"America has gone mad."

April 30, 2011 at 2:01 P.M. In addition to the damage to "Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison," a single quotation mark was removed from this essay as part of the frustration-inducement and censorship effort.

April 29, 2011 at 9:51 A.M. "Errors" inserted overnight will now be corrected.

The U.S. disaster at Guantanamo prison is symbolic of what one British writer describes as "America's madness." The continuing insanity of torture as interrogation -- to say nothing of abandonment of basic standards of due process and legality -- will produce copy-cat efforts by unfriendly forces and powers against Americans together with a well-deserved loss of respect for American institutions in the world.

As I sip my morning coffee today, I am struck by the moronic programing made available to people on network television. The deliberate infantilizing process together with glorifications of crassness, stupidity and ignorance, consumption as an all-purpose balm for our wounds in life ("let's go shopping, George!") borders on cruelty in a world torn by horrors that are ignored or trivialized on the news. Americans are treated like children by their media.

The Disney-like fantasy of normality accompanied by Pepsodent smiles can only become a demented attempt at distraction for the planet's suffering billions and an evasion for those of us who are, unknowingly, complicit in that suffering. It is time for childhood's end in America. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld" and "'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")

Like many others in the world, also within this great city, I wonder: What happened to America? 9/11? Bush/Cheney? Where is the Barack Obama I voted for? ("For America to Lead Again: A Speech for Barack Obama.")

The photo on the front page of yesterday's Times features a Guantanamo detainee in ankle chains deliberately evoking the imagery of slavery in America. For this image to be associated with Mr. Obama's presidency suggests that history will not be kind to America's first African-American president. We expect insensitivity and stupidity from Republican incumbents in the White House but much more and better from a child of slaves.

" ... U.S. intelligence set up a human intelligence laboratory at Guantanamo that used interrogation and detention practices they largely made up as they went along."

This sounds like Trenton's Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE) deploying New Jersey's experimental psychological tortures and sexual violations that were used against selected victims (like me) within and beyond the state's borders to obtain information about targeted attorneys or "others." ("What is it like to be tortured?")

How many other state government agencies in law enforcement have made secret use of criminal tactics before and after 9/11? ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

Secret intelligence reports -- many have surfaced on Wikileaks -- make it clear that victims were damaged for life without being accused or convicted of any crimes, often because victims have not committed crimes, in order for the government to obtain unreliable and/or worthless information, sometimes supplied by victims themselves as part of resistance efforts.

The Guantanamo Papers describe the "chaos, lawlessness and incompetence [also "unethical" actions] in [the Bush] administration's system for deciding detainee guilt or innocence and assessing whether they would be a threat if released."

"Innocent men were picked up on the basis of scant or non-existent evidence" -- N.J.'s torturers include rape among their methods -- "subjected to lengthy detention and often to abuse and torture ... Inmates who committed suicide were regarded only as a public relations problem."

American inmates have been subjected to comparable horrors without receiving domestic attention for their pleas concerning human rights violations while being transformed into laboratory animals. ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal" and "Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison" then "Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey.")

Ignacio Saavedra, Esq.? (Suicide?) Manuel R. Diaz, Esq.? (Prison?) How many of your victims were (or are) Latinos, Terry Tuchin? How many of Diana's victims were (or are) attractive young women? ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

The absence of cross-examination and other checks on abuse of power means that much so-called "information" obtained pursuant to these "interrogations" was based on behind-the-back "innuendo, gossip or information supplied by individuals whose motives were untrustworthy and whose information later proved false."

Even after secret documents detailing the human rights violations of detainees have appeared on Wikileaks and are no longer denied by the U.S. government, defense counsel may not read or refer in judicial proceedings to these now public documents to defend their clients:

" ... the Justice Department informed defense lawyers that the documents remained legally classified even after they were made public."

Did the OAE rely on anonymous slurs from the likes of Gilberto Garcia? Alex Garcia? How many others? Alina Fallat? This OAE witch hunt is worthy of the Inquisition. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")

This sounds like the method of the OAE -- what does that "E" stand for? -- which has yet to apologize for CRIMES committed against me and so many others. Among these crimes are continuing civil rights violations and censorship at these blogs. ("How censorship works in America" then "More Censorship and Cybercrime" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

"The Obama administration is wrong and maybe criminal in insisting on secrecy," probably to protect a prior administration. Persistence in these tactics subjects all of us, as Americans, to global human rights condemnation and contempt for our holier-than-thou hypocrisy as regards the safety of dissidents and incarcerated persons in other countries but not in our own prisons.

This continuing spectacle of secret psychological tortures and other tortures may make us a much-worse human rights violator than, say, Cuba. These tactics make Americans much less safe in the world. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" then "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?" and "Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba" then "Havana Nights and C.I.A. Tapes.")

Mr. Obama's candid conclusion is that Guantanamo is a "mess." Worse, it is a concentration camp. The psychological equivalent of Guantanamo has been prepared for American dissidents and "trouble-makers" -- a category that probably includes me -- through the application of so-called "touchless torture techniques." I am probably an American equivalent of Liu Xiaobo. (On the third day after this essay was posted, a letter was added to a word and a parentheses disappeared overnight.)

I am sure to be accused of "delusions of grandeur" and "pseudo-intellectual" status by New Jersey officials for making this suggestion. After all, they have to say something in response to my criticisms.

There is still time for Mr. Obama to remedy these wrongs and prevent Guantanamo from becoming a permament blot on America's record concerning human rights or symbolic of the failures of his administration.

Guantanamo should remain the questionable legacy of the Bush/Cheney administration along with the catastrophes now on display in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq in a Middle East region quickly falling into disintegration and chaos, threatening the oil supply of the world and the lives of millions of innocent persons. Our "get tough" or conditioning foreign policy may well have cost us the most valuable Western alliance in the region and, therefore, the war -- we have lost Pakistan's assistance in the War on Terror to our own "robot bombs."

Perhaps there is some justice in the thought that New Jersey's Cuban-American politicos may have cost their politicians the "Cuba issue" as a result of their fascism and brutality in censorship efforts against me. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "How censorship works in America.")

Shall we stay the course, Mr. Obama?

Sources:

Scott Shane, "Detainees' Lawyers Can't Click on Leaked Files," in The New York Times, April 27, 2011, at p. A1.

"The Guantanamo Papers: Newly Released Documents Underscore the Travesty of the Bush Detention Practices," (Editorial) in The New York Times, April 26, 2011, at p. A24.

Charlie Savage, William Glaberson, & Andrew W. Lehrens, "Details of An American Limbo: The Guantanamo Files," in The New York Times, April 25, 2011, at p. A1. (Have I been placed in an American or New Jersey "limbo"?)

Carol Rosenberg & Tom Lassetttes, "Gitmo Files Detail Disarray in U.S. Tactics: Wikileaks Publishes Secret Detainee Files," in The Record, April 25, 2011, at p. A-1.

Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror (New York: NYRB, 2004).

Joy Gordon, Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).