Torture Docs
This entry was posted on 4/19/2009 10:20 PM and is filed under Added Articles.
Super Duper Top Secret
Justice Department Meeting
Of the Top Legal Minds in the Country
(or at least in the Bush Administration)
Bybee - OK guys said Bybee to Bradford and Yoo. We have a directive here at Justice to give our best opinion as to how to approve whatever we’re told to do. OK?
Bradford - Says who?
Bybee - Dick’s office.
Yoo – I approve.
Bradford – Me too.
Bybee – OK, all agreed?
Agreed, said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
Bradford – OK now maybe we’ll read it and see what it actually tells us to approve of. OK, we are supposed to approve of torture.
Yoo – I agree. Of who?
Bybee – First, let’s review in case anyone asks. What does the Constitution say?
Bradford – I didn’t know either but there’s a note attached that says the eighth article of the Bill of Rights, whatever that is, says “no cruel and unusual punishment.”
Bybee – Oh well, that could mean almost anything.
Yoo – Right. I see a huge loophole right away here. What if it’s not both? What if it’s cruel but not unusual or unusual but not cruel? It doesn’t say cruel or unusual so it must be both to be prohibited or as I see it all bets are off.
Bradford – Good point, well taken there, Yoo. So what renders it not unusual?
Yoo – I’d say anything that’s ever been done in the past. I know we’ve studied methods used against us in the past in the Korean War, how about those as a guideline for us to use against others?
Bybee – Or methods used by Attila the Hun or Hitler?
Bradford – Right, I see, how can they be unusual when they’ve once been done before? And we can think of others too, there’s ample precedent, Idi Amin, or Pol Pot or genocides in general, here, there and yonder. No, these cannot be called uncommon acts in the course of human events. OK then, what about cruel?
Bybee – Too vague a concept. One man’s cruelty is another man’s fun, it depends on which end of the stick or baton you’re on that’s doing the beating.
Bradford – Good. I like to kick dogs and pull the wings off butterflies myself, can that be wrong?
Yoo – There’s a lot of people in this country right now I believe should be arrested on the spot, sentenced without trial, held indefinitely without right to counsel or being able to review any of the evidence against them, and then slowly drawn and quartered before they’re hanged. And yet there are some in this country who would deny me the freedom to do this.
Bradford – That’s an out and out outrage.
Bybee- Well what about punishment then?
Yoo – There’s a serious problem with that too. After all, all torture isn’t necessarily penal, some is coercive, which is an entirely different thing.
Bybee – True, we punish them until they tell us what we want to hear and then we stop. There’s certainly no punishment involved. Arguably it hurts it worse than it does them, at least that’s what my parents always said when they beat the living crap out of me.
Bradford – Theoretically then we are trying to keep them from punishment of longer duration by torturing them harder so it can stop sooner.
Bybee – Right. Our torturers merely seek a quicker end to torturing, and in that sense it’s a good and noble thing, I’d say. Downright humane, in fact.
Bradford – OK, then clearly, this Constitution thing is way, way too vague on the matter to be of any relevance whatsoever to our discussion. Besides, clearly the action must be both cruel and unusual and punishment all three together against people we don’t approve of that the constitution comes into play at all.
Yoo - I think that pretty well guarantees exactly never.
Bybee- Exactly, then this Constitution thing is just an irrelevant rag to us here in this matter of torture before us?
Agreed said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo
Yoo- What about the Geneva convention?
Bradford – Gee, Geneva’s far.
Bybee- I agree, too far out of our jurisdiction to apply.
Yoo- Besides what’s convention got to do with it when the circumstances are so unconventional, after all we’ve been told to compromise our principles by Dick and George, what’s right and wrong got to do with it anyway?
Bybee – Good point, Yoo. How about you Bradford?
Bradford – What’s a jurisdiction?
Yoo – Then it shall be here agreed that no international conventions shall apply to this highly unconventional national situation. And because the enemy combatants are being carefully sequestered overseas, our Constitution doesn’t apply because it’s international. It’s a catch – 22. Agreed?
Agreed said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
Bradford – What about if organ failure occurs?
Yoo – Get yourself a piano tuner.
Bradford and Bybee- Oh Yoo, ha, ha.
Bybee – That’s like a pun, right? Good one.
Bradford – Oh fun.
Bybee- In that humorous light, organ failure doesn’t sound so bad, since we laughed out loud about it, so I move that organ failure should be allowed because because it has the potentiality of being funny to someone and may actually serve to lighten the mood of the whole ordeal.
Agreed said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
Bybee – OK now here’s a toughie. What if someone dies?
Yoo – Ooh, ouch. Tough luck for them.
Bradford – Accidentally or due to malice?
Bybee – You mean malicious torture as opposed to the benevolent kind?
Bradford – I mean accidentally or unaccidentally?
Yoo – Ooh, nice, fine point of distinction there.
Bybee – Sure I see, ipso de facto, fatso, here’s the facts, so why kill someone you are torturing when the whole point of it is to keep them just inches away from death so you can torture then some more?
Yoo – Ah ha, I see. That’s irrational. So by torture has to be accidental because no good torturer who loves his work wants to see the object, er thing er- well human being, I guess, technically – he is torturing die because then his fun’ll be done.
Bybee – Right, right he’ll have worked himself right out of a well paying job.
Bradford – Good, great. Shrewd point. Therefore I think we can stipulate that all deaths by torture shall be by definition accidental.
Yoo – Just plain bad luck.
Bybee – Almost unavoidable, really like an act of God. The same God who’s on our side, I might point out.
Yoo – And not on theirs we might add.
Bradford – Right. OK, agreed, therefore the deaths and maiming and insanity that may result from torture must perforce, heretofore, to wit, to woo, be considered unavoidable accidents, not liable to any scrutiny or second guessing by our many enemies in this country, or and outside to.
Yoo – Really, I think a simple, “oops”, or “oh, excuse me” ought to suffice in most instances of accidental death by torture.
Agreed said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
Bybee – One caveat to the rule here that I propose is that I say we should stipulate, thatwhatever we agree to here may be immediately widened if a new torture technique should happen to arise on TV. Namely on “24”, If Jack Bauer does something I think we can all agree that it must be good and fruitful forthe country, whatever it is.
Yoo- Ooh, yeah, cool. I love that show. It’s on Fox too. The torture channel, as if just listening wasn’t torture enough.
Bradford - What’s Rush say?
Bybee – Actually I think we are out ahead of him on this. But I’m sure he’ll approve. As any self-indulgent, blowhard, self-centered anti-constitutional freak would.
Agreed?
Agreed said, Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
Yoo – Just for the sake of argument then, try this one for size. Let’s say that someone while being tortured is not electrocuted, but stabbed and strangled as well? Anything wrong with that?
Bybee – I’d say not cruel because not unusual enough.
Bradford – Oh I don’t know, it’s fairly unusual.
Bybee – It’s not unusual enough though. It has to have happened before.
Bradford – You’re right, that’s been done to death.
Yoo – No you still don’t get it. This would be OK because if he died it wouldn’t be cruel, the grounds would be if he had all those things being done to him, death would be tantamount to a mercy killing. And gentlemen, Yoo said, his eyes filling with tears, as he stood up, “I’ll be damned if I will stand party to anyone trying to outlaw mercy in this country.”
Bybee – Here, here. Yoo. Well said. Agreed.
Agreed said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
Bradford – Well, by God boys, you know I think we’ve done it. In just a few minutes we’ve managed to undo centuries of American and international standards of law and humane criminal justice. And it only took us a few minutes. We’ve rewritten everything . Dick and Georgie and Donnie’ll be so proud. This will surely place our names securely in the legal annals of the United States writ large.
Bybee – Of course, we’ll be legends, but seriously, no one will ever see this will they? I’ve got a judgeship waiting for me.
Yoo –Good God no! We need to put this in Cheney’s vault and never let it reach the light of day.
Bradford - Well maybe you’re right, I got a little carried away. If ripping up half the Constitution isn’t a pure case of our new expanded, elastic sense of national security I don’t know what is. I feel safer already knowing that for once the torturers are going to be on our side.
Yoo – Besides, trust me, we are building a permanent republican majority in this country so no way any of this will ever see the light of day. Trust me.
Bybee – But I believe we three can hold our heads high for what we’ve done here today. The world has been trying to eradicate torture for thousands of years. And it’s taken us just a bit of an afternoon. We have literally defined it out of existence. Oh sure, we’ll have to write it up like we worked hard at it later, and you know, gave a damn about our jobs, by putting in a bunch of legalese pettifoggery and such but for now I couldn’t be prouder of us.
Bradford – Exactly. Under these rules in our country you can’t torture anybody anymore, even if you tried. Hell, not even if they died. Man that’s some accomplishment. We have ensured that no one will ever be held accountable for torturing another under our laws for as long as our laws are held in abeyance under our new secret laws.
Yoo – Yoo hoo, Yoo shrieked, pumping his fist in the air.
Bybee - So ordered, so moved.
Agreed said Bradford, Bybee and Yoo.
