John Yoo should be tried and sent to prison.

[undeterred]

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I have a list so Yoo won't be lonely in prison.

Or Guantanamo, where the terrorists/enemy combatants are kept.

BTW, a military tribunal for Yoo.

[ensho]

2. yes

nt

[truebrit71]

3. The excuse "I didn't torture anyone, I just said it was okay to use torture" does not work...

...at least it shouldn't in a country that claims to abide by the Geneva Convention and the UN Charter..

[peace frog]

5. "claims" being the operative word

and that claim has little to support it of late, sorry to say.

[truebrit71]

11. Indeed...

..

[NightWatcher]

4. the White House says No, so I guess that's the doubleplusgood thing to do

The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.

Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose "the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military's detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict," Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

<snip>

The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/07/MN061AVC89.DTL#ixzz0ZItTFwQe


He MAY get disbarred, that IS doubleplus good

[undeterred]

6. Lawyers defending lawyers

What's wrong with this picture?

[bdamomma]

7. I can think of several who should be in prison with him.

[Blue Owl]

8. Take your goddamned torture

and shove it up your ass you sick fuck.

[harun]

9. At minimum should be banned from teaching and disbarred.

[amborin]

17. think he's teaching in so cal

collecting two salaries?

[Johonny]

10. tried and if found guilty sent to prison.

[Brother Buzz]

12. Who? A brief primer designed to help you understand Yoo's twisted logic

dated but still pertinent

A brief primer designed to help you understand the workings of our new, streamlined American system of government.

Jon Carroll
Monday, January 2, 2006

Perhaps you have been unable to follow the intricacies of the logic used by John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor who has emerged as the president's foremost apologist for all the stuff he has to apologize for. I have therefore prepared a brief, informal summary of the relevant arguments.

Why does the president have the power to unilaterally authorize wiretaps of American citizens?

Because he is the president.

Does the president always have that power?

No. Only when he is fighting the war on terror does he have that power.

When will the war on terror be over?

The fight against terror is eternal. Terror is not a nation; it is a tactic. As long as the president is fighting a tactic, he can use any means he deems appropriate.

Why does the president have that power?

It's in the Constitution.

Where in the Constitution?

It can be inferred from the Constitution. When the president is protecting America, he may by definition make any inference from the Constitution that he chooses. He is keeping America safe.

Who decides what measures are necessary to keep America safe?

The president.

Who has oversight over the actions of the president?

The president oversees his own actions. If at any time he determines that he is a danger to America, he has the right to wiretap himself, name himself an enemy combatant and spirit himself away to a secret prison in Egypt.

But isn't there a secret court, the FISA court, that has the power to authorize wiretapping warrants? Wasn't that court set up for just such situations when national security is at stake?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court might disagree with the president. It might thwart his plans. It is a danger to the democracy that we hold so dear. We must never let the courts stand in the way of America's safety.

So there are no guarantees that the president will act in the best interests of the country?

The president was elected by the people. They chose him; therefore he represents the will of the people. The people would never act against their own interests; therefore, the president can never act against the best interests of the people. It's a doctrine I like to call "the triumph of the will."

But surely the Congress was also elected by the people, and therefore also represents the will of the people. Is that not true?

Congress? Please.

It's sounding more and more as if your version of the presidency resembles an absolute monarchy. Does it?

Of course not. We Americans hate kings. Kings must wear crowns and visit trade fairs and expositions. The president only wears a cowboy hat and visits military bases, and then only if he wants to.

Can the president authorize torture?

No. The president can only authorize appropriate means.

Could those appropriate means include torture?

It's not torture if the president says it's not torture. It's merely appropriate. Remember, America is under constant attack from terrorism. The president must use any means necessary to protect America.

Won't the American people object?

Not if they're scared enough.

What if the Supreme Court rules against the president?

The president has respect for the Supreme Court. We are a nation of laws, not of men. In the unlikely event that the court would rule against the president, he has the right to deny that he was ever doing what he was accused of doing, and to keep further actions secret. He also has the right to rename any practices the court finds repugnant. "Wiretapping" could be called "protective listening." There's nothing the matter with protective listening.

Recently, a White House spokesman defended the wiretaps this way: "This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings and churches." If these very bad people have blown up churches, why not just arrest them?

That information is classified.

Have many weddings been blown up by terrorists?

No, they haven't, which is proof that the system works. The president does reserve the right to blow up gay terrorist weddings -- but only if he determines that the safety of the nation is at stake. The president is also keeping his eye on churches, many of which have become fonts of sedition. I do not believe that the president has any problem with commuter trains, although that could always change.

So this policy will be in place right up until the next election?

Election? Let's just say that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It may not be wise to have an election in a time of national peril.

[undeterred]

13. Reading that makes me feel like this...

[Xithras]

14. I'm sort of on the fence about it

The same uncomfortable spot the ACLU finds itself in when it defends the KKK. It's a situation where a liberal principle is used to defend a piece of worthless garbage. Even though you don't want to, the principle has to be defended, because it's erosion would harm those who we DO agree with ideologically.

Yoo, despite being a fascist conservative, is a lawyer who offered a legal opinion when asked. All lawyers have the right to offer any legal opinion they want, and should always be able to do so without fear of legal prosecution. A legal opinion is just that...a personal interpretation and opinion.

I would have no problem with seeing attempts made to disbar him, or even to somehow revoke his law degree, because his opinions were so far from reality that they displayed a lack of understanding of the American legal system that would be comical if their ramifications hadn't been so damaging. The guy has no business being a lawyer, and certainly shouldn't be teaching the next generation of lawyers at Cal.

But no, I don't think I agree with the notion of prosecuting him for crimes related to torture. He offered a legal opinion when asked, the same thing lawyers do in firms every day in this country. The responsibility for war crimes rests with those who took those opinions and crafted an official doctrine from them that authorized crimes against humanity. Yoo didn't implement policy. He didn't write law. He didn't create procedures. He offered opinions.

I realize that defending lawyers isn't always a popular thing to do, but I was raised by a pack of them and probably take a different perspective than most.

[undeterred]

15. Are we a government of laws or of men?

Is the United States subject to International Laws and Treaties or not?

[Bluenorthwest]

16. Yoo is not the first lawyer to give criminal advice

and this nation has come down like a hard rain on others who have done the exact same thing Yoo did. This is not a new set of questions. A better generation of American leadership answered them differently.

[kenny blankenship]

18. Wait wait - we can TORTURE people but

but holding a lawyer accountable for his shitty, unConstitutional, advocacy of torture practices is somehow BEYOND THE PALE??

This is truly a crazy world we're living in. And rationalizations like that one are why it's so insane.

[Xithras]

25. You found the point....and then missed it.

but holding a lawyer accountable for his shitty, unConstitutional, advocacy of torture practices is somehow BEYOND THE PALE??

We don't hold people responsible for advocating things in this country. You can advocate anything you want, without fear of prosecution. As recent bumper sticker controversies have proven, you can even advocate for the death of the president without punishment. Opinions are free, and we don't punish people for them, no matter how distasteful or evil they might be. Even if they're held and given by lawyers.

[sabrina 1]

20. Would it be okay for a lawyer to give a legal

opinion on how to commit murder without running afoul of the law? I thought that there was thing called 'ethics' which would make it a crime for a lawyer to do that.

Torture is a domestic and international crime. We break our own laws, and also treaties signed internationally when we violate the Geneva Conventions.

Yoo is supposed to be brilliant. Surely he can use Google, which is what I did, and I'm no lawyer, to find out what the Geneva Conventions and our own laws had to say about torture. It only took about 45 minutes.

He was demonstrating to the Bush administration how they could get around laws and using the law as a weapon to do so. He made a mockery of our laws. There is simply no excuse for what he did, and from what I've read, there were others in the DOJ who quit their jobs during the Bush administration rather than go along with what was happening there.

[Xithras]

26. Yes. That's perfectly legal.

It's entirely legal for an attorney to hold a conversation with you discussing ways to kill someone without breaking the law, though there are obviously some constraints. If a fellow walks up to a lawyer and say "I want to kill my friend tomorrow morning. How can I do it without getting caught?", the lawyer will have to report you for threatening a felony crime. If the fellow walks up to a lawyer and asks, "How can someone commit a murder and get away with it?", any ensuing conversation would be perfectly legal.

Yoo's issued legal opinions fall under the second version.

[kenny blankenship]

30. That's called abetting a criminal conspiracy

Try it sometime.

[sabrina 1]

31. And if the lawyer knew that this fellow was planning

a murder and in spite of that, gave him advice on how to do it by getting around the laws, he would an accessory.

Stop pretending that Yoo was not aware that the Bush administration wanted to break the law. He was ambitious and weak at best, and did not have the integrity to say 'the law is the law, there is no way to get around it' which, btw, there never was. The only reason they are getting away with it is because we have learned, we live in a lawless country, at least as far as the powerful are concerned. With all the attempts Yoo made to try to help the war criminals in office to 'get around' the law, the evidence of their crimes regarding torture, is pretty blatant.

We can only hope that the Spanish Court, which has jurisdiction to prosecute him, will do so if the US fails to.

At best, as I said, he was ambitious and weak, but I'm of the opinion that was only part of why he worked so hard to help the Bush administration break the law. He is, as is anyone who would entertain the idea of torturing another human being, a monster. And a lot of people agree.

[annm4peace]

19. I'm tired of waiting. We need Justice

picture by Steve Bidwell

[Goldstein1984]

21. Why should Woo go down without

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the people who "just obeyed orders"?

Especially Cheney. I'd love to see that arrogant smirk leave his face when the gavel falls and the door slams shut.

Try them all. If they are guilty, jail them all.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration seems to be opposed to justice.

[DailyGrind51]

22. "Frog-march" him off to Gitmo!

[earth mom]

23. This is America! Nobody that is part of * & Co goes to prison!

Everybody knows that only poor people and rich women like Martha Stewart go to prison to pay for their crimes!!!

:sarcasm:

[madokie]

24. Right along with the rest of the gang of war criminals

[Hubert Flottz]

27. I'd turn him over to the folks in Iraq...

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

28. Not till Bush and Cheney go first....

Is he despicable? Sure. But he just wrote a legal opinion. The criminals were those who ACTED ON IT. Let the Bar Association deal with his appalling lack of ethics.

[Nikki Stone1]

29. He's a lackey. The top bosses need to be put away for life.

That doesn't mean a Yoo prison sentence wouldn't send a message. It would just be a partial and somewhat unfair one.