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TechnoratiJohn Yoo's Ongoing Falsehoods in Service of Limitless Government Power
One of the most reliable methods for knowing that a position is unsustainable is that its advocates must employ outright falsehoods in order to support it. In a Wall St. Journal Op-Ed today, John Yoo defends the right of the Bush administration to imprison people at Guantanamo indefinitely with no judicial review and condemns last week's Supreme Court habeas corpus ruling as "judicial imperialism of the highest order." To do so, Yoo asserts what have become the now-standard though still-blatant falsehoods on this issue.
Yoo, for instance, claims that the Supreme Court in Boumediene allows "an alien who was captured fighting against the U.S. to use our courts to challenge his detention." But huge numbers of detainees in U.S. custody weren't "captured fighting against the U.S." at all. Many were taken from their homes. Others were just snatched off the street while engaged in the most mundane activities. Still others were abducted while in airports or at work.
Sami al-Haj, the Al Jazeera camerman who was encaged at Guantanamo for years until being recently released, was simply traveling with an Al Jazeera reporter from Pakistan into Afghanistan to cover the U.S. invasion for his news network when he was stopped by a Pakistani immigration officer, turned over to the U.S., kept in an underground Afghan prison for six months, and then basically disappeared off to Guantanamo, where he remained for years, interrogated not about Al Qaeda, but largely about the operations of Al Jazeera:
Asma al-haj didnt know what had happened to her husband until late 2002, when she received a letter from him explaining that he was in Guantánamo. Around the same time, Al Jazeera issued a press release announcing that an employee was being held at the camp. The Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld requesting information, but received no reply. For the next three years, little was known about the circumstances of al-Haj's detention, until early 2005 when he obtained the services of Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer based in Britain. . . .
Al-Haj was detained at a moment when distrust of Al Jazeera was accumulating rapidly at the highest levels of the American government. Before 9/11, Al Jazeera was hailed as a rare independent voice in the Middle East. But after the attacks, while Middle East specialists in the government continued to advocate that the U.S. engage with the network, others in the administration developed an intense hostility toward it. According to numerous former senior administration officials, the major hubs of animosity were the Office of the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense, particularly the offices run by Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy, and Stephen Cambone, the former undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Many of the highest-profile "War on Terror" detainees who have been held for years with no charges have been similarly "captured," while unarmed, in the most mundane of circumstances, far away from any "battlefield" -- not "captured fighting against the U.S.," as Yoo misleadingly put it today. U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, for instance, was detained at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri -- the computer science graduate student at Bradley University, in the U.S. on a student visa -- was arrested at his home in Peoria, Illinois where he lived with his wife and five children, charged with credit card fraud, only to then have his trial canceled at the last minute by George Bush, who declared him an "enemy combatant" and ordered him into military custody, where he remained for years with no charges.
Canadian citizen Maher Arar was also detained at the airport -- on a stop-over at JFK Airport on his way back from a family vacation to his Ottawa home -- and then sent to Syria to be tortured for 10 months, only for it to be discovered thereafter that he was completely innocent, that U.S. officials apprehended the wrong man. German citizen Khaled El-Masri was snatched up while on vacation in Macedonia, accused of being a Terrorist, shipped around to multiple countries, denied access to the outside world, tortured by the CIA for months, only to be released once they realized it was a case of "mistaken identity." And the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Lakhdar Boumediene, was a Bosnia citizen, living in Bosnia, who was arrested by Bosnian authorities at the request of the Bush administration, investigated, and determined by the Bosnian Supreme Court to be innocent. But upon his being released, U.S. forces inside Bosnia immediately seized him and shipped him to Guantanamo.
Contrary to one of the core falsehoods spouted by people like John Yoo, a huge bulk of our "War on Terror" prisoners, including those at Guantanamo, were not "captured fighting against the U.S." at all. While supporters of unlimited executive power incessantly claim that the War on Terror can't be waged based on the premise that Terrorists are like criminals, many of the detainee apprehensions are identical to how accused criminals are captured, since -- unlike actual wars of the past -- they involve snatching people up while engaged in completely innocent activities and in civilian settings, not on battlefields while engaged in combat.
Yoo purposely uses falsehoods here because the way so many of these detainees are captured by the U.S. is what distinguishes them from detainees in past wars captured on actual battlefields. That's precisely what makes the risk of erroneous detentions (or more malignantly-motivated detentions, such as that of Sami al-Haj) so high. And it that's fact -- along with the fact that, by the administration's own claims, this is a "completely different war" that will last decades, not merely years -- that makes the very idea of empowering our Government to imprison such people indefinitely, with no real process, so dangerous and tyrannical.
The other deeply misleading claim in Yoo's Op-Ed is even more transparent. He characterizes the Court's decision as "grant[ing] captured al Qaeda terrorists the exact same rights as American citizens to a day in civilian court." What minimally self-respecting law professor would be willing to make this claim with a straight face?
The whole point of the habeas corpus right is that without a meaningful hearing, we don't know if the individuals our Government is imprisoning are really "al Qaeda terrorists" or something else. That ought to be too basic even to require pointing out. As this recent superb McClatchy article documents, scores of individuals detained at Guantanamo for years weren't "Al Qaeda terrorists" -- or any other kind of terrorists -- at all. Rather, there were at least:
dozens of men -- and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds -- whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials -- primarily in Afghanistan -- and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.
It takes an indescribably authoritarian mind to believe that one's own Government should have the power to put people in cages for life without having to provide them any meaningful opportunity to prove that they did not do what they are accused of. And it takes a deeply dishonest advocate to claim that the Supreme Court's ruling was designed to protect "Al Qaeda terrorists" who were "captured fighting against the U.S," given that large numbers of our detainees are not "Al Qaeda terrorists" and were not "captured fighting against the U.S."
With his attack on the Supreme Court, John Yoo has proven himself -- yet again -- to be both authoritarian and incomparably dishonest. But the two glaring falsehoods in today's Op-Ed -- that habeas protections protect "Al Qaeda terrorists" and that Guantanamo detainees were captured on the battlefield -- are precisely the ones that have been used for so long to obscure the real dangers of vesting our Government with the power of lawless imprisonment.
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
© Salon.com
41 Comments so far
Show AllJACK telling YOO
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Ah, so!
Did not Confucius say that the yapping Shih Tzu is the first to be run over by the scroll wheel? :?:
I love to to hit you Americans right between your legs. I aim this blow at your once upon a time saint Collin Powell. You Americans put him on your pedastal but he was a man of clay; he too endorsed the torture. Will he say that he did not consent to it, but you are the Serretary of State, next to the President you have the buck !
America the land of hope and glory ! So much for bullshit !
One thing is certain: if a day of reckoning ever comes for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Gonzales et al., they will avail themselves of every legal technicality and every procedure they have sought to deny others. If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, a civil libertarian may be a conservative who has been indicted.
Thank you for this great article. I just posted an article making the same two key points, regarding Scalia's dissenting opinion, at Nolan Chart:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article4079.html
Yap to Arvy,
"Yes ! I intended to be irritating; to tell you people in the USA that the rest of the world know your hypocracy."
Labeling an entire nation of people with a word like hypocrite and including Arvy in this is so ridiculous. Take warrantless wiretapping as an example. Both China and America engage in this and it would be a brave person to say which country is worse. The majority of people posting here, elsewhere and in your country would say that it is wrong for governments to do. Why you want to fight with us? We are not your enemy.
You say Yap: "USA has benefited tremendously from out-standing contributions from Chinese scholars working in the USA, as for example it was a Chinese scientist who laid the "methodology" that solved the practical problems that enabled the building of the first atomic bomb."
Is that really something to be proud of?
Complain to UC Berkely. They actually hired this stooge.
Hello Arvy June ! Yes ! I intended to be irritating; to tell you people in the USA that the rest of the world know your hypocricy. There was a time, long, long time ago when we looked on the USA as a force for good but today's USA is seen as the aggressor of Iraq under false pretenses. You have killed over a million civilian in waging an illegal war of aggression and you claim that Iraq of today is much better than the Iraq under good ole Saddam.
5 years have passed and the people of Iraq are suffering the lack of water, sewage, and continuous fraticide and you call that a better Iraq because you claim the USA has brought democracy to Iraq. This is the hypocracy that we detest in what the USA has become. The USA is a pure FASCIST STATE NO BETTER THAN WHAT HITLER STOOD FOR. We in all Asia hate what the USA support for an Isreal that is unaccountable and totally lacking humanity. i JUST DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY IT IS OK FOR THE USA TO GIVE TANKS & AIR CRAFT TO ISRAEL AND IT IS NOT OK FOR THE PALESTINIANS TO RECEIVE WEAPONS FROM OTHER NATIONS ? Why it is OK for Israel to bomb Palestinians from the air and it is OK to kill Palestinians with impunity, and it is not OK for us to give aid to them ?
On your claim as usual to superiority, and there is merit for your claim to fame on that score, but that is a matter of the rise and fall of civilization; and by the way our Chinese civilization has had a much more sustained and much, much longer live span than yours will ever have. I may even add that China has recovered from our 135 years slumber and we are again rightfully at the forefront of number "1".
Knowlege is not the preserve of any one nation. It is more imporatnt that a people have an inherent talent to learn and we Chinese have that trait. Yes, there are a lot of Chinese students studying in the USA and by the way the USA has benefited tremendously from out-standing contributions from Chinese scholars working in the USA, as for example it was a Chinese scientist who laid the "methodology" that solved the practical problems that enabled the building of the first atomic bomb. This was admitted by the couple who received the nobel prize for researched that area of physics. I have no knowlege of physics; but I learned of him from a CCTV programme called "DOCUMENTRY" and he was the man who created the Chinese Atomic bomb. I don't know his name but he is there if you would google for the answer. The process of learning is not like eating, a one way street. In learning it is more important who learns, because when knowlege is acquired, the profit is what he can then contribute. Look around you, and notice how many Chinese, Indian scientists are working in your labs. Can we say that they are the ones who form the backbone of your scientific community ? That being the case is your pool of scientists Chinese or Indians or Americans ?
If you do not already know, places in Beijing Univeristy require the talents of near genius to enter !
"Shame on Berkely"
Berkeley certainly has more than enough to be ashamed of.
I fail to see how a liar of Churchills stature could be relevant to anything. He may have studied his subject and mastered it, but he's no different than any other person caught lying or revising history to fit their view.
By the way if the above comments seem like a non sequitur to my more left-brain logical CD colleagues, the capacity to READ sign language is respected in many indigenous cultures. Still, the Bible, the basic tenet that shaped Western law, culture & ideology certainly lends credence to its own great flood as symbolic of "god's" punishment for the many living outside the intended Divine laws. So US has its own "great flood II" to satisfy all those Biblical types. Sooner or later the big sign language works the equation of behavior modification.
BORN FREEMAN stated, "I have friends that have told me that they don't care about the human death tolls in Iraq. Is that what America has become, a cold killing imperial machine?"
I'm glad you raised that point. When Katrina hit New Orleans this mystic saw a spiritual "sign" or omen of agreement if you will, in the way our own GULF was destroyed as a karmic boomerang for the GULF WAR. America changed nothing in its policies of martial hubris. So... enter THE WATERS to the Midwest. Water in astrology is the element of compassion, of owning the capacity to feel what others feel. It's been said ours is an UNFEELING president and certainly the FALSE case made FOR war supports that observation. It could be argued that many in the Midwest (this is not to say they DESERVE this fate, or that good people are not being washed away along with their care-less neighbors) voted FOR the administration that has seen fit to ROB others of their lives & homes. Nature, as the great equalizer, embodying the principle of Venus incarnate as Earth Mother Demetra (i.e. Mother nature) is playing a role... something has got to disable the MARS machine that runs for, on and about war!
There are a number of schools besides Berkeley that I would not recommend for similar reasons. Georgetown U. for hiring Doug Feith, who also continues to lie, DePaul U. for firing Norman Finkelstein, and the U. of Colorado for attempting to fire Ward Churchill.
I have seen Feith in interviews about his new book and he still insists it was necessary to invade Iraq. Give me a break. A small country of 24-28 million a threat to the U. S.?
Norman Finkelstein, an excellent scholar, who is criticized by honest intellectuals for sounding shrill and abrasive, at most.
I have seen Ward Churchill in person and I can say I think he knows Indian history. I have tried to learn something about how many Indians were killed by settlers and he explains it quite well.
Prof. John Yoo is both misunderstood, and yet he himself misunderstands so much.
I have actually read his "torture memo." Do a google search. It reminds me of the distinction between boxing and felony assault-- the former happens within the structure of a sport, the latter is simply aggression.
However, that "torture memo" also unquestioningly embraces the mysterious legal designation of "enemy combatant" which has no previous mention in U.S. law or ratified treaty. This blatant oversight gave our executive branch legal maneuvering to torture prisoners of war, despite its weak legal precedent.
Similarly, this WSJ op-ed raises reasonable concerns about the power of prisoners of war to challenge their detention. After all, the Bill of Rights makes this as arguable as the role of gun rights. Do a google search.
But once again, Prof. Yoo gives full executive power to convict prisoners as al-Queada criminals without a trial. Mainstream media has underreported the innocence and mistaken identities of several prisoners held (and tortured) indefinitely by the U.S. Once again, another oversight by Prof. Yoo suggests that the Executive branch can act as judge and jury with no accountability.
Prof. John Yoo claims to be a conservative, and therefore controversial, lawyer. I would argue that he is neither. A true conservative would not allow sweeping powers to a single branch of government. A true lawyer would not be such a transparent patsy.
And remember, the WSJ is part of the now-irrelevant Rupert Murdoch machine.
Australians:
David Hicks captured (unarmed) by Northern Alliance while waiting at a bus stop attempting to get the bloody hell out of there. Sold to the US and sent to Gitmo.
Mamdoah Habib captured in Pakistan (unarmed) sent to Egypt where he was tortured and then sent to Gitmo.
Both now free.
Why does the media report out right lies? I know they can't get these bastards to tell the truth but they should deny them the chance to continue to lie in public.
In "They Thought They Were Free" Milton Mayer interviewed 10 Germans in the Nazi Party after WW2. Only one had been against the Nazis. He believed that if the end had come at first, the Germans would have not stood for it, but each step that was taken was just a little worse than the one before, so people were paralyzed by indecision. That is, if you didn't protest Step A, why should you protest Step B?
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
Of course, there were Germans who fought against the Nazis, contrary to our propaganda. The Communists and the Nazis had pitched street battles. It's just that the Nazis won. They had the big money behind them.
So here we are in America. What is the effect of years of violent media, torture and murder shown constantly to our children and ourselves? The self righteous portrayal of good forced to slaughter evil to obtain justice?
And then, 9-11. Even the Reichstag fire didn't come close to this provocation. Not just symbols of American wealth and power destroyed, but 3,000 people killed. The audacity of the provocation shows the vision of those responsible. What could American power do if it was unleashed from the conscience of its people? The daily drumbeat of hatred and revenge subjected to by the American people shows the the scope and the limit of the power of the capitalist/political rulers of our society. 90% approval rating of W. How depressing. And yet, 10% of our people stubbornly hung on to their humanity.
And, as time went on, the propaganda stopped working. People were skeptical that bombing goatherders in Afghanistan was a good response to 9-11. People started to realize that something was fishy about the official story. The 110 story buildings collapsing in free fall time. The 47 story building collapsing for no reason. The US military, the most bloated in history, failing to respond to attack. The promotion of those responsible for the failure. The lack of an investigation into an enormous crime.
The basic decency of people started to subvert the imperial project.
So, what is the function of John Yoo? And Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh? They say the unimaginable. They legitimize the unthinkable. They are the apologists for barbarism, and they move the discourse to perverted and uncivilized areas. They take us, step by step, towards fascism.
Mr. Greenwald states his case as clearly and logically as only a brilliant constitutional and civil rights litigator can.
Whats disgusting is how 4 of 5 of our supreme court justices could have seen it any other way.
Lets hope , that Telecom Immunity ends up in the supreme court as well. And that they have a clean vote on not granting immunity for warrentless surveilence.
The only way America is going to re-instate the constitution fully and protect it from jackasses that would write legislation like the USA PATRIOT ACT.
We must allow massive law suits to fly, most of the money won should be given to Iraqi Vetrens for medical and life rebuilding expenses.
The point is this, it our responsibility ," WE THE PEOPLE ",
to allways remember to stand united and protect the constitution from enemys foreign and domestic, no mattter what state of emergency the country might be facing.
We must learn to be brave, stedfast and deliberate in the post 9/11 era. The Pentegon and Military complex drama queens in Washington would keep us chained in fear to keep us from seeing thier lies. One Trillion dollars off budget.
4000 American soldiers dead, 600 thousand Iraqi dead, and too many American injuries and displaced Iraqis to mention.
I have friends that have told me that they don't care about the human death tolls in Iraq. Is that what America has become, a cold killing imperial machine?
Allow the Abuse of our rights to kick some ass.
Boy did the Nazi spin machine and Stazi tactics catch us off gaurd .
That rat pack Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rowve,Rumsfield,Wolfiwitz need to go to JAIL for failig to protect the constitution.
And quite frankly the Senate and the house Reps should be impeached for complicty.
Oh , and a real hard kick in the ass before they leave.
Bornfreemen , just a regular American looking for an honest government to start taking care of Americans FIRST.
yap.chongyee June 17th, 2008 9:34 pm -- "It does appear that all the hype about the so called superior education that the USA has been much touted as the MECCA IS ALL A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!"
I beg your pardon for saying so, but I don't recall that particular hype being prevalent amongst USA Incorporated's many claims to superiority. On the other hand, there does seem to be some significant amount of interest amongst Chinese students in pursuing an educational experience in the US and elsewhere outside their own country. Perhaps you might care to comment on that phenomenon.
Or, to put it another way, your stridency seems more irritating than persuasive.
ARVY: It's like "KING OF HEARTS" when the "inmates" considered the crazies are let loose to do other than war, it questions who owns the castigation of insane in the first place. Well, that's far-fetched... I was just noting how often I nodded in agreement with observations you raised, and how you analyzed events. Maybe we're in the same life boat given what once felt like a stable reality suddenly seems like oceanic currents capsizing. (It's late, my mind is tired...)
Yoo fits the mold of Dr. Mengele (who used concentration camp prisoners for medical experiments often torturing them to death to see how much human beings could endure before they die)and Adolph Eichmann, (who with the precision and determination of an industrial designer fashioned Auschwitz into the most cost-effective killing field ever seen).
Both of the above named people (along with Yoo) enabled uspeakable barbarism to be performed by otherwise ordinary people in the name of some greater cause.
Perhaps in another twenty to thirty years some dedicated patriots can hunt down and capture Yoo (along with the likes of Cambone, Feith, and General Jeffrey Miller) and give them the trial for being war criminals that they so richly deserve.
Then, just for poetic justice, let them rot in Guantanamo for the rest of their days.
Siouxrose June 17th, 2008 6:45 pm -- "ARVY: I've found myself agreeing with the vast majority of your postings lately ..."
I'm nor sure whether that's good or bad for your own state of mind. I claim no special insight other than the questionable advantage of being a retired 'outsider' (more or less) watching events unfold with no particular axe to grind. To be honest, I often dislike my own cynicism, but it seems that any naiscent optimism gets squashed very quickly by actualities.
Anyhow, I also enjoy your commentary and I thank you for the implied compliment, Siouxrose.
It does appear that all the hype about the so called superior education that the USA has been much touted as the MECCA IS ALL A LOAD OF BULLSHIT ! I hope our Chinese parents see the USA for it really is, a land of fantasy and made to smell good by western media hype.
The reason that is touted by your USA Administration as grounds for sanctioning detantion without trial, sanctioning bloody torture and inhuman kidnapping & torture under USA Administration's routine RENDITION AIDED AND ABETTED BY MOST IF NOT ALL WESTERN WHITE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD IS JUST "GOOD ENOUGH TO SPIT AT".
Given that John Yoo is a professor of Law at the UCLA (Berkely), WHAT REALLY THE WORTH OF A UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN THE usa ? A university professor of an elite IVY LEAGUE (sounds good yah?)university who does not know his law ! This is really shit, MAN !
For years the USA and your sanctimonious racist mob have pointed finger at China, Singapore, Malaysia etc....etc. that we abused the human rights of our citizens and that we detained our citizens without trial, and now the evils that you, Americans fabricated and wrongly accused our government of doing to our people, IS FACTUALLY RPOVEN TO BE DONE BY YOUR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. The evil that you labeled our government is now striped bare for all the world to see.
There is nothing exceptiuonal about the USA, because you are just as evil as those that you accuse. I will even go as far as to say that the USA and Al Queada stand on the same moral plane. The only difference is that the USA have the world's western media that supports western fascism !
The moral compass of the world is now firmly planted in the People's Republic of China; we are ADAIN THE MIDDLE "KINGDOM" OF THE WORLD AFTER ONE AND A HALF CENTURY OF WESTERN DOMINANCE !
First off: Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it use the term "citizen" with regards to rights, it uses "person".
Second: Attending Cal was a dream since childhood, but not anymore. Now with Berkeley's decision to allow a war criminal to teach there even Boogerville State looks better.
ARVY: I've found myself agreeing with the vast majority of your postings lately, and admiring your intelligence and depth of analysis.
BANE RICHTER: As per the "elaborate stage show," that was the point I intended to make, but came "late" to this thread. We hear the term "theater of war," and we realize more and more than our domestic elections are little more than elaborate theatrical productions given who counts the vote(s). For those of us who belief 911 was an inside job, the very ACT of assembling "terrorists" becomes its own fiction, high and expensive theatrical effects of the basest, most sadistic sort. It may be done to silence dissent; but I feel it's more to assure the dummies who--programmed as authoritarians themselves--want to believe they're "getting something solid" for their tax dollars.
The appearance of arresting all those brown people with difficult-to-pronounce last names serves the "part" in this "production." It provides the illusion that "real" measures are being taken to fight "terrorism."
Of course the triplicate realities of our bankrupt treasury, global warming, and the real and spiritual implications of karmic blowback are costs hardly yet accounted for. It's gazing into the 21st century Heart of Darkness.
Bane Richter June 17th, 2008 2:31 pm -- "It's been said Git Bay was just an elaborate stage show for the rest of the world."
For the whole world, including Americans themselves, not only the rest of the world. It's lack of effectiveness in producing any truly useful intelligence was never unknown to its creators and promoters. As a method for intimidating dissenters, however, such horror shows can be a very useful tool.
Is it time for a more serious campaign to get Yoo fired? Yoo's direct participation in this attack on the Constitution and on international law (The US is obliged under the Consitution to obey international treaties we have signed)is criminal. The Bush/Cheney minions frequently say, "hey, the lawyers vetted it and told us we were acting legally. we were only following their counsel". In fact, Bush has said that himself. Yoo's torture brief and his active role in the Bush/Cheney executive coup d'etat make him culpable. Professors get booted for considerably less than that every day.
I've read that Alberto Gonzalez is having a hard time finding work. Let's put Yoo in the same spot. Don't feel too bad for these guys though. No doubt the Myanmar junta, the House of Saud or the government of Sudan could use their "talents".
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..."
- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 6.
It is all there in clear and straight forward text. The violations of the Constitution as well as international law are plain to see.
Yoo, for instance, claims that the Supreme Court in Boumediene allows "an alien who was captured fighting against the U.S. to use our courts to challenge his detention."
When the Supreme Court said "alien" they surely must have been referring to E.T., Jabba the Hut, Gorlach, and that Predator thing.
History repeating itself; You have a large swath of fear driven, ambivalent populace who has a vague understanding of what habeas corpus has to do with freedom. These unlucky folks aren't Americans, some might say, and this means we can do what we wish with them in order to protect ourselves.
It's been said Git Bay was just an elaborate stage show for the rest of the world. The US embarked on it's war of terror and needed to forewarn impressionable resistance with a spectacle of barbarism. That's entirely plausible, that is, that the prison at Guantanamo itself is an act of terror.
F**k Yoo and the WSJ - that Scalia nutjob set the precedent:
The majority decision in Boumediene "...will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," he said in his descent. "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today."
We found Osama's WMD - it's habeas corpus!
Unlike boot-lickin cultists like FOX and Yoo and the WSJ, crazy Scalia can be impeached. Any Congresspeople out there with balls the size of Kucinch's? It's worth filing the papers just for the insane rants that are sure to follow...
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Fuck Yoo!
Yoo gives lawyers a bad name....no mean feat.
Disbar hell! This ass hole should be bought up on some type of charges. They now use "terrorist" charges on run of the mill common criminals in the US today. Bring the prick up on some kind of "terrorist threatening" charge for Christs sake.
Any decent person from the Bay Area who runs into Mr. Yoo at the grocery store, gas station, or UC Berkeley campus (please fire him, okay, enough already with the appeasement of war criminals) should feel no remorse about spitting in his face and telling him exactly why. He should absolutely be disbarred and put on trial for war crimes immediately. His opinions dirty even the filthy and disreputable Times and pollute our public commons.
John Yoo is a lying sack of crap, period. Shame on Berkely-Yoo is a disgrace to the nation and everything the Constitution stands for.
If release from tenure was good enough for Ward Churchill, then it's good enough for John Yoo. Shame on Berkely. "Sack the sack!"
And why is this blatantly dishonest and incompetent man still an honored professor at one of our most prestigious universities?
There are normally two big exceptions to academic freedom: moral turpitude and incompetence. Yoo is a war criminal and a truly atrocious lawyer. Stanford should be deeply ashamed that he still works there, and their excuses are getting thinner and thinner.
I'm also a little shocked that the Stanford students put up with this situation. Law students, in particular, should worry that this lowers the value of their (extremely expensive) degrees. Is there anyone in his classes? What is he actually doing for his salary, besides writing dishonest op-eds? It's a little late now, since the school year is over, but the place should be shut down until he's gone.
So, why on earth does Yoo still have his licence to practice law? Really. A lawyer who doesn't recognise the concept of innocent until proven guilty ought not to have been able to graduate from any law school in the western world. Heck, a good number of countries in the socalled third world still recognise that concept...
Again, why hasn't Yoo been disbarred?
One of the most reliable methods for knowing that a position is unsustainable is that its advocates must employ outright falsehoods in order to support it.
So far as I can tell, that pretty much applies to every aspect of the U.S. imperium and its advocacy. Even so, its sustainability is open to serious question. The meltdown is more likely to be economic disaster than military defeat, but it will accomplish the same purpose and it appears to be the only form of justice that we're likely to see in the circumstances.
Greenwald for A.G. in 2009!
John Yoo's analysis is a last frantic attempt to justify his illegal actions and avoid his impending indictment in The Hague. Why he hasn't been disbarred already is beyond me.