Despite the fact that more and more information continues to trickle out because of the diligence of individuals, groups and organizations concerned about accountability for torture and other violations of civil liberties, the Obama Administration continues to block the release of photos, withhold information and stonewall efforts to hold Bush Administration officials accountable.
Throughout the Obama Administration, episodes have regularly taken place each time firsthand accounts on "enhanced interrogation techniques" and terror suspects in prisons and descriptions from policy papers detailing interrogation procedures are released as a result of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Down on Daley Plaza in Chicago, around one thousand people gathered for the Tea Party Tax Day Protest at noon. Groups like Americans for Prosperity, Campaign for Liberty, and the Illinois Policy Institute had individuals at the Tax Day protest. There also were a handful of people from gun's rights groups, the military, and from white nationalist groups.
The focus of the rally was November 2nd. Much of the crowd talked about and held signs indicating they couldn't wait for the midterm elections. In fact, the Tea Party Chicago protest slogan was "Repeal it. Replace Congress."
I spoke with Elaine Brower, an organizer with the World Can't Wait, about yesterday's protest outside the White House which ended in a massive arrest of 82 people including well-known peace advocates David Swanson and Cindy Sheehan.
As she explained it, people began to show up to McPherson Square at 9:15 am. They put on orange jumpsuits and held up big signs of Gonzales, Cheney, and Bush. The press came over to talk to them and the crowd began to grow.
Activists lined up around a fountain in the square to give the press a photo opportunity.
At 10:35 am ET, Brower left with a group that headed over to the White House so they could be present when Obama held his press conference on health care at 11:15 am ET.
They stood right outside the White House gate (and forced the White House press corps to find another way to get into a press briefing).
The group chanted "Healthcare Not Warfare" and other slogans.
The police wound up chasing them off the sidewalk.
The press were interested in the 75 or more protesters who had gathered outside the gate. They were turning and looking to hear who was shouting "Bring the Troops Home", "Close Gitmo", etc.
As noon approached, the police became more and more intrusive. David Swanson was shouting about First Amendment rights and freedom of speech on a bullhorn as the crowd grew to somewhere between 200 and 300 people.
Brower sat in stress positions. She sat in a cage giving the press another great photo opportunity.
Different affinity groups were now set up outside the White House. Veterans for Peace had coffins. World Can't Wait setup a museum that involved a waterboarding demonstration and signs detailing walling, stress positions, etc through graphic photos.
Members of Witness Against Torture chained themselves to the fence outside the White House.
The press took pictures and video and interviewed many of the protesters about torture.
The group of protesters began to participate in a reading of the names of those who died in Afghanistan. They chanted after a few names were read, "Mourn the dead. Heal the wounded. End the war," and then the names would continue to be read. They would chant again.
This went on for 45 minutes before the police on horses broke up the demonstration and pushed the crowd in the street behind a perimeter created with caution tape.
Those inside the caution tape were warned a few times and then arrested. A big air-conditioned bus showed up to cart the protesters off to Anacostia. They were processed immediately and then told they would have to come back in 15 days.
Brower noted a shift in protocol. Instead of going through the entire process of getting re-fingerprinted, running protesters' records, etc, the police chose to issue citations and force out-of-towners to come back.
The protest was overwhelmingly peaceful. I asked Brower what she thought about the fact that someone from the press corps mentioned the protest to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. I mentioned how the Obama Administration issued a statement saying "leaving Afghanistan is not an option."
Brower said that Gibbs and Obama knew we were there (despite what Gibbs said to the press corps). She does not think they will listen to protest or consider what they have to say. But, people should understand that the people who voted him into office are now standing at his door yelling at him to shift policy.
She added his "base is slipping" and he's going to have to answer to people who wonder why he is abandoning his base.
This was the first protest ever done with a prime focus on Afghanistan.
As indicated in my original entry, the people are trying to push Obama to do what needs to be done. He is ignoring people, pretending people are not there protesting, going about business as usual and simply talking to generals, asking Congress to help with Afghanistan, etc.
How do you confront the reality that Americans will not be able to make Obama do it like they thought they would do when they voted him in office? How do you deal with the idea that he won't deliver hope and change when it comes to Afghanistan?
The answer may be depressing but Americans cannot become further demoralized. Americans must become energized and go out and organize protests in community that share with other Americans the reality of the war in Afghanistan.
While news in America disregards the PHR report that was compiled by the ethics group after reading the 2004 CIA Inspector General report released just over a week and a half ago, the Guardian in the UK details one particularly appalling portion of the report.
I wrote this on August 19 as another New York Times article on how criminal the Bush Administration was as it waged and expanded the "war on terror" circulated. It is referenced and discussed at the end of this article.
Underneath the takeover of the health care debate by right wing mobs, beneath the dumbfounding and ostentatious discussion on whether the U.S. economy is out of a recession or has saved itself from a depression, is the central issue of the "global war on terror," an agenda pursued by "the terrorism industry" that could hold Americans hostage over the next few decades.
By Kevin Gosztola 
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