“Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time / is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next.”
Cesare PaveseItalian Poet, Critic, Novelist and Translator1908-1950“There is only one thing that arouses animals more than pleasure, and that is pain. Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him.”
Umberto Eco Italian Novelist, Semiotician, Medievalist, Philosopher, Critic1932 On Friday, buried under other news at the end of the week, including the death of Walter Cronkite, was a significant decision regarding the personal accountability of a member of the Bush administration for torture. According to a story by staff writer Warren
Richey of the Christian Science Monitor,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0617/p02s13-usju.html a decision was rendered by U. S. District Court Judge Jeffery White that allows former Assistant Deputy Attorney General John
Yoo to be held personally responsible in a civil lawsuit for the memos he produced that were part of authorizing the harsh interrogation techniques that many consider to be torture, used on alleged enemy
combatant Jose Padilla. Judge White, who I understand to have been a Bush appointee, issued a 42 page decision in which he is quoted "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct".
The full decision can be read or downloaded at the Scribd
:www.scribd.com/.../Padilla-v-Yoo-Order-Granting-in-part-and-Denying-in-Part-Defendents-Motion-to-Dismiss along with a further comment on the ruling, to which I will defer as I am not a lawyer, much less a professor of Constitutional Law at
www.lawprofessorblogs.com . In the comment on that blog, it is noted that Judge White finds the legal cover of the memos was an unconstitutional exercise of power, and also denies
Yoo's claim of qualified immunity. This is a significant ruling in view of the recent Supreme Court decision that threw out a similar case against former AG Ashcroft, and FBI director Mueller who continues to head the FBI under the Obama administration. These cases have been defended on behalf of
Yoo, Ashcroft and Mueller, by the Department of Justice.
It has been the position of President Obama that individuals who were operating in good faith on behalf of the government should not be held
accountable, investigated or prosecuted for their actions or their legal opinions. Given the decision in this suit, and the new interest expressed by Attorney General Holder in addressing the issues involving possible illegal actions, including torture and other illegalities, we can only hope that in future the Department of Justice will find itself on the prosecuting rather than the defending side of these individuals. As I have slogged through the 38 page document that is the part of the report by the five Inspector Generals that is not classified, allow me to share for those who don't have the time or inclination that it was significant who refused to be interviewed by the Inspector Generals who were performing the investigation at the direction of Congress: John
Yoo; former A.G. John Ashcroft; former head of the CIA George Tenet; and aide to former Vice President Cheney,
David Addington. I'm surprised that they have the option to simply refuse to be interviewed, and wonder if subsequently they will be compelled to answer questions by some form of subpoena.
In view of the extremely poor quality of the legal work provided by
Yoo, including the criticism for which
Yoo was singled out by the five Inspectors General relating to the
PSP, the President's Surveillance Program, among other criticism, I can only say I am surprised that
Yoo continues to hold a position as a law professor at
Berekely. Being a bad government lawyer, even if you are a high profile bad lawyer,would not seem to be a very adequate recommendation for teaching. Former A.G. Gonzales, after a period of time apparently having difficulty finding work, also turned up as a professor, at Texas Tech for the fall schedule, but in political science, not law. I would have thought, given how things worked out, that he wouldn't be considered very good at either, but then perhaps he has been hired to teach what not to do.
ToE, if I might impose on your kindness to answer a very general question here that is in your area of expertise, am I correct in my impression that having defended some or all of these individuals mentioned above, the attorneys at the Department of Justice cannot now handle any future/ subsequent prosecution, because the rules governing legal confidentiality would create a conflict of interest? I realize that those of us who have not studied law often form mistaken notions of how the legal process works, so I am asking to avoid making a similar error. Does this suggest that if there were to be any prosecution going forward, of persons who had been defended by DoJ, it would now require a special prosecutor independent of DoJ to pursue that prosecution? I'm trying to discern if there might be any special method / planning / thought to this madness by the Obama administration.... or if it is instead a great deal more random and messy and accidental in the way it is unfolding.
