Jewish groups join call for torture probe

[sabra]

Source: JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A number of Jewish groups, including the Reform movement, joined a call for an investigation into charges that U.S. medical personnel facilitated torture.

The call, under the auspices of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, comes in the wake of an analysis published this week by Physicians for Human Rights of declassified government documents. The analysis concluded that the Bush administration employed health professionals to determine if certain "enhanced interrogation" techniques crossed the line into torture.

According to the PHR report, physicians examined detainees who had been interrogated to assess the impact of techniques such as waterboarding -- simulated drowning -- or sleep deprivation, "ostensibly to keep" the techniques "from crossing the administration’s legal threshold of what it claimed constituted torture." The program "also served as an attempt to provide a basis for a legal defense against possible torture charges against those who carried out the interrogations," it said.

...

Among the groups joining National Religious Campaign Against Torture's call were the Reform movement's Religious Action Center, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and a number of individual synagogues.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday pressing for the investigation, Rabbi David Saperstein, the RAC's director, invoked the religious precept of "building fences around the Torah" to keep nations from sliding into the commission of atrocities.

Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/06/10/2739549/reform-other-groups-investigate-facilitating-torture

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[chill_wind]

2. K & R.

[boycottfaux]

3. About time . .

Now let's see how far this investigation goes . . 

[Iowa]

4. Obama will do everything in his power to shield the torturers. This will go nowhere. eom

[JDPriestly]

5. The number of voices rising in outrage is growing.

It may be too little too late, but I believe that the truth will be revealed. And when it is, we will find just what Obama knew and when. We already know what Bush knew and pretty much when.

President Obama needs to review what it means to be an accessory after the fact to a serious crime. It is important for him to come forward with the information that he and his administration have.

[yava]

7. Its good that our Jewish friends are present

But more are needed. J-Street?

[LynnTheDem]

6. George W. bUsh's America TORTURED people. A WAR CRIME.

And that's just plain fact.

Now how 'bout we put our actions where our mouths are.

Indict.

Imprison.

[EFerrari]

8. K&R