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Libby's Replacement Encourages Use of Torture
(David Underhill, Counterpunch, Januarn 20, 2005)
[David Addington was one of the] three lawyers [who] wrote or joined with Gonzales in creating the memos with the trickle-down torture effects. Addington is vice president Cheney's counsel [but will replace the newly indicted Libby as Cheney's chief of staff]. . . . This Gang of Three are the chief source of the legal arguments pronouncing the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of enemy prisoners "obsolete." They argued that "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment is not torture. Transient mental anguish does not count. Nor does mere bodily pain. True torture arrives only at the level of pain "of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure." And even then [according to Cheney's henchman] the damage must be "specifically intended" or no torture has occurred. At a White House meeting with Gonzales the pain quotient of various techniques was debated. Among other measures: slapping "just to shock someone with the physical impact," "waterboarding," and mock burial alive. . . . Inquisitors strip the trio naked, rip off their hoods and slap them across the facewith hard, percussive cracks again again blood and bits of chipped teeth seep from mouths. . . . "Is this torture yet?" the agents ask. . . . They strap the three to boards that pivot head-down into a trough of swill and excrementkeep them there until they are gagging and wild with panic of drowning lever them briefly up to airdown again . . . Torture yet? . . . Hoist them outdump them into a binstart shoveling dirt on themdeeply cover the legs firstthen torsothen . . . Torture yet? . . . In the absence of an affirmative response by the witnesses to these interrogatories the tribunal may infer a negative. . . . They are unearthed and hauled to a side of the Tortugon reserved for further "softening up" of witnesses. The agents bind them into painfully contorted "stress positions" and leave them there without food or water, perhaps for days awaiting recall for further testimony as the hearings progress. . . . "Think about this while you wait," says an inquisitor. "If we bring you back for more testing, no matter what we do it won't be torture. Unless, as you wrote, any damage done is 'specifically intended.' But we intend you no damage-up to and including death. Our only intent is gathering information." . . . Torture yet? . . . The voice recounts Rumsfeld's review and approval of various lists describing "aggressive" techniques that can be used on prisoners. . . . [According to Cheney's man] The president may approve any interrogation technique for the sake of national security. Neither treaties nor U.S. laws against torture can diminish the commander in chief's supreme authority to do whatever the country's safety requires. Therefore subordinates, acting on orders from superiors, may do anything-except what "goes so far as to be patently unlawful." But what could be unlawful if presidential authority trumps all law? The list of permissible methods becomes virtually infinite.

posted by LoZo 10:09 AM