Protesting War Criminal Rice's (Hypocritical) Speech "Why Democracy Matters" to Minnesota "Law Day" Participants

Women Against Military Madness’ “Tackling Torture at the Top” Committee will lead a demonstration outside the Minneapolis Hilton, 1001 Marquette Avenue South, beginning at 4:00 p.m.  (Thursday, May 23).  

A number of peace activists will be wearing orange jumpsuits, to keep reminding the world of the innocent Gitmo detainees who are on hunger strike because they are so hopeless at being held indefinitely without the right to even know of the charges against them.  

It should be recalled that Guantanamo was initially created by the Bush Administration (also under the tutelage of Condi Rice) by deliberate design, to illegally serve as a location where international and US Constitutional rule of law would not interfere with the indefinite holding and abuse of US prisoners.  Our efforts will hopefully bolster Obama to announce this afternoon in his scheduled “national security speech” (being reported by NY Times “Obama, in a Shift, to Limit Targets of Drone Strikes”) that he will reduce drone assassinations and apparently finally start releasing some of the Gitmo detainees.  

Why would the Minnesota legal community choose to invite, of all people, Condi Rice to speak here when she has repeatedly demonstrated little or no regard for U.S. law?  It should be recalled that Condi is the former official who made up “mushroom cloud” stories to help George Bush lie the U.S. into war on Iraq, killing over a million people, and who also gave the order to the CIA to torture.  Conspiracy to torture is a felony under U.S. Code in both Title 18, Section 2340 and 2441.  The Convention Against Torture requires the criminal prosecution of complicity in torture.   So, not only is the hypocrisy breathtaking but it’s doubtful the Minnesota legal audience will get an honest answer out of her ostensibly hypocritical speech entitled: “Why Democracy Matters.”  If theMinnesota “Law Day” participants actually cared about upholding the law, they would have their keynote speaker arrested for war crimes.