Swiftian Satire

The following two articles are excerpted from the latest issue of The Swiftian Report. For information on subscriptions and reprints, contact The Swiftian Report: P.O. Box 102, West Mifflin, PA 15122-0102; or email: swiftianreport@surfbest.net

White House Denies Ordering Torture

Washington--In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, White House officials continue to deny that the President and his staff ever read various memos or email sent to them by Justice Department attorneys discussing ways to "reinterpret" the Geneva Conventions.

In one such memo, sent in August 2002, the Justice Department provided various legal arguments for allowing U.S. interrogators to use torture - including "cruel, inhuman or degrading" techniques - against suspected terrorists without fear of being in violation of any national or international laws. Among other justifications, the memo stated that such laws - including the Geneva Conventions - were considered by the Justice Department to be an infringement upon the President’s constitutional right to command during wartime.

Although it is unclear when exactly the Justice Department began drafting these legal opinions for the White House, no evidence has yet come to light showing that the White House requested any such arguments until after 9/11/01.

However, it is clear that by January 2002, President Bush had decided that the Geneva Conventions no longer applied: In a memo dated January 25, 2002, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales confirmed to the President "as you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war." Gonzales then reiterated a number of arguments in favor of dropping the Geneva Conventions, including the fact that if the U.S. no longer recognized them, then U.S. soldiers couldn’t be prosecuted for war crimes under the conventions.

According to Gonzales’ memo to the President, the "new paradigm" - or war on terrorism – "renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Gonzales did point out that since not observing the conventions might open the door to similar abuses of American prisoners, the President would need to continue his policy of publicly supporting the Geneva Conventions.

President Bush, who held a press conference last month publicly supporting the Geneva Conventions, denies ever seeing any of the memos - some of which were as long as 40 to 50 pages - and has denied any knowledge of a systematic policy of reinterpreting laws to suit White House purposes.

Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft defended his Department’s memos before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is looking into allegations that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib may not have been the work of a few, low-level "bad apples."
Ashcroft refused to comment on any of the memos - including the August 2002 memo which had just been published in the June 8, 2004, edition of The Washington Post - saying that Congress had no right to read what amounted to legal advice between the President and his attorney.

He then invoked several provisions of the PATRIOT Act, ordering that anyone who had seen the memos be arrested and held as suspected terrorists, including all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, all employees of The Washington Post, and anyone who might have read the June 8 edition of The Washington Post.

- by Mimi Yahn
(Note to Swiftian Report readers: Can you figure out which paragraphs are completely true and which one paragraph is "swiftian?")

White House Issues More "Reinterpretations"

Washington--In a speech held at the end of June, President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a series of legally-binding reinterpretations of key documents, which would likely, they said, affect every aspect of life in America.

According to the President, "America’s new paradigm called for an updating of our legal and moral underpinnings." As a result, he said, "with the help of the Justice Department’s legal expertise, we bring you a new and brighter American tomorrow."

The first document, which Ashcroft characterized as "badly in need of updating," was the Bill of Rights. Although much of it has now been made classified, Ashcroft said that most of its "quainter" provisions would now be "more broadly interpreted." For example, the right to free speech and assembly has been updated to read "the right of media monopolies to free speech and free airwaves, and the right of law enforcement and military forces to free assembly anywhere at any time."

The Constitution - which has also been made classified - has also been updated to fit America’s "new paradigm." However, both Bush and Ashcroft said the most relevant "updates" have to do with elections. While women and blacks will still have the right to vote, the laws have been more broadly interpreted to give corporations who own voting machines the right to accept or reject those votes.

Ashcroft pointed out that the Supreme Court had already reinterpreted the separation of Church and State provision as "separation of Church and the States of California, Oregon and Massachusetts only."

Finally, Bush announced, the Ten Commandments have been updated, and he invited the public to view the new document - which has not been classified - at the government’s new website: www.theocracyforever.com.

Among other revisions, the original "thou shalt not kill" has been changed to "thou shalt not kill rich, white Americans;" "thou shalt not steal" now reads, "thou shalt not steal if you’re not Dick Cheney or one of his cronies;" and "thou shalt not commit adultery" has been reinterpreted to say, "thou shalt not commit homosexual or lesbian acts."