Spanish courts are considering prosecuting six of George W. Bush’s lawyers under international law. Roots Action, the activist group recently launched by Daniel Ellsberg and other progressive movers and shakers, is asking its supporters to sign a letter to the Spanish people, in support of the prosecution. In an email alert sent out today, Roots Action says:

March 1 is the deadline set by Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco to determine if he will prosecute the “Bush Six” – the group of Bush-era government lawyers including then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for violating international law by creating a “legal” justification for torture.  It was a court in Spain that indicted Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet…

…Over the weekend, former President George W. Bush cancelled plans to travel to Switzerland after he learned that groups sought indictment of him there for torture. Bush has openly admitted authorizing waterboarding on national television, explaining that “the lawyer” said it was legal.

The Roots Action letter urges Spanish citizens to “do what the U.S. won’t do: Prosecute torture.” The group plans to publish the letter in prominent Spanish newspapers, deliver it to Spain’s embassy in Washington DC and to Spanish consulates in seven U.S. cities.

Roots Action’s alert also notes that:

the Obama administration declared last year that it would not pursue prosecutions, ignoring the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Recent documents released by WikiLeaks demonstrate that the Obama government has been heavily pressuring Spanish authorities not to pursue prosecution.

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They had me at Daniel Ellsberg. Ten minutes ago, a call to action landed in my email inbox. It took me less than a minute to decide to sign up. Roots Action defines itself as an initiative aimed at “galvanizing millions of Americans who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection — and defunding endless wars.”

Its opening salvo is simple: “We oppose the war in Afghanistan.” And it challenges supporters to reject “the false claims used to justify US troop casualties, vast military spending, countless foreign deaths and illegal acts…Choose jobs, education and healthcare over endless warfare.”

Roots Action’s list of high-profile supporters is a who’s who of the progressive movement: Jim Hightower, Naomi Klein, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Barbara Ehrenreich, Glenn Greenwald, Coleen Rowley, Norman Solomon and many others. It’s also a partnership with Common Dreams, a widely read on-line purveyor of breaking news and opinion for the progressive community. Roots Action offers a direct link to articles published via Common Dreams.

It’s refreshing to see the “professional left” mobilizing around a cause that has been neglected for too long. In all the talk about the US deficit and “unbridled spending,” the misguided, pointless expense of our military invasion of Afghanistan is rarely mentioned. I’m hoping that the people on that irresistible Who’s Who will really be the movers and shakers they appear to be, and that they’ll be effective in mobilizing the anti-war troops to help us to end the war in Afghanistan and restore reason and responsibility to our national economic dialogue.

I’m in.

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