Bonnie Block is a founding member and former Chair of WNPJ and a participant in Fast for Justice 2011, a nationwide campaign organized by Witness Against Torture to call attention to those now being held without trial at Gauntanamo and other U.S. military sites. Below, she writes to her Senators, Herb Kohl and Ron Johnson, demanding "an investigation by an independent prosecutor in an effort to bring to justice all those complicit in torture."
January 19, 2011
Senator Herb Kohl, 330 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510-4903
Senator Ron Johnson, 2 Russell Courtyard, Washington DC 20510
Dear Senators Kohl and Johnson,
I am writing you on the ninth day of a liquids only Fast for Justice called by Witness Against Torture (WAT). (See www.witness.torture.org) I want Guantanamo closed now and all the issues of transparency and accountability for torture to be addressed.
January 11th marked the beginning of the tenth year of the operation of Guantanamo prison in Cuba. President Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo by January 22, 2010, but today 173 men are still detained there. We say our legal system does not allow for indefinite detention without charges or trial or for cruel and inhuman punishment -- yet this practice continues as a gross violation of Article Five of the Bill of Rights which as you know says: “No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
There must be an investigation by an independent prosecutor in an effort to bring to justice all those complicit in torture. No one is above the law. We must not let the post 9/11 detention and interrogation policies continue or we will be no different than the terrorists we deplore.
It is also bogus to claim that national security legitimizes or requires us to violate the rule of law and act in a way that is totally inhumane. Such behavior is not just a violation of American values but it actually makes us less secure because it creates ever more people who wish to do this country harm.
Therefore we ask that Congress: 1) Drop the ban on transfers of detainees; 2) Immediately charge or release the men still in detention; 3) Allow civilian trials in federal court of men who are charged with a crime; and 4) Not expand the Authorization for the Use of Military Force to expand the use of military commissions, preventive detention and even extra-judicial killing of U.S. citizens.
On January 17th we commemorated the life of Martin Luther King Jr. His words ring true today:
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Interestingly on that same date in 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower’s said in his farewell address:
We pray…that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”
I hope as you carry out your duties to work for the common good of all, that you will keep in mind the words of these two very different men. I believe they are telling us all that unless we reverse course from the misguided and morally repugnant path that we are on we will surely go down in history as a nation that abandoned its ideals.
The symptoms are all around us -- environmental collapse while we ignore our wasteful ways; unlimited military spending while we cannot meet the needs of our own citizens for jobs or justice; never ending wars of aggression that include torture, preventive detention and extrajudicial killings; the unacceptable physical, emotional and spiritual cost to the men and women who are sent off to kill in our name; and the shameful death, disability and destruction we visit on men, women and children who are innocent victims of war—including most of the men imprisoned at Guantanamo.
As a nation we must do better than that and you are in a position where that is your responsibility. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Bonnie L. Block
2237 Fox Avenue
Madison, WI 53711
