Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children
By Philip Watts
01/08/06 "revcom.us" -- -- John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.
This came out in response to a question in a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel.
What is particularly chilling and revealing about this is that John Yoo was a key architect post-9/11 Bush Administration legal policy. As a deputy assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, John Yoo authored a number of legal memos arguing for unlimited presidential powers to order torture of captive suspects, and to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.
It has now come out Yoo also had a hand in providing legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush’s legal policies in the 'war on terror’ than John Yoo."
This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.
Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
The audio of this exchange is available online at revcom.us
Yoo argues presidential powers on Constitutional grounds, but where in the Constitution does it say the President can order the torture of children ? As David Cole puts it, "Yoo reasoned that because the Constitution makes the President the 'Commander-in-Chief,’ no law can restrict the actions he may take in pursuit of war. On this reasoning, the President would be entitled by the Constitution to resort to genocide if he wished."
What is the position of the Bush Administration on the torture of children, since one of its most influential legal architects is advocating the President’s right to order the crushing of a child’s testicles?
This fascist logic has nothing to do with "getting information" as Yoo has argued. The legal theory developed by Yoo and a few others and adopted by the Administration has resulted in thousands being abducted from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world, mostly at random. People have been raped, electrocuted, nearly drowned and tortured literally to death in U.S.-run torture centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. And there is much still to come out. What about the secret centers in Europe or the many still-suppressed photos from Abu Ghraib? What can explain this sadistic, indiscriminate, barbaric brutality except a need to instill widespread fear among people all over the world?
It is ironic that just prior to arguing the President's legal right to torture children, John Yoo was defensive about the Bush administration policies, based on his legal memo’s, being equated to those during Nazi Germany.
Yoo said, "If you are trying to draw a moral equivalence between the Nazis and what the United States is trying to do in defending themselves against Al Qauueda and the 9/11 attacks, I fully reject that. Second, if you’re trying to equate the Bush Administration to Nazi officials who committed atrocities in the holocaust, I completely reject that too…I think to equate Nazi Germany to the Bush Administration is irresponsible."
If open promotion of unmitigated executive power, including the right to order the torture of innocent children, isn’t sufficient basis for drawing such a "moral equivalence," then I don’t know what is. What would be irresponsible is to sit by and allow the Bush regime to radically remake society in a fascist way, with repercussions for generations to come. We must act now because the future is in the balance. The world cannot wait. While Bush gives his State of the Union on January 31st, I’ll find myself along with many thousands across the country declaring "Bush Step Down And take your program with you."
John Choon Yoo (born 1967), a professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). A Korean-born American, he is best known for his work from 2001 to 2003 in the United States Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
He contributed to the PATRIOT Act and wrote controversial memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Convention as a means of diminishing legal challenges regarding war crimes.
Do I really need to give an opinion with this? I think you guys can figure it out. :whip: :(
shaolin_Z
Hey guys, remember this?
quote:
STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS
January 28, 2003
.....
Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained - by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.
If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.
.....
-George W. Bush
Does Hugo Chavez's "devil" reference still really sound so off mark? Surely, by following the logic of Bush's own words, wouldn't he himself atleast be "evil?" Perhaps as evil as Sadaam, if not more so?
St_Andrew
^^ Even if it's legal, he hasn't done it yet (as we know of). Kinda like that I have the right to smoke a cigarette (a right that i support), but can still tell people that does smoke that they are idiots and smell discusting ;)
It is insanity nonetheless....
josh4
that came out in januaray
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
^^ Even if it's legal, he hasn't done it yet (as we know of). Kinda like that I have the right to smoke a cigarette (a right that i support), but can still tell people that does smoke that they are idiots and smell discusting ;)
could the same be said about animal f**kers? i'm just asking.
shaolin_Z
quote:
Originally posted by josh4
that came out in januaray
I wasn't aware of it. How come nobody posted it? This is pretty serious ! Not to mention absolutely barbaric and inhuman.
shaolin_Z
quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
^^ Even if it's legal, he hasn't done it yet (as we know of). Kinda like that I have the right to smoke a cigarette (a right that i support), but can still tell people that does smoke that they are idiots and smell discusting ;)
It is insanity nonetheless....
Well, we don't know if he's done it yet, but we already know it's happenning. I think the NY Times had and article mentioning this (don't remember when) and I remember ex-CIA analyist Ray McGovern talking about this in one of his lectures.
Spirit5
quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Hey guys, remember this?
Does Hugo Chavez's "devil" reference still really sound so off mark? Surely, by following the logic of Bush's own words, wouldn't he himself atleast be "evil?" Perhaps as evil as Sadaam, if not more so?
Haha I was just about to say this and then I realized you already said it. Took the words right out of my mouth. Now i'm not a huge fan of Hugo Chavez, but after hearing about this...surely there has got to be some truth to this. If not the devil, then the anti-christ...
Fir3start3r
quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Hey guys, remember this?
Does Hugo Chavez's "devil" reference still really sound so off mark? Surely, by following the logic of Bush's own words, wouldn't he himself atleast be "evil?" Perhaps as evil as Sadaam, if not more so?
Just because he can doesn't mean he will.
I can drive to work and choose to run over a pedestrian who's jay-walking too but I'm not going to.
That article is way of the top IMHO.
The fact that the words, "Nazi" and "Bush" even made it into the same article immediately puts up red flags for me. :rolleyes:
Sunsnail
quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Just because he can doesn't mean he will.
I can drive to work and choose to run over a pedestrian who's jay-walking too but I'm not going to.
Yes, but if you do run over a pedestrian then you will be prosecuted and probably sent to jail. If bush orders the ball crushing of a terrorist child then he will not be punished.
Fir3start3r
quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
Yes, but if you do run over a pedestrian then you will be prosecuted and probably sent to jail. If bush orders the ball crushing of a terrorist child then he will not be punished.
That still doesn't change the fact that I could if I choose to or that I'm going to.
Sunsnail
quote:
Originally posted by Fir3start3r
That still doesn't change the fact that I could if I choose to or that I'm going to.
That doesn't really matter though. It's nothing out of the ordinary to know that I could go to my neighbor's house and shoot them. It's out of the ordinary that I could legally do so...
