Eggs Laid by Tigers
Sunday, April 19, 2009
"I in my intricate image . . . ."
Gentlefolks,
I don't know if is President Hussein is right not to prosecute torturers from the Bushco years who are still serving him in positions of power and trust. I make a poor bureaucrat.
I think I know that allowing Jay. S. Bybee to continue to serve as a judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is wrong, because of the torture memorandum he wrote as a deputy US attorney general.
You may read the memorandum here if you are stout of heart.
The memorandum damns its author, without elaborate exegesis. Who among you would tolerate such goings-on in your local jail? Torture was outlawed in our American jails when I was a mere youth.
To have torture proposed at the highest levels makes me mad.
Who knows what secrets lurk in the he hearts of men?
Some of you will have to appear before Judge Bybee; probably some of you already have. It insults Americans to have such a judge rule on their cases. [I know people change; Bybee may now be a kindly, gentle soul; let me know if I have misjudged a man I don't know. Easy to do. Maybe too easy. See my comment on the "shadow self",following a comment on Texas' governor.]
I would like to have Judge Bybee impeached if he is who he was. I would rather have my little dog JJ decide my case than to have Judge Bybee decide it.
Here's JJ, quaffed to
assume a his juridical duties
I am not alone. Google "bybee torture memo" for citations to others of like mind; and for discussions, pro and con. You may note that many of those who advocate impeachment have a liberal bent. I trust all who value American principles -- yeah, even Governor Perry, for all his secessionist talk -- will join in: you don't have to like fellow travelers.
If you agree, please write your congressional representative asking for articles of impeachment. I say "representative" rather than "senator" because it is the House of Representatives that initiates impeachment proceedings.
___________________
This is the letter I sent to my representative. Letters, for antique reasons, carry more wright than emails.
Representative Neil Abercrombie
1502 Longworth House
Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Neil:
I would take it as a kindness if you were to introduce articles of impeachment against Jay S. Bybee, among other things, for drafting and circulating the August 1, 2002, Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting General Counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency entitled Interrogation of al Qaeda Operative. The memorandum is at
http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf
Mr. Bybee is now a judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, my own court. It would be impossible for me to appear before Judge Bybee given the proven incompetence demonstrated in that memorandum. Not only does Judge Bybee show himself to be incompetent, he demonstrates a misunderstanding of America that renders him unfit to judge our citizens.
Thanks for all you have done for Hawaii in the past. I wish you great success in the future. Feel free to call on me if I can help you.
It is said that Neil plans to run for governor, for a reason unclear to me. Perhaps he will think that authoring an impeachment resolution will enhance his chances. Perhaps the senate's poor judgment in confirming Bybee will make him mad. Perhaps nothing at all will come of our letters, but I note that I no longer have a lurking dread of a midnight knock on the door.
______________________________
Texas' Gov. Perry threatens the partition of Texas into five states, creating eight new conservative senatorial seats [assuming all parts of Texas is conservative]. That's a right Texas reserved when it joined the Union, but it'll never happen: who'd get the Alamo?
________________________________
THE SHADOW SELF
When I was young I hated torture.
Here I am, callow youth,
when torture was first forbidden to the governments
we hold so dear.
Secure in my belief in invulnerable purity,
nothing so awful as torture could touch me,
or touch others by my hand.
Now, jaded and worn by the certain knowledge of the harms I have done by action and inaction,
Who knows what secrets lurk in the he hearts of men?The Shadow knows.
I come to know the shadow self. We -- I venture to say all of us -- harbor, just outside of awareness, a passion for the things we most detest. Most of us, fortunately, don't act on those unacknowledged desires: otherwise the world would be as Goya sees it.
Perhaps it is.
Some of us -- perhaps must of us -- as we age , come to know the shadow self or at least see its shadowy outlines.
Knowing I harbor in me impulses toward a t torture I detest, only timidly acted out, as if in play, I cannot condemn Bybee as the young me would have happily done.
I nevertheless would like to see Bybee impeached.
What would impeachment do to a man like Bybee? Some of you will have a theory; at least one of you will write an analysis. I have a hope: that an impeached Bybee will become a lovable old grandfather; and a concern: that he will retreat into crusty bitterness, who can imagine what to be reborn as.
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