USA Africa Dialogue Series - Veterans and Terror Suspects

Veterans and Allies Arrested in New York as Afghanistan War Enters Year 12
http://warisacrime.org/content/veterans-and-allies-arrested-new-york-afghanistan-war-enters-year-12

Veterans and Allies Arrested in New York as Afghanistan War Enters Year 12

Twenty-five people, most of them U.S. military veterans, were arrested while laying flowers at a war memorial in New York City Oct. 7. They were engaged in a peaceful vigil to honor those killed and wounded in war and to oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan as it entered its 12th year.

The vigil was held at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in lower Manhattan and began with a program of music and speakers including Vietnam veteran Bishop George Packard, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges, and Iraq combat veteran Jenny Pacanowski. At 8:30, the protesters began reading the names of the New York soldiers killed in Vietnam who are commemorated at the plaza and the military dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At 10:15 pm, the police informed the group that the park was officially closed and that if they remained they would be arrested. Many chose to continue reading names and laying flowers until they were handcuffed and taken away. One of the arrestees was Word War II Army combat veteran, Jay Wenk, 85, from Woodstock, NY.

The veterans had four aims:

* Demand an end to the 11-year war in Afghanistan
* Demand an end to all U.S. wars of aggression
* Remember all those killed and wounded by war
* Stand up for our right, and duty, to assemble and organize

Photojournalist, poet and Vietnam veteran Mike Hastie was the first arrested, after appealing to police not to force the veterans out of the war memorial: "This is a sad day. I was a medic in Vietnam. I watched soldiers commit suicide. I had soldiers' brains all over my lap. How can you do this? How can you arrest me for being at a war memorial?"

Former VFP President Mike Ferner said, "I bet a lot of the arresting officers tonight were also military veterans; a number of them didn't look too happy with the job they were told to do."

"War is a public health problem, not only because of those killed directly, but also for the lingering trauma it causes," said leading health care activist Dr. Margaret Flowers. "Ending war would be a good preventive health care measure."

Poet Jenny Pacanowski read part of her poem "Parade," which began "The funeral procession from Syracuse airport to Ithaca NY was over 50 miles long./Dragging his dead body through town after town of people, families and children waving flags./The fallen HERO had finally come home./I wonder how many children who saw this, will someday want to be dead HEROS too./I did not wave a flag that day or any day since my return." She went on, "I live in a dream called my life. Where the good things don't seem real or sustainable./I live in the nightmares of the past called Iraq and PTSD that never run out of fuel./Is it better to be dead hero?/Or a living fucked up, addicted, crazy veteran?"

"As long as we keep exposing the truth about these wars, then these people will not have died in vain," said VFP board member Tarak Kauff.

Veterans For Peace was founded in 1985 and has approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters across the U.S. VFP has official "Observer" status at the United Nations, and is the only national veterans organization calling for the abolition of war.

Still Classified: Terror Suspects' Own Accounts of Their Abuse

by Cora Currier<http://www.propublica.org/site/author/cora_currier/>
ProPublica, Oct. 9, 2012, http://www.propublica.org/article/still-classified-terror-suspects-own-accounts-of-their-abuse

In a motion<http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/454527-2012-09-25-ae013l-govt-modified-mtp-against-disc.html> unsealed last week, the government proposed new ground rules for classified information in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others charged with planning the 9/11 attacks.

The new order says the accused can't talk about their "observations and experiences<http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/454527-2012-09-25-ae013l-govt-modified-mtp-against-disc.html#document/p14/a76878> " of being held by the CIA, including "the enhanced interrogation techniques that were applied to the Accused" — that is, waterboarding and other abuse.

The new protective order — which is pending a judge's approval — eliminates the line that all statements by the accused are presumed classified. In proposing the change, the government wrote<http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/454527-2012-09-25-ae013l-govt-modified-mtp-against-disc.html#document/p7/a76662> [7] it intended to "alleviate defense concerns" about the burden that presumptive classification added to their interactions with their clients. The government's new motion says that attorneys would only need a review of information "they know or have a reason to know is classified."

But when it comes to the CIA's detention program, the new order states explicitly that "the term 'information' shall include without limitation observations and experiences of the Accused."

A Pentagon spokesman did not return requests for comment about the new order.

The American Civil Liberties Union, news organizations, and James Connell, a lawyer representing one of the defendants, have challenged the government's authority to declare something presumptively classified, and to extend classification to a detainee's own statements. The ACLU filed a motion<http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/395635-aclu-motion-for-public-access-5-2-12.html> this spring arguing that the government forcibly "exposed" the detainees to this classified information, and that therefore the detainees couldn't be bound to a non-disclosure agreement.

The group also argues that because the CIA program is now outlawed and has been so widely discussed, there is no compelling national security need to keep the details secret. The ACLU and media groups oppose the 40-second delay the government has imposed on broadcasting case proceedings. The government says the delay simply allows the commission to censor classified information. (That's how the arraignments proceeded in May<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/us/9-11-defendants-face-arraignment-in-military-court.html?pagewanted=all> .)

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