North Carolinians responded on short notice to witness against former president George W. Bush as he addressed a Boy Scout fundraising luncheon on Sept. 14 in Raleigh. As president, Bush authorized a systematic program of secret detentions, kidnappings and torture, and took the country to war in Iraq on the basis of false information, some obtained through torture. As Rev. Jennifer Copeland of the NC Council of Churches writes here about Bush’s visit, “On the conscience of every North Carolinian should be the 48 men and one woman whose rendition missions were launched from our state. The youngest was 16 at the time of his CIA abduction, about the age some Scouts achieve the rank of Eagle.”
The event occurred at the PNC Arena, and the News & Observer mentioned the protest in its coverage: “….Outside the arena, about a dozen protesters affiliated with the group NC Stop Torture Now held signs with messages like “Arrest Bush.” When Bush was president, North Carolina was a key cog in the CIA’s torture program. Many rendition flights operated out of Smithfield, and a small airstrip about halfway between Raleigh and Fort Bragg. Using those flights, which appeared to be run by a private company, government operatives would bring suspected terrorists to be tortured at CIA black sites or in the prisons of foreign governments. ‘Many of these prisoners have been suspected members of al-Qaeda, but at least one was a case of mistaken identity,’ The N&O reported in 2007, two years after the New York Times first revealed the existence of the flights.
“Bush didn’t address that part of his presidency, although he didn’t entirely shy away from issues of war. He said the toughest decisions he made were to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq, knowing it would mean the deaths of American troops, even if it was for what he saw as a just cause.”
Responses of event-goers who saw the protest were about evenly divided between thumbs-up and middle fingers.
 | ReplyReply allForward |