By Steven T. Jones
It’s shameful that the Bay Area is home to so many of the top people implicated in creating this country’s torture program. They include the former White House lawyers who created the legal justification for the program, Jay Bybee (who is now a justice at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, located on 7th Street) and John Yoo (who teaches law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall); top Bush Administration enablers Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, who are down at Stanford’s Hoover Institute; and our own Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was reportedly briefed on the program when it began back in 2002 as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
While Pelosi has so far (inexplicably) escaped serious scrutiny of the issue (just as she did about her foreknowledge of Bush’s illegal wiretapping program), there’s a budding impeachment movement against Bybee, Rice and Rumsfeld reportedly need to consult lawyers before traveling (they should really visit Spain, which I hear is lovely this time of year), and regular protests calling for Yoo’s removal continue next week when World Can’t Wait plans to have a large protest outside Boalt’s commencement ceremonies on May 16 at the Greek Theater.
Justice is coming slowly, but it is coming.