Quotable

“If I were they, I would think carefully before setting foot outside the United States. They are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. Until this is sorted out, they are in their own legal black hole.” - Philippe Sands, a British based lawyer talking about the plight of six senior Bush administration officials who were recently implicated in acts of torture by a Spanish Court. From here.

Gonzalo Boye, the Chilean-born Spanish lawyer who recently filed the criminal complaint against the Bush officials was influenced by Philippe Sands' book 'Torture Team'.

The 'six in a fix' are as follows:

• Douglas Feith, the former Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy
• Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General
• John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer
• David Addington, the chief of staff and the principal legal adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney
• William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense
• Jay Bybee, Yoo's former boss at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel
  

Peter Saul, 'Stuck', 67" X 59", Acrylic on canvas, 2007. Image from a recent visit to Mary Boone Gallery who had on show 'IMAGE MATTER', an exhibition curated by Klaus Kertess.

Penitent poetry watch

It is indeed ironic that Douglas Feith, an arch neoconservative who had previously served as the Under Secretary of US Defense Policy under George W. Bush and additionally responsible for the assertion that there were definite ties between the Iraqi government and the Al Qaeda terrorist network is now quoting poetry from Pashto Sufi poet Rahman Baba (who must be shifting uncomfortably in his grave) in the op-ed page of the Times today.

Most recently, he is one of the six named individuals who are part of a criminal investigation by a Spanish Court for having violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Here is the poetry he quoted...

Sow flowers to make a garden bloom around you,
The thorns you sow will prick your own feet.
Arrows shot at others
Will return to hit you as they fall.
You yourself will come to teeter on the lip
Of a well dug to undermine another.

Poetic indeed...

Photographs of three of Yale trained Tom Gregg's oil paintings taken on a recent visit to George Billis Gallery, Chelsea. For more of his great work and a background writeup, see here.