Torture Tour stops in San Francisco

Wednesday night, January 27, "Torture Memos" author John Yoo was confronted by about two dozen protesters at the San Francisco stop of his national book tour for "Crisis and Command". World Can't Wait members flyered outside the Commonwealth Club of California (sponsor of the event), while others interrupted Yoo's presentation inside, 7 times over the course of an hour, identifying the speaker as a War Criminal and denouncing the Torture State he continues to advocate, and challenging the event's moderator to take a stand. Yoo's argument for executive privilege (that the President can do anything he pleases) carefully avoided the real issue of what that power was used for.

The audience response was mixed at first, but more and more applauded the disruptions as protesters were led from the room. I noted about a third of the attendees reading our brochure [ http://tinyurl.com/yd2pbtw ], which exposes the lies hiding under the guise of  "war on terror" and properly identifies Yoo's work as a War OF Terror. We distributed about 200 brochures in total, and had some good discussions with people after the event, including in particular a Commonwealth Club member who expressed her outrage at Yoo's statements and promised to complain to the Club for giving him a platform.

The event was recorded by NPR for future airing, and should be available as a podcast on the Commonwealth Club website [ http://tinyurl.com/yamks9n ] soon.

John Yoo speaks for the criminals who set up a torture state. Who speaks for their victims - who speaks for the detainees at Guantanamo - at Bagram? Fire, disbar, and prosecute John Yoo, Bybee, Addington, and stop the secret renditions and torture NOW!

EVERY PERSON IN THIS COUNTRY HAS TO CHOOSE A SIDE: ARE YOU FOR TORTURE, OR AGAINST IT?