Yoo argues president has authority to massacre entire villages
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On the season premiere of Real Time with Bill Maher, former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, explained that war criminal, Dick Cheney, cannot be prosecuted even though Cheney confessed to war crimes on ABC News.
I’m paraphrasing Spitzer’s words (I can’t find the transcript or video online, but if someone sends it to me, I’ll include his exact phrasing in an update,) but he essentially said that once Cheney received the blessing of a lawyer to facilitate the culture of torture, he eliminated the possibility that he would ever be held accountable for his actions.
Scott Horton explains how this plausible deniability thing works:
When he was informed that CIA seniors believed their palette of techniques went as far as the law allowed, Cheney, drawing on the skills of his counsel David Addington and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, arranged to have John Yoo craft a memorandum (the infamous torture memo) to overrule the CIA and its counsel. It was not a situation in which they proposed and he accepted, but rather one in which he cajoled and pressured them to accept torture techniques, enlisting the Justice Department in the process. Those are the facts; Cheney has, of course, contrived a paper trail that provides him cover and that carefully elides his decisive role in the process from the outset. Throughout his career he has been a master manipulator who gets his results without leaving behind a clean set of fingerprints.
See how that works? Cheney comes up with the idea, and then has Yoo, the lawyer, give him legal cover.
Of course, a new Department of Justice can prosecute the war criminals and declare that simply finding some strip mall lawyer to scribble down, ‘Torture is A-okay,’ does not provide the torture mastermind with indefinite legal coverage.
The Justice Department is closing the books on its probe of the Bush administration lawyers whose legal memorandums authorized the CIA to waterboard terrorism suspects
Oh.
Well, at least we know the worst of it. Sure, Yoo’s memos approved waterboarding, but that’s it, right?
The chief author of the Bush administration’s “torture memo” told Justice Department investigators that the president’s war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be “massacred,” according to a report by released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.
[snip]
The report, more than four years in the making, is filled with new details into how a small group of lawyers at the Justice Department, the CIA, and the White House crafted the legal arguments that gave the green light to some of the most controversial tactics in the Bush administration’s war on terror. They also describe how Bush administration officials were so worried about the prospect that CIA officers might be criminally prosecuted for torture that one senior official – Attorney General John Ashcroft – even suggested that President Bush issue “advance pardons” for those engaging in waterboarding, a proposal that he was quickly told was not possible.
At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, that the president’s wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:
“What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? … Is that a power that the president could legally -”
“Yeah,” Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. “Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief’s power over tactical decisions.”
“To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?” the OPR investigator asked again.
“Sure,” said Yoo. (h/t Digby)
Just to be clear: he’s talking about massacring known civilians. That’s a war crime.
This is one of many examples of how this sadistic little monster’s mind works. As Digby points out, the OPR investigator didn’t ask Yoo his feelings on genocide, and surely there are all kinds of radical executive power privileges Yoo argued for that the public will never know about.
But here’s one we do know: (h/t Digby)
Recall that it came out last year that in a classified August 2002 memoranda, Yoo and Bybee approved such tortures to captured al-Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah as placing insects inside a “confinement box” along with the detainee, who was to be led to believe the insects were poisonous. They concluded such a move wouldn’t be torture. Here’s a snippet of how they reached such a conclusion. They use the bizarre nickname “Boo-Boo” for Abu Zubaydah:
On June 30 [2002], Yoo asked [NAME REDACTED] by email, “[D]o we know if Boo-boo is allergic to certain insects?” [NAME REDACTED] replied, “No idea, but I’ll check with [NAME REDACTED]” Although there is no record of a reply by [NAME REDACTED] the final version of the classified Bybee memo included the following, “Further, you have informed us that you are not aware that Zubaydah has any allergies to insects.”
This man teaches law at Berkeley and was hired as a columnist for the Philly Inquirer. He recently wrote a book, which will earn him lots of money. He gets to walk around every day, a free man.
Rest assured, if a government employee is another country — let’s say Iran — argued that massacring entire villages and using poisonous beetles on prisoners of war was acceptable behavior, President Obama would rightfully denounce that behavior as criminal.
Of course, since Cheney and Yoo are American former government employees, the law doesn’t apply to them.
I think all criminals should start using this kind of Cheney Pardon. Here’s how it works:
1. Find a shady lawyer.
2. Get them to preemptively pardon you. For example, have them write down, “I hearby excuse John Smith for stealing the car radio as doing so was an essential part of his position as a Car Radio Thief, and forbidding Smith to steal said car radio unfairly restrains and prevents Smith from exercising his full power as a Car Radio Thief.”
3. When apprehended, kindly explain to the judge that your actions were deemed legal by a Professional Lawyer.
As long as the executive branch exercises this kind of preemptive pardon, there will never be any kind of accountability in this country. This two-tier justice system ensures poor people go to jail for selling drugs and stealing car radios, while the oligarchy go unpunished for committing war crimes.
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….and Allison you don’t think the number 2 taliban guy reported captured last week isn’t being tortured…? They held him for a week before reporting his capture.
Our marines are fighting a war in the opium fields of afghanistan and they aren’t allowed to molest the opium growers or their opium crops…that opium will end up on the streets of new york and chicago in the form of heroin as afghanistan’s only cash crop…
…And the opium thing has what to do with Allison’s commentary? Sure, I can equate someone’s opium habit to war crimes and torture, but then I’d be a bit loopy.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t know where you can find a transcript, but if you use itunes, you can download the audio here http://tinyurl.com/trueslant-billmaher
Unfortunately, Allison, this is just one more in a long list of affirmations that twisted, old men with fist fulls of cash and raging paranoia get a pass, while the rest of us pick up the tab.
This morning CNN paid one of Mr. Yoo’s mentors, James Baker III, to put forth this line of reasoning: US foreign policy should be formulated in part on the basis of principle, but primarily on the basis of national interest. He wrapped up his business with the remark that Americans should not engage in “airy fairy foreign policies”.
I think the “airy fairy” bit was a jab at Barak Obama’s world view, even though Mr. Obama’s is not too different than his own. But for the sake of argument I will interpret that remark as sign of disrespect towards a western liberal’s world view — such as my own — and take the liberty of being disrespectful in kind.
Ok, US foreign policy should promote the national interest. Absolutely! Let’s run with that. Now let’s consider what is and is not in the national interest.
Mr. Baker — known as “The Snake” in his own profession — conflates his own private, minority interests with the public, majority interests of the US population. And It would be quite interesting to learn just how much he profited from his interest in the Carlyle Group, which was heavily invested in the arms manufacturing/dealing business, and a private equity firm founded by former Goldman Sachs investment bankers — beginning in 2000, coincidentally. He was also a key player in the chicanery which ended in the Supremes’ handing over of the keys to the White House and Pentagon to man of dubious qualifications in December 2000. (I have always referred to that event as a bloodless coup, but for Iraqis and Gazans it was pretty damn bloody.)
Having cast those aspersions, I will go on to say that he is obviously intelligent enough to know the difference between his own and his country’s interests, but he has literally banked on gullible US voters’ willingness to not make the distinction. Today’s paid appearance on CNN seemed to show that he believes it still works — “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I did not see any changing spots on the snake.
Now, I ask you, dear reader, a great and difficult favor. Please, for a few minutes — better yet, a few hours — think outside the tribe. Think outside the “exceptional tribe”.
Consider the ramifications of his brand of realpolitik.
- You see Hugo Chavez get up on the podium at the UN and smell the sulphur, to chuckles instead of indignation.
- You see your last president duck shoe projectiles, to howling laughter instead of indignation.
- You spend at least a trillion dollars — maybe two trillion by the time the last soldier evacuates — on an offensive military adventure in Iraq which delivers influence on a silver platter to those you hate most (the Iranians), killing thousands of civilians, and making even more Arabs consider you a legitimate war target. (Remember, more than 70% of you panicked after 9/11 and supported this insanity.)
- The man you gave permission to run the Executive Branch twice(!) gives tens of billions of dollars in extra weaponry to Israel and then enthusiastically encourages Israel to flatten Gaza just before his second term expires, killing quite a few civilians in the process. (Remember, many of you voted to underwrite this, with gifts of of cash, weapons, and diplomatic cover. Why should Gazans not consider you — the voter — the enemy?)
- There are a million cluster bomblets stamped “Made in the USA” in Southern Lebanon, placed there during the most recent Israeli invasion of of that country. (Remember, a majority of you voted for this. Why should people who have to deal with all that unexploded ordnance not take a very dim view of you? If you were in their shoes you’d be seeing red.)
- The un-winnable, global, generational war on an abstract noun continues, and it is burning a hole in your pocket. Those who promote it profit from it — they do not pay for it. Please take the time to look up the top marginal tax rates in the US for the years 1918, and 1945. Is there anything wrong with this picture?
Now, the exercise is over, please put your exceptional hats back on and return to convincing yourself that you can muddle through this, and you can continue the very voting habits which put you at such great financial and physical risk… Keep convincing yourself that you can simply “get away with it” because you are exceptional, invincible, and remind yourself that you have a cold, hard, grip on reality.
One last favor… a year from now, after you have underwritten Israel’s next war of collective punishment — putting you at ever greater risk — ask yourself this question: “How’s that James Baker / John Yoo flavor of realpolitik — their version of national-interest-based foreign policy — workin’ out for me”?
[...] I don’t see that power in the Constitution, but who gives a crap about that old document anyway? Read more about this issue here. [...]
4. Have the next President (who is ostensibly your political enemy) sanction the whole damn thing.
Maher- “Do you think we should try Cheney as a War Criminal?”
Spitzer- “I don’t think you can, based on what the justice department has done. I think what he did was morally wrong. I think it is abhorrent.”
Maher- “But if a guy said I ordered waterboarding, and waterboarding is…”
Spitzer- “As a very technically legal matter, once the justice department has said that reliance on those memos is sufficient to eliminate any intent to commit crime, you CANNOT prosecute him. It’s unfortunate but that’s where we are.”
Maher- “So as long as any mall lawyer that Bush had wrote something down once on a piece of paper…”
Spitzer- “Right. The defense of advice of council- ‘My lawyer said I could do it’ is a very difficult defense to overcome as a prosecutor.
Maher- “Wow”
MacFarlane- “It’s things like that that make me glad there’s Jack Daniels in this cup.”
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I started writing a comment, but it got so long I decided to publish it as a note. It’s here:
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=1307670022
and here if you’re not on Facebook:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aeo198fALzwgZDZncno1a180Znd3MjZ4aGo
[...] Yoo argues president has authority to massacre entire villages – Allison Kilkenny – Unre… (tags: torture bush war terrorism cheney lies politics) [...]