Lawlessone..

Just came across this, and thought it might interest you and maybe others.

National Lawyers Guild Calls on Boalt Hall to Dismiss Law Professor John Yoo,
Whose Torture Memos Led to Commission of War Crimes

NEW YORK - April 9 - In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.

The federal maiming statute, for example, makes it a crime for someone “with the intent to torture, maim, or disfigure” to “cut, bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut out or disable the tongue, or put out or destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb or any member of another person.” It further prohibits individuals from “throwing or pouring upon another person any scalding water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance” with like intent.
Yoo also narrowed the definition of torture so the victim must experience intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result; Yoo’s definition contravenes the definition in the Convention Against Torture, a treaty the US has ratified which is thus part of the US law under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. Yoo said self-defense or necessity could be used as a defense to war crimes prosecutions for torture, notwithstanding the Torture Convention’s absolute prohibition against torture in all circumstances, even in wartime. This memo and another Yoo wrote with Jay Bybee in August 2002 provided the basis for the Administration’s torture of prisoners.

“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.

The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0409-02.htm

i”...the PRIVACY of every ballot that is cast...”

Oh, I see. Now wonder cyrena/truthdweller/Carla screams at anyone who even obliquely refers to her posts unless they are agreeing with her. They are PRIVATE, duh.

Howling ad hominum rhetoric about stalking (she does it ceaselessly) or obsession with her (nothing obsesses cyrena more than a man she can’t have), cyrena then energetically goes on the ATTACK.

So much for harassment and trolling...... ("oh, no, not me”, says cyrena)

Hi, Expat ~

I had been replying to Don S and Tyler postings below, who were a bit hard on those of us who don’t use our proper names - the derision remark was in response to their statements

of course i hit the wrong reply, so the post ended up in a different spot on the list.  good thing i breathe automatically - if it required a correct key stroke, i’d have been dead long ago!

When the names are counted for the people who stood against an unjust United States with its lying administration and representatives who looked the other way knowing what was going on, I want people to know that I was not afraid of someone who might harass or threaten me be it an idiot or a member of our government.

I was once a proud Republican but when this person, who is now President came along and could not stick two sentences together, I decided it was time to holler.

And things just seem to get worse.  Not that I didn’t think it was going on, but what is now being revealed.  This was plainly evident at the beginning of this administration’s reign. 

I would hope others would stand up to these thugs who run our government.

^ know my name, but for the reasons you state I moved to an alias.

“...it is too easy to become a target of someone unhinged and from a different point of view..”

Yes mill, it’s already happened, and far too often.

It’s one thing to simply be addressed by an unhinged person with an UNHINGED (rather than simply ‘different’) point of view on a public forum.

Once such a person begins ‘stalking to attack’ it CAN (and sometimes DOES) become very dangerous.

I suspect that most Americans aren’t really aware of the dangers that result from political violence, though I’m not sure why. The world is full of examples.

So, for those who may not give it much thought, maybe they should ponder on why our constitution provides for the PRIVACY of every ballot that is cast.

There is a REASON why Americans are guaranteed the right to keep their votes private.

anonymous speech enjoys 1st Amendment protection

maybe there is reason for people to not link their political expressions here with their real name, address, family members, etc.  it is too easy to become a target of someone unhinged and from a different point of view

i do not think your derision is warranted

^ hopeful the war criminals in our government will be indicted by the International courts (it won’t happen here).  There will be a lot of American citizens not able to travel for fear of arrest.  Our country can never heal as long as these criminals go unpunished.  There was an attempt to get Rumsfeld the last time he went to Germany.  He never left the U.S. military base.

Glad you noticed the reference to Hannah Arndt.

Her work in “The Origins of Totalitarianism” should be a must read for anyone who is willing to first THINK, and then make the necessary comparisons.

If the Nazis weren’t THINKING, what does that say for US?

Just have a look at the past 8 years of the undoing of the Constitution by the gangsters, and hey...there it is folks!!

As Arendt points out, Hitler never formally abolished the Weimer Constitution; he just didn’t use it, and created his own ‘laws’.

What we have now is NOT so different. Do I believe that we could ever become a COMPLETELY closed society? Probably not.  Still, check out this piece from Joe Conason

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/19/conason/

I think it makes clear that the makings of a fascist tyranny are very much in evidence in our own society, and this has been the case for 8 years now. Most Americans still are not recognizing it for what it is.

Here is another worth checking out, and it’s not particularly long, involved, or complicated. I think most of us can make the appropriate connections.

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps
Namoi Wolf, 4/24/07
Guardian

• “From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, GW Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.”

http://www.guarian.co.uk/print/0,,329789179-110878,00.html

Then in this piece, Slate presents the “top 10” civil liberties nightmares for the year of 2006.

The Article at Slate Magazine, and listed under Jurisprudence, is titled

“The Bill of Wrongs; Te 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006.”

By Dahlia Lithwick

http://www.slate.com/id/2156397

A version of it also appears in the Washington Pos ‘Outlook section” though I don’t know where in their archives this might be found.

Thanks (as ususal) Louise.

I’d missed Philipe Sands on Democracy Now!

An earlier book by him “Lawless World” is an excellent reference to the kick off of what the Dick Bush gangsters have created..a Lawless World.

I found it very enlightening. Details how the gangsters attempted to get around International Law in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and how, when they couldn’t, they just eventually blew it off, and proceeded anyway.

Jane Myers, a columnist for the New Yorker, (I think) has also done excellent follow-up on this.

Last I heard, John Yoo was being sued. It was like just for $1.00, so a symbolic of sorts lawsuit. I’ll have to find it somewhere here on my computer, if anyone wants the details.

I can’t understand (myself) how or why Berkeley hired or continues to employ him. BUT, here’s a thought...it could be in the interest of ‘academic freedom’. I remember that several of my own former colleagues, in pursuit of other degrees at Berkeley, were making comments like, “Woo Wee, we wanna take a course with John Yoo”. (yes, there was a hint of sarcasm there, but they were serious.) Some folks like to try and understand how or why somebody thinks the way he does, (because he’s not alone) and to well...Argue with him.  Scholars and other academics thrive on such things.

For example, one of our own professors recently discovered an excellent article that compares the John Yoo doctrine with that of Carl Schmitt. (you’d have to check him out separately, but similar theories)

There is another at the link below: Deconstructing John Yoo, by Scott Horton.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002226

Actually, I just looked at this again, and it has reference to the law suit.

So, that may or may not explain why Berkeley has him on staff. Politics seeps in all crevices. Keep in mind that Condi Rice is an alumnus of Stanford, and that she spoke at their commencement services about 4 years ago. She was loudly booooed...but she was still there at the invitation of the People-in-Charge.

The reason that I don’t post under my FULL name, is because I’ve actually been victimized via intimidation by the hard right, and it’s more than just the dummies that might have their feathers ruffled. It’s put me in a fish bowl of sorts, for any of the ‘types’ most anxious to keep the truth from being exposed. It’s not a particularly ‘special’ category, since we’ve had countless others who’ve taken greater risks than I, to expose the truth on countless levels.

Many, many have paid dearly for it, as I have I, but I’m not yet ready to pay ‘the ultimate price’ as many have, and I’m anxious that my own loved ones not be subjected to the same harassment that I have so often fielded. So, that’s MY reason for not using my FULL name.

Louise is correct in stating however, that anyone with the access and the ‘know-how’ can easily trace any or all of us. I’m aware of that as well, but it does at least cut down on the rift-raft from some of those posting on this and other sites. It’s difficult enough to get the truth to light in an era in which a would-be totalitarian regime has attempted to re-create reality. Any little bit of help counts.

Don Stivers, April 2 at 12:34 pm

“So this memorandum gets everybody off of the hook?  All they have to point to to be declared innocent of torture is this?  It is that easy?”

***

No, actually. This memorandum pretty well confirms the administration had a hand in the order to torture from the get-go. Just goes into a bit more detail. The important thing to remember is the old cart and horse analogy. Bush thought he could break the law and then re-write the law to make breaking it OK. The Supreme Court let him know in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, June 2006, that it doesn’t work that way.

***

“You mean a terrorist just has to type a memo saying what he does is okay and he/she can get off?”

***

“Yoo” placed his neck on the chopping block for his president, who requested a legal opinion to allow torture. That makes the president a terrorist. It makes Yoo a dummy, a patsy, an ignoramus but not a terrorist.

***

“So our president is immune from prosecution because of this memo?”

***

Until The military Commissions Act is overturned, he might be immune here. But the International Court could go after him. And if the Military Commissions Act never gets overturned and our government continues behaving in this Internationally unacceptable fashion ... they probably will!

***

“I cannot believe our Congress allows these people running our government to stay in power.”

***

I cannot believe we allow our Congress to keep these people running our government!

***

“And by the way, why do most of the people that send in comments to this site give nicknames instead of their real name.  To be true to what you say one must be able to put his or her name to the comment.”

***

You might be surprised to find anyone who’s posted here, is on Google. And anyone who has access to the means employed by our federal snoops can find out who any one of us is at any given moment. The reason I don’t post my last name is to spare any other people with the same name the possibility of being harassed. Because occasionally I do ruffle feathers.

There is so much more to the story than a miner pion named Yoo ...

Todays Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/3/the_green_light_a ttorney_philippe_sands

“The Green Light: Attorney Philippe Sands Follows the Bush Administration Torture Trail”

“PHILIPPE SANDS: I think that the administration’s narrative has always been they really didn’t authorize these things; what happened was it started on the ground at Guantanamo, they faced a situation with individuals who they thought presented a threat to US security, and from the ground, from the people at Guantanamo, new security, new interrogation measures were requested. And so, it’s a bottom-up theory that the administration has always pushed.

What of course emerged, as many I think suspected, is that that’s not an accurate narrative. It in fact came from the top down, and there was a small group of lawyers coalescing around the President, around the Vice President, around the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, who basically drove the whole thing through.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this—the role of John Yoo, again, who is increasingly appearing in many reports over the last few years as at least the paper author of so much of this validation of these policies, his role in particular?

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, he was basically their gopher. I don’t think he was the driving force. I don’t think he was the intellectual brains pushing pressure on people down at Guantanamo. That came from the more senior lawyers. But he was the convenient ideologue, if you like, who was there able to sign on the dotted line and authorize things that others certainly would not have authorized.

And I think the most significant aspect is that this new memo that has come out mirrors an earlier memo that he wrote that was issued in the name of his boss, Jay Bybee on the 1st of August, 2002. The administration has always said that that memo of the 1st of August, 2002, had nothing to do with policies actually adopted by the administration at Guantanamo, and I think I’ve blown that argument out of the water.

AMY GOODMAN: Philippe Sands, the memo that came out this week that endorsed assault, maiming, even administering mind-altering drugs, the document suggests US interrogators would be immune from prosecution for any crime because of the President’s wartime authority. What about the possibility of war crimes being filed against the highest levels of the Bush administration, and how high would those levels go?

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, that argument is complete rubbish. When you violate an international criminal law, like the Geneva Convention or the Convention Against Torture, you expose yourself to the risk of criminal investigation or prosecution. That was dealt with by US federal law. In June 2006, the Supreme Court gave a judgment in a very famous, very important case called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and they said the administration got it wrong. The administration, by deciding that no detainees had rights under Geneva, had violated US constitutional law.

... The administration recognized the threat that it faced, and within three months it had adopted legislation in the Military Commissions Act which created an immunity for any person who was involved in the interrogation of al-Qahtani, as well as many other people. That immunity applies within the United States.

But, it doesn’t go beyond the United States. And I describe in the Vanity Fair piece, in much more detail than in the book, the meetings I’ve had with a European judge and a European prosecutor, who basically said the fact that the US has created a domestic immunity significantly increases the prospects of international investigational prosecution, if any of these people set foot out of the country. And as the prosecutor said to me, that was a very stupid thing to do, to create an immunity.”

In legal circles, he is known as Thumbscrew Yoo.

When I saw the reference to Hannah Arendt, I had to reply. You’re right. The people in the Nazi regime simply refused to think. They did their jobs without contemplating the consequences. She often mentioned the Socratic maxim, “It is better to suffer harm than to do it.” The John Yoo’s of this world think nothing of doing harm whenever they feel like it.

Although they insist that just by passing a law or supporting executive privilege the process becomes legal, is that true? I thought that passing a law that was contrary to the Constitution was automatically illegal, and that any such law would require a constitutional amendment to make it legal. That’s what the Supreme Court is for, but Bush has it stacked with people who will do his bidding. I wonder if John Yoo was hoping for a place among the nine.

And the thought that he’s teaching law - anywhere - is horrifying.

Don’t forget about the Mr,s Clintons and the Mr.Obamas and the Pelosies

Reincarnation does exist, as verified by Mr. Yoo’s pleasure seeking torture beliefs. The Marquee De Sad would be be proud of Mr. Woo. With all the blood shed in building and preserving the constitution, A small piss-ant, John Yoo has taken Amerika back to 1420 Torquemada Castile, Spain. Not just Jews are in jeopardy but all people of a persuasion unlike Yoo are in danger. Too bad Reagan did away with psychiatric help for the young, Yoo may have benefited from the help.

I agree about “university legal departments”, Eso. In watching their politically-correct games in some countries with indigenous peoples, they hypocritically pride themselves on embracing those few indigenes who meet their precious academic standards but still teach and uphold the very laws and legal procedures which are so prejudiced against their fellow countrymen.

But Yoo is a case apart. Watch the movie “Musa” and you will see what these people are really like, uhh http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275083/plotsummary

The banality of evil… the banality of university legal departments… legal documents as an example of the anarchy of rhetoric?… the naked will to power and what professor Yoo apparently believes it takes to get there in America… some civilization we’ve built!

Well, this just popped out at me, and I’m too tired at this point, to follow it back to it’s ‘connection’.

• …“Prosecution for Contempt of Congress of an Executive Branch Offical’ Who Has Asserted A Claim of Executive Privilege, 8 Op. a.L.c. 101, 134(1984). Cf Shoot Down Memorandum at 163-64. And should the statute not be construed in this manner, our Office concluded that the Department of Justice could not enforce the statute against federal officials who properly execute the President’s constitutional authority. “The President, through a United States Attorney, need not, indeed may not, prosecute criminally a subordinate for. asserting on his behalf a claim of executive privilege. Nor could the Legislative Branch or the courts require or implement the prosecution of such an individual.” 8 Gp. O.L.C. at 141: We opined that “courts ... would surely conclude that a criminal prosecution for the’ exercise of a presumptively valid, constitutionally based privilege is not consistent with the Constitution.” Id.”…

I’ve been over the original memo from Yoo a few dozen times, but I’ve never seen this. I guess this is what was classified, and has since become unclassified. Didn’t mean we couldn’t figure out that Yoo was a real SOB from the jump. Same SOB still has a job in academia. How’s that for the cruelest of ironies. The last time I heard/saw him speak, I wondered if he was properly ‘suited up’ with the bullet-proof gear that Cheney would never ‘leave home without’.

Anyway, this additional part of the original stuff doesn’t surprise me. It ‘covers’ Cheney on his shoot down order,(of 9/11) and ‘covers’ every single other one of these bastards, by making legal, what is illegal, beginning with ‘torture’. In short, it’s the document of the Cheney Hallmark of Executive Privilege, where he puts himself above the law, and creates new ones…such as the category of ‘unlawful combatant’ which never before existed in the legal language of domestic or international law.

These bastards are a poison that has corrupted our entire legal structure.

the problem with the Mr. Yoos and Mr Bushes and Mr Cheneys of the world is that they declare for themselves the right to define the bases and limits to their power.

Executive branch power is defined, extended, and limited by others - the Constitution, the federal courts, and we the people, through our Congressional representatives.

It is LONG past time to get the Bush Administration to do what is right, using the power of Congress to reign them back to the Constitution, with help from the federal courts.

What a great country welive in. We can actually defend ourselves and use the same methods other countrys use to get intel. God Bless America.

So this memorandum gets everybody off of the hook?  All they have to point to to be declared innocent of torture is this?  It is that easy?

You mean a terrorist just has to type a memo saying what he does is okay and he/she can get off?

So our president is immune from prosecution because of this memo? 

I cannot believe our Congress allows these people running our government to stay in power.

And by the way, why do most of the people that send in comments to this site give nicknames instead of their real name.  To be true to what you say one must be able to put his or her name to the comment.