John Yoo and David Addington: A Study of Contempt and Unabashed Evil

John Yoo displayed as much arrogance as Addington. Yoo's defiant contempt for the rule of law, the Judiciary committee, and its members was both flagrant and outrageous. Yoo, like Addington, also bobbed and weaved through the questions. Yoo has unabashedly re-defined torture so that our president, our government, our military could practice torture but because of Yoo's legal re-definition of it our president can say to the world, "We do not torture." It is the twisted logic of Yoo and Addington that, so far, has given legal absolution to an out of control president and has provided justification for "enhanced interrogation techniques" practiced by the US, justifications that attempt to remove the stigma of despotism that is the mark of any government that tortures human beings for any reason. The legality of torture is what Yoo and Addington so brazenly and dastardly defended during the hearings.

David Swanson of afterdowningstreet.org states, "Yoo and Addington were evasive, repeatedly stonewalling members of the subcommittee. The Justice Department evidently placed limitations on what Yoo was allowed to discuss, but he invoked privileges where it did not appear privilege was authorized. This led to Yoo's refusal to answer several direct questions. Jeanne Mirer stated, "The evasiveness of Yoo and Addington did not earn them credibility with the subcommittee, and frustrated many of the questioners. These tactics prevented the subcommittee from getting answers to the many important questions about the source of legal authority for the positions espoused in the 'torture memos' regarding aggressive interrogation techniques."

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The detainee, exhausted and barely conscious, is allowed to drink a few sips of dirty water. He looks at what's left of his body- he sees he has lost a great deal of weight since his detainment, he is a mere shell of what he once was and he wonders if he were ever allowed to go home would anyone recognize him. He has been inside these prison walls for over five years with no relief in sight. He has spent much of this time in solitary confinement only coming into contact with other humans during questionings or beatings. He can't remember a lot of what has happened to him over the course of five years and can't remember when he lost the ability to think clearly. He doesn't know what will happen to him, every day is filled with suffering. Every day he wishes for death.

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John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in an obvious attempt to illustrate the ridiculousness of Yoo's torture memo giving the president unlimited powers in a time of war asked Yoo if the president could order someone buried alive. John Yoo, without remorse, without blinking, and without so much as an inkling of human emotion answered Conyer's question in a flippant and evasive manner, stating that a president would never have to make such an order, but not going so far as to say that such an order being made by a president would be the order of someone sick and depraved. In fact it can be inferred by Yoo's answer that if the president wanted to order someone to be buried alive then the president is within his rights to order it be done.

The Bush regime has used these lawyers to justify war crimes, and if left unchecked and unstopped will continue to use whatever means necessary to legitimize any and all aspects of the Bush agenda. This demonstration of the callous disregard both Yoo and Addington have for both human life and basic human rights shows the incredible capacity for evil that has become an accepted element of the Bush regime, thus profoundly illustrating the incalculable need, right now, for millions of Americans to drive out the despotic Bush regime.

Yoo and Addington both left the hearing to return, unhindered, to their privileged lives and their comfortable homes.

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Meanwhile at an American run prison another day is at an end but the young detainee doesn't know it, he hasn't seen the sun for weeks, he has no idea if it is morning or night. All the young man knows it that he is a "detainee" an "enemy combatant" and he is an enemy of the United States. He has been imprisoned for years without charges, without knowing what he has done to be imprisoned here. He knows that his keepers question him endlessly and mistreat him continually, and he can see no way out of his situation. He truly is unrecognizable as the man he was when he was first captured. He prays that the war will end soon as that may be the only way, other than death, that he will be able to leave the hell that he is a prisoner of.

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