John Yoo denied to Esquire that his memo applied to soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan or that it authorized the kinds of abuses that were revealed at Abu Ghraib. “I did not think as a matter of policy that it was a good idea for the military to use aggressive interrogations of the kind that would be permitted to the CIA,” he said, adding that he expressed those reservations “to officials higher up the chain of command.”
Let me guess. Dick Cheney visited him in his office, and suddenly he saw his way to penning those memos. What a dick. Yoo, I mean. The other one is appropriately named already.
House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) wants to former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo to discuss his now-infamous March 14, 2003 memo that broadly authorized the use of torture by military interrogators of unlawful combatants.Conyers has gone ahead and scheduled a hearing for May 6th on the memo and invited Yoo in a letter today. But it's apparent from the letter that Yoo is not too enthusiastic about the prospect of testifying to Congress. He's apparently raised concerns to committee staff that the topics covered might "implicate executive confidentiality interests" and generally indicated that he'd rather not appear.
And he might well have concerns that his handlers will leave him swinging in the wind, too.
Hopefully lawmakers will use the opportunity to ask Yoo why it was that he signed the memo himself, bypassing even the attorney general.
And when we’ve found the answer to that, we won’t be far from the answer as to why Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card went on a midnight run to intensive care to bypass acting AG James Comey. The Big Dick knows no obstacle.
"John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act," said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn.Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country's premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.
[...]
As critical as I am of his analyses, no argument about what he did or didn't facilitate, or about his special obligations as an attorney, makes his conduct morally equivalent to that of his nominal clients, Secretary Rumsfeld, et al., or comparable to the conduct of interrogators distant in time, rank and place. Yes, it does matter that Yoo was an adviser, but President Bush and his national security appointees were the deciders.[...]
Assuming one believes as I do that Professor Yoo offered bad ideas and even worse advice during his government service, that judgment alone would not warrant dismissal or even a potentially chilling inquiry.
[...]
Christopher Edley, Jr.
The Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr.
Distinguished Chair and Dean
UC Berkeley School of Law
What about the fact that in his professional opinion and legal judgment he interprets the law to allow the president to ignore it? That’s the kind of professor Berkeley wants teaching future lawyers?
...hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Yes, it does matter that Yoo was an adviser, but President Bush and his national security appointees were the deciders.
ReplyDeleteYoo, like Adolph Eichmann, was a pencil pusher and Eichmann swung from a rope with the worst of them.
If only we applied the same standards to ourselves that we apply to the rest of the world.
Oh well, might makes right...it's the American Way.