KYRIE ELEISON
COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 31 Dec 2008
`Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
`No, no!’ said the Queen. `Sentence first-verdict afterwards!’
`Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. `The idea of having the sentence first!’
`Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
`I won’t!’ said Alice.
`Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.’
Aside from writing the above delightful lines, Lewis Carroll was a master at constructing sorites, or parasyllogisms, that is, logical arguments with several premises. Very difficult to solve, but even more so to create. He was a genius, and used his knowledge of logic to exploit its opposite, with immortal results.
As a gifted writer of nonsense fiction and verse, perhaps Carroll would have found some slight admiration for Vice President Dick Cheney, if not for his eloquence, at least for his effrontery of logic. Of course Carroll’s own effrontery was constructive and loving, so maybe not.
"We don’t torture," said Sneer, sneering. "Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice. "Of course you do. It’s as plain as a rose by any other name. And it stinks." "I swear on my Bybee," said Sneer, holding his breath and turning very Cabernet Sauvignon colored. Alice feared he might have a heart attack, although she didn’t hope for one. Preposterously, she dreamed of longevity in a jail cell. She tried to think of at least one impossible thing a day, and sometimes two. His cell walls wouldn’t be smeared in blood and feces, and its floor wouldn’t be littered with broken teeth. But he’d be in it. Maybe Halliburton built the place, so he might be electrocuted when he took a weekly shower. There would be Tasers, and pepper spray, and dogs, and constant terror. He would pray for death. Enough! Punches. Rotten food. No medical attention. Beastly company. Screams in the night. Despair.
Jay Bybee (now a judge on the appeals court, ninth circuit), with the help of John Yoo (comfortably tenured law professor at Berkeley) was commissioned by Sneer to come up with the following logic defying conclusion:
‘Unless the amount of pain administered to a detainee during an interrogation results in injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functioning, then it’s not torture.’
Oh. Pardon me.
Well, what about Mr. Frosty? He was a ‘ghost detainee’ by the name of Manadel al-Jamadi an invisible prisoner of the CIA in November 2003 in Iraq at Abu Grahaib prison, Saddam’s (then Bush’s) notorious torture jail in Baghdad. Already with six broken ribs, he was shackled from behind his back to window bars above his head. Imagine that, please. The horror. He hadn’t done anything. It would be quite hard to breathe. Aside from the broken ribs, he was pretty banged up, with damage to his left eye and facial cuts. A sandbag had been placed over his head and face. After he died, his body was covered in ice, and Sneer’s proud defenders of freedom and democracy had trophy photos of themselves taken with him, thumbs up. Is he a candidate? Of course no charges were filed. After all, it was the CIA who did it.
Or what about General Monsoush? Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a cute nickname, (‘Mr. Monny’?) but he turned himself in after his four sons were kidnapped and imprisoned by the brave freedom lovers. After being beaten with sledge hammer handles (the slouches only broke five ribs, but made up for it in contusions and bruising), he was allowed to see his youngest son, Mohammed, who was fifteen. The General wept. The democracy people then told the General that Mohammed would be executed (well, with a name like that!) They took Mohammed out of his father’s view and fired a gun. Probably the General wept some more. They said they would kill his other sons. Then they stuffed him into a sleeping bag head first, broken ribs and all, and sat upon him. He died. But at least there were consequences, for once. The low-ranking officer, Lt. Col. Jameel who emphatically didn’t murder him (the military claimed death by natural causes) received a reprimand and a small fine. Justice is so sweet! Does the General qualify? He certainly suffered serious impairment of body functioning. It sort of stopped, permanently.
No? Well what about Nagam Sadoon Hatab? With such a funny name you just know something bad had to happen. He was an Iraqi scooped in June 2003 (the military admits that 70-90% of Afghans and Iraqis arrested are innocent, so the real figure is probably 95-98%). He was brought to a holding camp close to Nasiriyah. He was savagely karate kicked while handcuffed and hooded. Is that terror or what? Terrific? He became ill. Medical staff, or whatever concluded that he might be faking. He was dragged by the neck outside and left in the hot sun (130° or so). It’s called sun punishment. He died. (The democracy-spreaders beat imprisoned people for begging for water.) At the morgue, his body was dropped several times. Then it was stored unrefrigerated. A bucket containing his internal organs was left on a tarmac in the hot sun for hours. Body parts ended up in Washington and Germany, while the hyoid bone, which would have proved strangulation, disappeared. A magic trick. (A common ruse is to forego autopsy, dismiss results if done by outside pathologists, fail to interview witnesses, lose evidence or falsify evidence, flat out lie, or simply refuse to investigate in the first place. Get rid of whistleblowers, no matter how high ranking. Taguba.). Might Nagam be considered? Was that sufficient organ failure? Should he have done more for democracy?
But enough. Abdul Jaleel. Mohammed Munim Izmerly. Dilar Dababa. Hundreds or thousands of others. Bagram. Camp Cropper. Abu Grahaib. Guantanamo. The Brick Factory. Camp Bucca. The Salt Pit. Whitehorse. Navy ships. A hundred or a thousand others. Tasers. Sledgehammer handles. Phosphoric acid. Deprivations. Feigned executions. Fists. Karate kicks. Knives. Dogs. Stress positions. Dragged by the throat. on a rope. Dragged by the penis on a rope. Being urinated upon. Rape. Sodomy. Sodomy of children. A hundred or a thousand others. Enough!
Navy Seals, Blackwater mercenaries, Military Intelligence, OGA (CIA), random military thugs, and a hundred or a thousand others. Enough!
Sneer has had a lot of power, and has used it with a maliciousness that has never before been seen in a Vice President. But even he doesn’t have the power to alter the meaning of words, or to change reality. A bipartisan Armed Services Committee has found 17-0 that the Bush/Cheney torture policy was established at the highest level of the sick and sadistic Bush Administration even before the convoluted logic of the Bybee/Yoo Torture Memo was conjured by those Mad Hatters. Now Sneer is admitting that he set the Dark Age rack wheels in motion. Even bragging about it. He’s proud of waterboarding, which was uncontestedly considered torture during the Spanish Inquisition, when Americans did it in the Philippines, and when Japanese soldiers were rightfully convicted under the Geneva Conventions of having done it to Americans during WWII. Sometimes the Geneva Conventions come in handy. Sometimes not. Same with the Constitution, apparently. Piece of paper. Indeed. One hundred eighty countries recently voted to consider food for children a human right. The sole dissenter? That’s right.
A pardon by Bush or a passive pardon by President-elect Obama (by pretending nothing happened) will mean that although Cheshire Cheney might fade away, his evil sneer will remain to cast a pall over the future as well as the past.
Torture is the most vile behavior to which human beings can stoop. Nothing is lower, not even murder. That Bush/Cheney would even torture children speaks to the vile and sadistic nature of that insane bully Administration, which has not only disgraced itself, but also diminished all of mankind, perhaps for centuries.
And the fools all claim to be Christians.
And fools believed them.
It must not be allowed to stand.
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John S. Hatch is a Vancouver writer and film maker.
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