role in George W. Bush’s torture and illegal war policies.

However, at Stanford University where she has decamped after leaving government, students and alumni demanded that the university repudiate Rice for her complicity in war crimes, as Marjorie Cohn of After Downing Street writes in this guest essay:



During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War.

Veterans of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement had gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion during the weekend. The gathering featured panels on foreign policy, the economy, political and social movements, science and technology, media, energy and the environment, and strategies for aging activists.

On Sunday, surrounded by alumni and students, Lenny Siegel and I nailed a petition to the University President’s office door. The petition, circulated by Stanford Say No to War, reads:

“We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (included ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities.”

I stated, “By nailing this petition to the door of the President’s office, we are telling Stanford that the university should not have war criminals on its faculty. There is prima facie evidence that Rice approved torture and misled the country into the Iraq War. Stanford has an obligation to investigate those charges.”

more...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/050609c.html


Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. Read her articles at www.marjoriecohn.com.

[Doctor_J]

1. I think the PTB have determined that there is no outrage so great

that we will turn off Fox "News" and grab our pitchforks, torches, and rope. And they're right.

[opihimoimoi]

2. CONDI is a WAR CRIMINAL.....OMG....slowly the threads unravel