Tell President Obama to put Bush administration on trial before the ICC for torture

[calebforaction]

On the morning of August 30th, 2011 former vice president Dick Cheny
was interviewed on national television. He went on NBC's the Today
show to discuss his newly published book "My Time: A Personal and
Political Memoir". In this interview with host Matt Lauer, Cheny
openly admits to using an extreme interrogation technique on
individuals suspected of having information vital to the prevention of
terrorist attacks on the US. The specific enhanced interrogation
technique is called "waterboarding". For those of you who may be
unfamiliar with waterboarding, allow me to paint a picture you.
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over the
face of an immobilized captive, causing the individual to experience
the sensation of drowning. The head is tilted back and water is poured
into the upturned mouth or nose. Eventually the subject cannot exhale
more air or cough out more water, the lungs are collapsed, and the
sinuses and trachea are filled with water. The subject is drowned from
the inside, filling with water from the head down. The chest and lungs
are kept higher than the head so that coughing draws water up and into
the lungs while avoiding total suffocation. "His sufferings must be
that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown."
Despite being waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed did not divulge actionable intelligence until at least 2006,
withholding the information under torture. KSM revealed it only under
the sophisticated non-coercive persuasion favored by professional
interrogators.
In 2007 it was reported that the CIA used waterboarding on
extrajudicial prisoners and that the Department of Justice had
authorized the procedure, even though the United States government
hanged Japanese soldiers for waterboarding US prisoners of war in
World War II. During the presidency of George W. Bush, U.S. government
officials at various times said they did not believe waterboarding to
be a form of torture. To justify its use of waterboarding, the Bush
administration issued classified legal opinions that argued for a
narrow definition of torture under U.S. law, including the Bybee memo,
which it later withdrew.
Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for
Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been
subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. In
an interview for The New Yorker, he argued that "it was indeed
torture. 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said.
One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The
fear of being killed is a terrifying experience', he said". Keller
also stated in his testimony before the Senate "Waterboarding or mock
drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is
poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly
can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the
prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive,
with all of the physiological and psychological responses expected,
including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia and
gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually
drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from
inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks,
depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier
who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years
after his abuse."
If you believe that Dick Cheny, George W. Bush and various other
members of the Bush administration must be tried in the ICC for
torture tactics used during Bush's term, follow the link below to sign
the petition urging president Obama to conduct a thorough
investigation into the use of waterboarding and to insist that these
men be brought to justice by the ICC.

http://www.change.org/petitions/torture-is-torture-even-if-the-us-government-does-it

Thank you
Caleb