“He had essentially been crucified”: Kaddish for Manadel al-Jamadi

HE HAD ESSENTIALLY BEEN CRUCIFIED

From “The Secret History”, Jane Mayer, New Yorker 22 June 2009 p 56.: “In the second case, an Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003, while being interrogated by the CIA at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad. A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified: he died from axphyxiation after being hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs.”

He had essentially been crucified
Essentially but by accident, of course
On an order perhaps spoken into a cell phone
By a guy in board shorts walking to his SUV from the beach with his kids
Back in the U.S.A.

Essentially, for all intents and purposes, and good enough for government work,
He had been crucified. Haec est enim corpus eium my Latin ain’t so good.

Let me repeat what I just said or you just read.

He had essentially been crucified

His name was Manadel, and he may have been guilty as hell
Or as guilty as Spartacus, or as innocent as Jesus, but the fact remains,

He had essentially been crucified, so he died
Which is what happens when you are crucified.

In nineteen hundred and seventy-eight, I, a young soon father to be
Skinny, almost Marfan thin, felt the hand of God brush me,
A “pneumothorax” or collapsed lung.

[Remember he had essentially been crucified. I'm going to get back to that.]

When you cannot breathe you rage against God, and you say
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me. Also, I want to pee.
You’re surrounded by air and you took it for granted.
Manadel was left to die by trailer trash sexual pervert freaks
Commanded, by the sort of men who cannot look after a dying baby,
Or even change the oil in their own car, but who can kill,
To shut the fuck up and do their jobs without training.
He could not breath because when the ribs are broken the lungs don’t move.
He may have also had an untreated pneumothorax from the broken bones.

He had essentially been crucified.

Yeats said it better than me, you see,
“With hearts grown brutal we have fed ourselves on fantasies”
In what Yeats called the empty house of the stare.
When was it that my country came to be led and misled
By the equivalent of fourteen year old boys with erections
Staring at a fatal car accident?
And is Leon Panetta really any bettah?
OK, me can see that like Paul Kagame,
Tutsi man who has forgiven Hutu murderers so he don’t get killed,
And Rwanda heals, if Panetta moves against the thugs
They will strike back.

He had essentially been crucified, and it can happen here, my dear.
Screams and shooting in the quiet streets of Wilmette,
Burlingame, New Canaan, the lion for real like on Sep 11,
Only this time to stay. If you can, pray.

But pray to a God who is not your own. If you’re a Christian or Jewish, say, and repeat after me:

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.
The Beneficent, the Merciful.
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help.
Keep us on the right path.
The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors. Not (the path) of those upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray.

If you’re Moslem, say

Yit’barakh v’yish’tabach v’yit’pa’ar v’yit’romam v’yit’nasei
v’yit’hadar v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kud’sha
B’rikh hu.

Because he had essentially been crucified,
And “the face of the Other is the face of God withdrawn from the world”.