No, he's not in jail, Jay S Bybee is Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Maybe you're wondering how a devout Mormon came to be a Justice on the largest appellate court in the US and a central figure in authorizing torture. You would be forgiven for wondering exactly what version of Christianity a person adheres to that would allow him to write things that sanctioned the psychological torment of pseudo drowning and confinement with an insect they are deathly afraid of or the physical torment of sleep deprivation, slapping, stress positioning to generate muscular pain, or intemperate conditions.
A US Federal Judge proposed that the imposition of pain repeatedly on a helpless human was sanctioned under the law of the US. This puke passes judgement on people in the United States of America. You are supposed to believe that at the last step before the US Supreme Court you will receive something like justice at the hands of someone who OKs interrogation procedures that only stop short of permanent damage. Looking up at that bench you will see the face of a monster.
If you behaved to a fellow human in any of the manners that Jay S Bybee authorized for interrogation you would go to jail for a very long time as a felon. These authorizations were handed down as legal opinion, the sort of thing that is a judge's job. Try real hard to wrap your head around the idea that legal opinions put forward in any case by this guy have any meaning, whatever.
You can find the 18 page pdf. of this mess here. I hope you have a strong tolerance for undiluted evil because you're going to be subjected to page after page of it. One very revealing measure of a society is how it treats the helpless and this is exactly what Bybee addressed in this memo and his measure is criminal. He not only doesn't belong on a bench, he belongs in front of one in irons.
Wanna make any bets?
2 comments:
This is why the whole "let bygones be bygones" argument doesn't work for me--these people ain't gone; they're still in power and those temporarily out of power are waiting in the wings. Impeachment for federal judges who OK'd torture seems the least we could do to ensure our country gets back on course.
Yoo and Gonzales should both be disbarred over the recent torture memo releases. Of course those two, along with Cheney and Bush himself, really belong in prison, but that won't happen. You'd think at minimum though the American Bar Association would have the nerve to police its own membership. Needing oxygen to live, I won't hold my breath.
Let me just add, does no one see the irony of the president saying there is "nothing to be gained" by looking into crimes of the past the same week the U.S. is trying to deport the 89-year-old John Demjanjuk for crimes he allegedly committed in the 1940s? Come on!
I had forgotten until just now the the Military Commissions Act has already given a retroactive free pass to Gonzalez, Yoo, Cheney and others as far as criminal prosecutions go, but disbarment is still on the table. At least that bastard Yoo shouldn't be teaching the next generation as a college professor. Jesus.
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