St.Thomas U. reports on Protesters who protest John Yoo at their University.

[annm4peace]

Protesters at St. Thomas law school rally against panel participants

http://www.tommiemedia.com/news/protesters-at-st-thomas-law-school-rally-against-professors-advice-on-torture/

University spokesperson Chato Hazelbaker, graduate marketing director, said the debate isn’t about Delahunty as a professor or about torture.
“What we have is a robust debate about presidential powers,” Hazelbaker said. “Professor Yoo is the primary target. He was invited here by a student group. It’s a legal disagreement, actually.”
He said the protesters claim Delahunty did something illegal, but Hazelbaker said Delahunty was doing his job as a lawyer.
“He provided advice to a client, and it’s essentially still advice the Obama administration uses, so we disagree over what he did,” Hazelbaker said.

“We really don’t hear much from students about this,” he said. “They started to look at more substantive issues and this dropped off their radar.”

***********************************************************************************************************************************

Protesters gathered on sidewalks in front of the St. Thomas School of Law Thursday afternoon to voice their disapproval of panel discussion participants who they say condone torture.

The two discussion participants, St. Thomas law professor Robert Delahunty and co-author John Yoo, wrote memos to the U.S. Department of Defense during the Bush administration about the limits of presidential powers and the Geneva Convention. The protesters say these memos paved the way for the torture of foreign prisoners in U.S. prisons.

Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and onetime Minnesota congressional candidate, was participating in the protest. She said there is no legal basis for torture and it should never be used under any circumstance.

“These professors here made all kinds of legal loopholes to allow torture,” Rowley said. “But torture is the worst method to use unless you want somebody to clam up and not tell the truth.”

She said she doesn’t necessarily want Delahunty to be fired, but she thinks the matter needs to be brought more into the open.

“I would love an investigation into what he did,” she said. “There needs to be a real debate.”

The protesters claim the memos Delahunty and Yoo wrote to the Department of Defense rationalized torture by saying the U.S. didn’t need to follow certain articles in the Geneva Convention, and by giving the president the power to override parts of the convention.

“I’m here today for the First Amendment,” protester Susan Jeffrey said. “Torture doesn’t just stop at a foreign border. It’s part of the American prison system and it doesn’t work.”

She said most of the law students walking by didn’t stop, but they seemed to be “ashamed of what their country is doing.”

“They walk by with shoulders hunched, heads down and they scurry away,” she said. “That’s good because people should be ashamed of promoting torture in America. It astonishes me that St. Thomas is teaching children that torture is OK.”

St. Thomas’ position

University spokesperson Chato Hazelbaker, graduate marketing director, said the debate isn’t about Delahunty as a professor or about torture.

“What we have is a robust debate about presidential powers,” Hazelbaker said. “Professor Yoo is the primary target. He was invited here by a student group. It’s a legal disagreement, actually.”

He said the protesters claim Delahunty did something illegal, but Hazelbaker said Delahunty was doing his job as a lawyer.

“He provided advice to a client, and it’s essentially still advice the Obama administration uses, so we disagree over what he did,” Hazelbaker said.

He said the protesters show up about every six weeks, but the group was larger Thursday because Yoo had been invited to St. Thomas as well. Hazelbaker said he hasn’t heard reactions from law students regarding the protests.

“We really don’t hear much from students about this,” he said. “They started to look at more substantive issues and this dropped off their radar.”

Reactions to protest

Most law students walked past the protesters without stopping to look at the signs or take the material the protesters were handing out. When asked, students said they either didn’t know about the issue or didn’t have an opinion. One student, Robin Prochazka, said she didn’t really know about the issue, but wanted to look into it after seeing the protesters.

“I’m kind of happy there’s activism on campus,” Prochazka said. “I don’t see it as a threatening thing. Of course, I don’t believe in torture or war crimes. This will be an opportunity to find out more.”

Some passerby honked car horns at the protesters and some shouted out their agreement with the signs. Some people in other cars voiced their disagreement with the protesters. A few students driving by yelled, “Delahunty is my professor,” and “Delahunty!” in what appeared to be support for the professor.

Katie Broadwell can be reached at [e-mail].

[annm4peace]

1. Memo by Yoo and Delahunty: Applications of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees

http://www.texscience.org/reform/torture/yoo-delahunty-9jan02.pdf

and the Catholic Church is ok with this so called lawyer to the President, teaching students law at the University of St. Thomas.

It is sickening.


In case you would like to complain to St. Thomas University.


the memo writer who now teaches law at St. Thomas.
Prof. Robert Delahunty: [e-mail] 651-962-4997

the Dean who defends war criminal Prof. Delahunty teaching at the U.
Dean Thomas Mengler: [e-mail] 651-962-4886

and the Journal of Law and Public Policy that invited Yoo to speak at the Catholic University.
[e-mail]

[bobthedrummer]

16. kick for accountability n/t

[dflprincess]

2. Meanwhile the Archdiocese of St Paul sent out 400,000 DVDs

ranting about the evils of Gay Marriage and the need for Constitutional Amendment against it...but war criminals? No problem.

[struggle4progress]

3. Yoo's "advice" was so poorly researched that any amateur with internet access could pick holes

in it: the "advice" was clearly intended to help the Administration evade the law, not to help the Administration obey the law, and so criminal in nature

[mmonk]

4. A sore subject.

I quit attending Church under the Bush administration except for special events. I saw an excerpt from a book in my Columbia magazine issue (Knights of Columbus) that had Democrats cast in with "culture of death". This is now why I find no god in Church.

[midnight]

5. This part is worrisome.....

"Most law students walked past the protesters without stopping to look at the signs or take the material the protesters were handing out. When asked, students said they either didn’t know about the issue or didn’t have an opinion. One student, Robin Prochazka, said she didn’t really know about the issue, but wanted to look into it after seeing the protesters."

[EFerrari]

6. K&R

[youmayberight]

7. Two St. Thomas students commented on this article

One wrote: "Calling the manipulation of the Geneva Conventions to support the torture of human beings a 'legal disagreement' is as intellectually responsible as calling Dr. Josef Mengele’s experimentation part of a greater 'medical disagreement.' It’s disgusting, degrading, and as a St. Thomas student, I’d like to thank each and every protestor for standing up to this garbage."

And the other commented: “‘We really don’t hear much from students about this,’ he said. ‘They started to look at more substantive issues and this dropped off their radar.’

"What is more substantive than torture, and our moral, political, and legal obligations to fellow human beings?"

[Brother Buzz]

8. John Yoo's twisted logic (a blast from the past)

A brief primer designed to help you understand John Yoo's idea 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.

[mmonk]

9. Yes, it's logic is twisted because it is pure form of despotism.

[annm4peace]

10. I hope people call and have Dean Mengler explain how he can defend a War Criminal

[MedicalAdmin]

11. I'm not surprised at all. St Thomas has a history of this type of shit.

They are a right wing establishment, I wanna work for walmart when I grow up so I can outsource jobs kinda place.

It is not surprising that they would hire a dean that thinks that torture is AOK and it isn't surprising that they would use federal money (student loans / tuition) to hire a fellow conspirator.

The place is a pimple on the ass of the twin cities.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. Just to be clear, this is University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota....

....not St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami.

I felt I needed to make that distinction.

[bobthedrummer]

13. kick+ Mother Jones: Yoo's Got Mail? (9-7-10) repost

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9095380

[bobthedrummer]

14. Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon Appointees ((neo-con Doug Feith)) started by Tinoire 5-8-04

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x49554

[bobthedrummer]

15. The Torture Archive (The National Security Archive)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torture_archive/index.htm