Addington's Assault on America

Americans have yet to comprehend the devastating impact of its legal strategies in the War on Terror that has defaced the country's image in the global community, and has tarnished the nation's soul. The "New Paradigm" made a mockery of the Constitution and disregarded ideals consistent with American values which the country once so proudly proclaimed, and nearly succeeded in overturning 200 years of jurisprudence that defined the limits of the President's powers - by making war a substance of dictatorial prerogative. The chief architect of this abomination is David Addington.

The New Paradigm was structured from an interpretation of the Constitution that would compel America's founding fathers to commit harakiri. It provides that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to violate the Civil Liberties of its citizens, trash International Laws, and contravene the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War if national security so requires. All known legal boundaries are eliminated, and illegal surveillance, torture, secret and prolonged detention shall be used to allow the Pentagon to contain terrorists, preempt and prevent future attacks. It devised a system of detention and interrogation called "rendition" that placed suspects outside of the US and beyond the reach of Criminal and Military courts, whose stringent standards on evidence and protecting defendants rights were seen as too complex. Instead, Military Commissions were created and the suspects were not designated as prisoners of war but as illegal enemy combatants - a legal euphemism to go around the established standards of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners.

David Addington is Vice-President Dick Cheney's General Counsel, and their partnership dates back to the late 80's and early 90's. Both share the belief that the Presidency was weakened by the reform movements after Vietnam and Watergate, and that the Office of the President was meant to be very powerful. When Cheney became Vice-President, Addington masterminded the transition of setting up the most powerful Vice-Presidency in American History. He merged the office of the President with Cheney's into a single Executive Office under the rationale' that the Vice-President is the executive and implementer of the President. Cheney thus became the de facto President of the less than intellectual lightweight George W. Bush, whose eloquence and use of the english language is slightly below the level of porky pig.

Addington is a summa cum laude Foreign Service graduate of Georgetown University who also earned honors at Duke Law School. After 9/11 he was the only lawyer in the Bush Administration's inner circle who was ready and prepared to provide legal certainty at a time of momemtous political and legal confusion. This gave him enormous power and influence in crafting the paradigm that sunk America's respectability and credibility as a just and humane society.

Despite his legal brilliance and mastery of National Security laws, Addington's creations manifest ignorance of military law or the laws of war. Military Commissions can try only violations of the Laws of War, and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts is not a crime under these laws as established by the Nuremberg trials after World War ll. Otherwise, all soldiers can be charged with conspiring to fight for their chosen side. In addition, his model has failed to produce results. Of the 700 detainees at Guantanamo, only 8% are alleged to have associated with Al Qaida, 55% never engaged in any hostile act against the US, and the rest were charged with spurious crimes like fleeing from US bombs. All but 5% were captured by non-US players, many of whom were bounty hunters.

Addington is a reclusive operator unknown to most US voters. But his arrogance, expressed in legal machinations that defy congressional oversight, public accountability, and a predilection for what is legally plausible rather than what is morally upright - even if it is a convoluted method of proving his philosophy of Presidential power. He has become so obsessed with this philosophy to the point of madness, that he would destroy all notions of America's fairness and proceed to construct rules with a vested interest in conviction. He frequently cites Lincoln's suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus during the civil war, which Lincoln never claimed an inherent right; as justification for placing National Security above the rule of law. In this, he has turned a historical aberration into a dogma of Presidential prerogative.

David Addington has assaulted America's honor among the community of nations which has damaged the country's reputation beyond what any other US President has done. But it is the face of George W. Bush that will be dragged to the slime and the mud for this atrocity; and it will be the American people who will carry the burden of this shame. The only real restitution that can be obtained for this crime is to make him a stateless person with sanctions on any country that would grant him asylum. Then we will witness what justice will be unleashed by the forces the New Paradigm sought to demolish, to this dog of war.

Haarrrrwwwwk...Twoooooooph...Ting!

Sources: Jane Mayer, The Hidden Power
The Legal Mind Behind the White House War on Terror
The New Yorker

Jeffrey Steinberg, Cheney's Lawyer Addington Penned Key Torture Memo
Executive Intelligence Review

Bob Herbert, Madness and Shame
New York Times