By Cheryl Abraham
Somewhere in an American run prison
a young man, a “detainee”, is bent over, his head
touching his shins, his hands shackled tightly behind his legs and affixed
to the bars of his cell. He is shirtless and his prison pants are soaked
with sweat and urine. He cannot move and he is in agony, he has been
in this position for hours, maybe days, he cannot remember how much
time has passed, he does not know the day or the month, he only knows
pain.
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Meanwhile in the United States, John
Yoo and David Addington temporarily disrupt their privileged lifestyles
and leave their comfortable homes. They are to testify before
a House subcommittee meeting regarding statements and documents they
have authored that have been used by the U.S. government to legalize
the destruction of the human body in the name of national security,
and to justify the opinion that the president has unlimited power.
Yoo and Addington arrive to all the pomp and circumstance of rock stars,
lights flashing as the press takes picture after picture, and yells
out questions. Yoo and Addington present themselves as “experts”
to some of the most powerful people in the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The young man’s legs tremble and
shake from the exertion and strain of the stress position he has been
forced into. He has no idea how long he has been without water, sleep,
or food. Muscles throughout his body have been in a perpetual spasm
and there is no position he can move into to lessen his pain because
he cannot move. The smell of his cell sickens him, the pain overwhelms
him, and he can see no relief coming to him anytime soon. He is utterly
alone and helpless against what is happening to him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It seems as if David Addington has enough
of a conscience to know that he should not blatantly state his approval
of extreme, cruel, and harsh interrogation techniques. Or maybe he is
acting under the time honored principal of hedging bets for his own
future. But much is revealed about the dark side of Cheney’s former
chief of staff by what he did NOT say under questioning by the House
subcommittee. Addington kept a haughty demeanor during the entire meeting
and did not bother to veil his utter contempt of both the questions
and the questioners. These questions, almost without exception, related
to the moral and legal issues regarding the treatment of prisoners.
When Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D- N.Y.) asked Addington if he would bear
any responsibility if the interrogation program was found to be illegal
Addington’s reply was a smug, “Is that a moral question or a legal
question?” Addington went on to state that he bore no legal or moral
responsibility for the interrogation program. Nadler asked Addington
whether or not it would be legal to torture a detainee’s child as
part of an interrogation, to which he countered with subterfuge –
incredible considering the simplicity of answering such a question by
any moral, reasonable, and rational person.
Addington bobbed and weaved through further
questioning stating that he “did not recall” if he had ever pushed
for harsh interrogation techniques. The Washington Post writes of
Addington, “Think of Addington
as the id of the Bush White House. Though his hidden hand is often merely
suspected — in signing statements, torture policy and other brazen
assertions of executive power — Addington’s unbridled hostility was
live and unfiltered yesterday.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The young man doesn’t know what
the charges are against him, he’s never seen a lawyer. He can’t
even allow himself to think about all the hows and whys that ended up
with his imprisonment. He tries not to think about his family and whether
they know where he is or whether they are even alive. It is an agonizing
litany of questions and imaginings he often repeats to himself.
He is torn between wanting to die to escape this pain and wanting to
live to prove his innocence. But these thoughts leave him as the pain
overtakes the thinking part of his brain and he feels more like a trapped
and horribly wounded animal than a human being.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Addington was asked to describe an interrogation
he witnessed at Guantanamo Bay. “You could look and see mouths
moving,” Addington answered arrogantly, “I infer that there
was communication going on.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The young man hears footsteps. They
are coming again to ask their questions, questions he has no answers
for, but he will tell them anything, anything to be released from
his bonds, he will confess to anything they want him to just so he can
lie on the floor and ease some of his pain. He doesn’t care at this
point what the questions are; just the small hope that his abusers will
untie him is enough to evince any information from him, true or fabricated.
The guards start yelling their questions and the young man screams and
cries his incoherent answers. From a distance another guard watches
and sees that mouths are moving,
“There must be some communication going on in that cell!” the guard
muses.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Yoo displayed as much arrogance
as Addington. Yoo’s defiant contempt for the rule of law, the Judiciary
committee, and its members was both flagrant and outrageous. Yoo also
bobbed and weaved through the questions. Yoo has unabashedly re-defined
torture so that our president, our government, our military could
practice torture but because of Yoo’s legal re-definition
of it our president can say to the world, “We do not torture.” It
is the twisted logic of Yoo and Addington that, so far, has given legal
absolution to an out of control president and has provided justification
for “enhanced interrogation techniques” practiced by the US, justifications
that attempt to remove the stigma of despotism that marks any government
that tortures human beings for any reason. The legality of torture is
what Yoo and Addington so brazenly and dastardly defended during the
hearings.
David
Swanson of afterdowningstreet.org states,
“Yoo and Addington were evasive, repeatedly stonewalling members of
the subcommittee. The Justice Department evidently placed limitations
on what Yoo was allowed to discuss, but he invoked privileges where
it did not appear privilege was authorized. This led to Yoo’s refusal
to answer several direct questions. Jeanne Mirer stated, “The evasiveness
of Yoo and Addington did not earn them credibility with the subcommittee,
and frustrated many of the questioners. These tactics prevented the
subcommittee from getting answers to the many important questions about
the source of legal authority for the positions espoused in the ‘torture
memos’ regarding aggressive interrogation techniques.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The detainee, exhausted and barely
conscious, is allowed to drink a few sips of dirty water. He looks at
what’s left of his body- he sees he has lost a great deal of weight
since his detainment, he is a mere shell of what he once was and he
wonders if he were ever allowed to go home would anyone recognize him.
He has been inside these prison walls for over five years with no relief
in sight. He has spent much of this time in solitary confinement only
coming into contact with other humans during questionings or beatings.
He can’t remember a lot of what has happened to him over the course
of five years and can’t remember when he lost the ability to think
clearly. He doesn’t know what will happen to him, every day is filled
with suffering. Every day he wishes for death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee, in an obvious attempt to illustrate the ridiculousness of
Yoo’s torture memo giving the president unlimited powers in a time
of war asked Yoo if the president could order someone buried alive.
John Yoo, without remorse, without blinking, and without so much as
an inkling of human emotion answered Conyer’s question in a flippant
and evasive manner, stating that a president would never have to make
such an order, but not going so far as to say that such an order being
made by a president would be the order of someone sick and depraved.
In fact it can be inferred by Yoo’s answer that if the president wanted
to order someone to be buried alive then the president is within his
rights to order it be done.
The Bush regime has used these lawyers
to justify war crimes, and if left unchecked and unstopped will continue
to use whatever means necessary to legitimize any and all aspects of
the Bush agenda. This demonstration of the callous disregard both Yoo
and Addington have for both human life and basic human rights shows
the incredible capacity for evil that has become an accepted element
of the Bush regime, thus profoundly illustrating the incalculable need,
right now, for millions of Americans to drive out the despotic Bush
regime.
Yoo and Addington both left the hearing
to return, unhindered, to their privileged lives and their comfortable
homes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile at an American run prison
another day is at an end. But the young detainee doesn’t know it,
he hasn’t seen the sun for weeks, he has no idea if it is morning
or night. All the young man knows it that he is a
“detainee” an “enemy combatant” and he is an enemy of the United
States. He has been imprisoned for years without charges, without knowing
what he has done to be imprisoned here. He knows that his keepers question
him endlessly and mistreat him continually, and he can see no way out
of his situation. He truly is unrecognizable as the man he was when
he was first captured. He prays that the war will end soon as that may
be the only way, other than death, that he will be able to leave the
hell that he is a prisoner of.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cheryl Abraham is a member of World
Can’t Wait from the Seattle area and a regular writer for the World
Can’t Wait web site.