Some observers have suggested that pressure from the lefty Internet activist group MoveOn.org helped push the Obama White House to change its position on an investigation of Bush-era terrorist interrogations. Now, George Soros, who spent $27 million of his personal fortune in an effort to defeat George W. Bush in 2004, has gotten into the act. This afternoon a top official of the Soros organization, the Open Society Institute, sent out the following email:
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
This morning a coalition of human rights groups and other organizations launched an appeal to the President to establish a commission of inquiry to examine and report publicly on America’s use of torture in the period since September 11, 2001. Please sign the petition and forward this email to your friends, family, and colleagues.
The letter directs your attention to a newly-formed group called the Commission on Accountability, which calls for an “independent, non-partisan” commission to investigate “torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001.” Doing so, the group says, will “strengthen U.S. national security and help to re-establish America’s standing in the world.” Co-sponsors of the new group include:
Amnesty International USA
The Brennan Center for Justice
The Carter Center, Human Rights Program
The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University, School of Law
Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, UC Davis
The Center for Victims of Torture
The Constitution Project
Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watch
International Center for Transitional Justice
International Justice Network
The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
National Institute of Military Justice
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
The Open Society Institute
Physicians for Human Rights
The Rutherford Institute
