Tom Hayden at Huff Post: An Open Letter To Dems - Next Step Is No Taxes For Torture

[Hissyspit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/an-open-letter-to-democra_b_47100.html

An Open Letter to Democrats: The Next Step is No Taxes for Torture

To Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chairman Howard Dean, Out of Iraq Caucus:

As the Democrats struggle to define their next step after the President's veto, I would like to suggest an additional approach to those under discussion: end US taxpayer support for sectarian police state actions carried out by branches of the Iraqi government.

I propose an amendment to a forthcoming military appropriations bill:

- Banning or suspending any funds for training, advising and equipping official Iraqi units carrying out sectarian killings, torture, secret detentions on a sectarian basis, or ethnic cleansing in violation of human rights standards and treaty obligations such the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

- Specifically banning or suspending U.S. funding of the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team, U.S. Task Force 6-26 at Camp Nama detention site and any other U.S.-funded entities advising, training, equipping or deployed with Iraq ministries or security forces identified as persistent human rights violators by qualified agencies including but not limited to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq .

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If there is a coming battle over "benchmarks," Democrats should focus attention on whether the U.S.-supported Baghdad regime is capable of progress on ending sectarian killings, torture, mass detentions and ethnic cleansing, or whether it an un-reformable American-assisted sectarian police state. It appears that the Democratic position is to continue funding thousands of American trainers after the withdrawal of most combat troops, a path that will integrate our government with a sectarian regime harboring torture, killing of civilians and ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

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