National Shame John Yoo's "Gift to the Obama Presidency"
As the Scooter Libby affair showed, no one circles the wagons like the Republican Party and its conservative allies. Now that Bush torture architects John Yoo and Jay Bybee barely escaped disbarment in the final version of the report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, the right-wing counterattack and near orgasmic celebration is well underway. Leading the clarion call is none other than John Yoo himself, who in his Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday proclaimed his legacy of unlimited war powers - and a virtually unlimited regime of detainee torture - "my gift to the Obama presidency."
Following the cheerleading from the usual Republican mouthpieces including the National Review, Commentary and the Wall Street Journal, Yoo took a victory lap Wednesday, stepping over the broken bodies of American prisoners and shattered national honor. Rewriting both the history of the OPR report and its conclusions, Yoo crowed:
Barack Obama may not realize it, but I may have just helped save his presidency. How? By winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe...
Without a vigorous commander-in-chief power at his disposal, Mr. Obama will struggle to win any of these victories. But that is where OPR, playing a junior varsity CIA, wanted to lead us. Ending the Justice Department's ethics witch hunt not only brought an unjust persecution to an end, but it protects the president's constitutional ability to fight the enemies that threaten our nation today.
Of course, as the likes of Jack Balkin and Glenn Greenwald documented in detail, only by avoiding ultimate condemnation and exile from the legal community could John Yoo claim to have won "a drawn-out fight." As Greenwald pointed out, OPR's David Margolis assessment of Yoo's legal framework for the commander-in-chief's power to torture hardly constituted exoneration, let alone an endorsement. On page 67, Margolis concluded:
For all of the above reasons, I am not prepared to conclude that the circumstantial evidence much of which is contradicted by the witness testimony regarding Yoo's efforts establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that Yoo intentionally or recklessly provided misleading advice to his client. It is a close question. I would be remiss in not observing, however, that these memoranda represent an unfortunate chapter in the history of the Office of Legal Counsel. While I have declined to adopt OPR's finding of misconduct, I fear that John Yoo's loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client and led him to adopt opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, views of executive power while speaking for an institutional client.
The shorter version is that David Margolis accepted Yoo's George Costanza defense of torture. That is, it's not a war crime, if you believe it.
That doesn't mean that anyone else should -or does. The overwhelming consensus of legal opinion remains that Yoo's edifice of presidential war powers cannot withstand either serious scrutiny or the test of time. As Greenwald concluded:
That Bush officials have to cling to the harsh condemnations of Margolis as 'vindication' reveals just how wretched and lawless their conduct was.
And to be sure, the Bush administration enabled by the likes of John Yoo engaged in activity that was both wretch and lawless. The horrors don't end with what he Bush regime actually did on Yoo's say so, horrific as waterboarding, enhanced interrogation techniques and illicit domestic surveillance were. The more frightening prospect may be the dystopian future Yoo's Presidents would be wrongly empowered to create. As Yoo himself insisted, from defining to torture as " equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" (including the crushing of testicles of a suspect's child) to ordering the massacre of innocent civilians or even preemptively using nuclear weapons, there's nothing President Yoo couldn't do during wartime.
At the end of day, Yoo's legacy is a presidency theoretically enlarged but morally and legally diminished. Which makes criminal conduct and national shame the gift of John Yoo to the Obama presidency, the American people and the world.
(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)
Yoo's ridiculous statement about mirandizing the Christmas bomber being a return to pre-9/11 war on terror practices ignores the volume of examples of post-9/11 Bush-era mirandizing of terror suspects. The cartoon accompanying this WSJ post was exactly as it should be: an Uncle Sam defending against attack with one arm tied behind his back by the rule of law.
As if that's a bad thing.
I prefer lap dancing to running laps.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Thanks.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
"No thank you for your gift Mr. Yoo."
Oh. Obama didn't say that?!
Never mind....
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Obama should go on National television just to tell this sick asshole to fuck off.
he could use the gift that Yoo gave him and crush his nuts for information (or would he have to crush his child's nuts in front of him so as not to void the warranty?).
Such a thoughtful gift for the boss he wouldn't have for another 7 years!
Yoo shouldn't have gone to so much trouble. No. Really. He shouldn't have.
and if he did, that's all he would do.
He deserves gitmo him and the rest of his lying ass scumbag buddies.
God I hate these fucking cowards.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness, it has almost totally destroied our economy, our morals, and the sprituality of America!
a man and what should happen to him, it would understandably be deleted. So I'll leave it at that, except to say I join you all in your disgust.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
he is a war criminal.
When he gets to hell he can confirm it with the architects of Hitler's "legal" programs.
And the lawyers and judges who crafted, implemented and used on a daily basis the Jim Crow laws that enabled Southern Sheriffs to lock up any black man who didn't have enough money in his pocket (to prove he wasn't "vagrant" after all) and lock him away in a county work farm where he never seemed to be able to work long enough to pay off the initial fine, plus all his room and board, and serve the extra time for all the rules he broke while incarcerated ..
.. special place in Hell for them ..
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
He has the anatomy, but little else in common with real men.
Real men do not engage or advocate the torture of children...
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
It's "a guy thing". Real men don't want to be lumped with a chickenshit like Yoo, though many of us have been called "monstrous excuses" or worse by partners before and survived.
Yoo would not likely last long in general population of most prisons or even some county jails.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
the chaff, and usually I have to resort to refering to the chaff as "a _________ excuse for a man," because they don't deserve to be referred to as men without the prefix...
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Slobodan Milošević was captured and inprisoned for the same crimes against humanity that this Republican pile of terrorist shit and his fellow Republicans committed, not only against the people of Iraq but also for the TREASON that these Republican war criminals committed against the people of the United States.
We got Slobodan put in prison, why are these fucking Republicans being allowed to walk freely among otherwised civilized peoples?
Edit: And while we're at it, the United States has been and continues to be the world's worse terrorist training camp bar none: The School of the Americas.
We're a nation of terrorist simpathizers, all okay since it's Christanic terrorism that we applaud.
if we could only get the anti-progressive GOP to actually practice what they preach -
Right to Life
American Exceptionalism
Freedom of _____________
Less Government
The Golden Rule
Free Trade
Open Markets
World's Best Healthcare
World's Best ___________
Less Deficits/Debt
The only thing they seem to actually practice, while preaching, is arming visitors to National Parks - by inserting it into a credit card bill.
The only thing they're good at is being rank hypocrites.
All I can say is, "WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
But, I suppose, once Yoo start making stuff up and see it nurtured, it becomes Yoor nature.
Truly shameless!
Way off topic here but this is can't miss;
If you want a lesson on reconciliation tonight you must watch Rachel Maddow. She will be on at about 8:00 PM Pacific time. It is the repeat of the 6:00 PM show. Superb!
Oh, screw John Yoo.
Well lookeee here, we got us an Asian doughy pantload.
Gluttony, the face of conservatism!
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
When people think of the evil that descended from the 20th century they naturally think of Hitler, Stalin, Mao. But the true archetype of true evil was Adolf Eichmann. The man who kept the trains running to Auchweitz, the bureaucrat that sat quietly in his office and filled out train schedules while children were being destroyed in gas chambers. Yoo and Bybee are the epitome of the banality of evil that Hannah Arendt detailed so well in "Eichmann in Jerusalem". Unlike that monster ours will never see real justice.
was Roger Ailes.
My bad.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
But if our soldiers tortured people, even if they were ordered to do so should be prosecuted. Torturing people is against the law. I don't want anyone that was a willing aid in torture to come home among the population at large. If they would torture someone because they were told to do so, they will do it for fun. Yes find them and prosecute them lock them away for the rest of their lives. I know republicans don't have morals or intelligence but maybe they can learn if given the proper incentive.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness, it has almost totally destroied our economy, our morals, and the sprituality of America!
Calling Mr. Holder!!
Is there an Attorney General in the Justice Department of The United States of America named Eric Holder?
Hello?! Hello?! Is this thing ON????!!!
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Until America becomes a country where war criminals cannot walk the streets without fear for their lives, I will not be proud to be called an American. Period.
Is it the 21st century yet?
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness, it has almost totally destroied our economy, our morals, and the sprituality of America!
be able to be differentiated from them so we can safely walk the streets in many other countries in the world again...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
because his "Justice" Department let the bastards off the hook. A grave miscarriage of justice.
Another O-Bomb-A screw up.
Quite the calculating politico our Manchurian President is; don't you think?
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
The Obama administration has not only fully embraced John Yoo and Jay Bybee, but after its hug, the Obama administration has then knelt down and began polishing their, um, legacies.
Hell, even the OPR under Bush, while doing everything possible to cover up Yoo and Bybee's war crimes, couldn't make the jump to finding their behavior ethical.
But Obama's administration applied the pressure and changed the OPR's finding into one that completely exonerates these monsters both legally and ethically.
Yet we're to believe that because Margolis included some stern language in the document that the Obama Administration has somehow condemned their actions? Bullshit.
John Yoo is a war criminal, and Barack Obama and Eric Holder are accessories after the fact.
There. FIFY.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
"Essentially, the current posture of the U.S. to the world is this:
Doesn't that make you proud?"
Corruption favors the wealthy.
As of this moment, EVERY moment that John Yoo spends out in the open the American People are COMPLICIT in War Crimes.
Ever read what the charges were against the Nazis at The Nuremberg trials?
The indictments were for:
1. Crimes against peace: In international law, refers to "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing"
2. Wars of aggression and other crimes against peace: A war of aggression is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense. Waging such a war of aggression is a war crime under the customary international law.
3. War crimes: War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devastation not justified by military, or civilian necessity".
4. Crimes against humanity: Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape and political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.
Thanks to Yoo I believe we are guilty of at least three of those charges. The legacy of George W. Bush! It's enough to make you puke.
Yoo may have escaped disbarment but that doesn't necessarily mean he still won't face imprisonment, torture and death. After all according to him any future President can arrest, torture and kill him if they feel like it.
Personally, I'd like to waterboard Yoo.
John Yoo is a disgrace. He, Bybee and Bradbury should all be in prison. Read this excellent article from Harpers:
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006587
The proof is in their career trajectory. Bybee wanted to be a judge, but Cheney says, "we don't have a spot for you yet, but if you want to take this job at OLC, we'll keep you on the short list." A week later, Cheney asks Bybee, "Hey, how's the job going? Don't worry, we're still thinking about your judge spot. By the way, can you help us out with a memo?"
Fucking amoral sons of bitches.
And Holder isn't doing shit.
Hell. Since "impeachment [was always] off the table" from the very beginning, fighting Nancy Pelosi was about as hard as hitting your grandmother with a halibut. Conyers was the only other person paying attention and he just went, "Yes 'am, Nancy," and scurried back to the safety of his office to compose his reports to nobody. Obama said "the past is behind us" (whatever the hell that means) before he was even elected. "Drawn out fight" my ass, you torturing, cowardly little bastard.
that will never heal.
To see just how evil this pack of pricks was read "The Dark Side" by Jane Meyer. Cheney and his gang of bastards had a merry olde tyme of it for a number of years. And they had the perfect patsy in Alberto Gonzalez. That idiot would okay anything. Did he ever find a job?
isn't being prosecuted for crimes against humanity. One more opportunity to redeem ourselves that is being pissed away. However, he is creating a wealth of evidence that could be used against him by other countries and the ICC. I really hope that he catches the bug to go traveling abroad, especially to countries that have respect for international laws and fundamental standards of human decency. IT would do my heart good to see him appear before the docket in shackles.
What a little monster he is.
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