Is this your America?
The long saught DoJ “Torture Memo” written by John Yoo, offering a defense to George W. Bush and his sadistic friends to order the torture, and even killing, of detainees, has finally been made available. Not by the DoJ to Congress as they’d long sought, but to the ACLU via a FOIA request. (Thank you, ACLU!)
Yoo’s document is some 80 pages long, offering what he feels — or what the Administration wanted him to feel — is a reasonable legal defense for the use of torture, even where it is explicitly disallowed by international treaties to which the U.S. has signed on.
Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker, who offers his own summary on all of this, has posted one of the more remarkable sections here.
In short, that 7-page section amounts to:
- If Congress hasn’t very specifically outlawed it, the Commander-in-Chief has the “Constitutional authority” to do it.
- The arguments of “Self-Defense” and “Necessity” for the use of torture, or homicide, to thwart an attack “reasonably believed” to be imminent, are a good enough defense to go ahead with such actions as the perpetrator deems necessary.
- 9/11 justifies anything and everything a President wishes to do. Forever.
All of this was in play while the Administration was intentionally lying and misleading the public and Congress by claiming “it is the policy of the United States to comply with all its legal obligations in its treatment of detainees.”
I feel dirty having read this document. I did not choose these people to make decisions on my behalf. Neither did the majority of Americans. Congress must immediately assert its authority to change the course that the madmen running this country have set us on. Impeachment and War Crimes trials come to mind. I believe they will do next to nothing instead.
More from Keil at TPMMuck who has been on this all day, in response to release of the Yoo Memo and law professor Phillippe Sands’ report at Vanity Fair on the creation of Gitmo, the approval of torture policies, and justifications for ignoring international law and the Geneva Conventions…
- Feith: Only “Assholes” Fret about Torture
- Top Down Torture: Admin Admits Torture Policy Inspired by 24 and Jack Bauer
- Torture Timeline: The Yoo Memo, Guantanimo, Rumsfeld’s Orders, Abu Ghraib, et al
- The Administration Tells the Public One Thing, Does Another
January 20, 2009 offers what seems to be the only possible light at the end of the tunnel right now, if we are able to make it that far beyond what will undoubtedly be regarded by the world — along with slavery and the McCarthy years — as one of the most shameful and darkest periods in American history.
Reason enough to impeach with no investigation. We have an unusual situation with our current president. Whereas most criminals try to hide their criminal acts. Our pres. and vice pres. enjoy the telling and retelling of the many different ways they have broken the law.So Pelosi’s concerns that all the important House legislation that would not get passed as the reason for not impeaching is nuts.No time lost in the time consuming investigation….if the idiots are admitting their wrong doing. Wonder why Pelosi didn’t notice there wouldn’t have to be an investigation?
Investigate, Impeach, Imprison!Did anyone see 60 Minutes on Sunday reporting on German citizen tortured and held without charge for 5 years?
Face it – this IS our America. We torture.
Under the Yoo Doctrine, America will be at war forever, and can do as it pleases, provided it never “declares†war.
I’m sure that the veterans of all prior wars will be delighted to learn that their efforts were for naught, and that we have lost the ultimate battle to the enemies within, who have destroyed virtually EVERYTHING they fought (and many died) to defend.
If AARP doesn’t raise its voice and rally the seniors to vanquish these evil bastards, who will?
Hey all you gray hairs, we need you again…report for duty!
It’s time for the Greatest Generation to reveal the traitors once and for all, and return America to the PEOPLE.
Two years ago, Cheney appeared on Larry King. He stepped in it big time, but few people caught it. I alerted Rude Pundit and he wrote about it.
an excerpt:
Then Cheney made this statement: “In a sense, when you’re at war, you keep prisoners of war until the war is over with.” So, like, if, in a sense, the Gitmo campers are “prisoners of war,” then, in a sense, don’t they get Geneva Conventions protections?
Cheney and Gonzales have been playing a semantics game to justify torture, since “war” was never formally declared. It’s pretty obvious why they chose to embark upon the path of war without ever formally declaring it – so they could not be held accountable for the War Crimes they knew they’d be committing.
Bush tells us every day that we’re at war. Cheney and Gonzales tell us that we’re not REALLY at war.
Problem is, Cheney is on tape stating not only that we are at war, but that we are holding “prisoners of war.”
The Geneva Conventions DO APPLY, and Cheney is guilty of war Crimes.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0505/30/lkl.01.html
KING: They specifically said, though, it was Guantanamo. They compared it to a gulag.
D. CHENEY: Not true. Guantanamo’s been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. Remember who’s down there. These are people that were picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan and other places in the global war on terror. These are individuals who have been actively involved as the enemy, if you will, trying to kill Americans. That we need to have a place where we can keep them. In a sense, when you’re at war, you keep prisoners of war until the war is over with.”
So this is the war without end, and these prisoners will be held forever?
Heh, plunger, I love it. Sure doesn’t look as though The Greatest Generation is getting any competition for its title, now does it?
I absolutely abhor our government’s use of torture and refusal to accord due process.
But.
I must confess, when I thought about what would occur if the PEOPLE followed their own misbegotten policies with respect to THEM, the Great Perpetrators, I did grin.
The memo obviously tells it like it is. Amurka is the government, and everyone else has gone to look for America.
Even though the right are the wrong, it does not matter when Amurka is in power.
The theme song is “Talk, Talk”.
The song is better than the reality.
… Lora said…
“I absolutely abhor our government’s use of torture and refusal to accord due process. But. I must confess, when I thought about what would occur if the PEOPLE followed their own misbegotten policies with respect to THEM, the Great Perpetrators, I did grin.”
Reminds me of a quote from Ron Silver when a Democratic President took power…
“It’s OK! Those are our planes now!”
Reject and denounce torture.
Impeach, Convict, commence war crimes trials, and then execute them if the court indicates that such punishment is required… but make it quick.
Zapkitty,
It was just a passing fantasy…
I do.
The government is torturing the people by ignoring them.
We should not return the ‘favor’.
We should follow our American tradition, waive the Amurkan flag, and wave the American flag.
Most likely these daze, when someone wears a flag on a lapel, it is an Amurkan flag.
Hmmm… Be the Court. (somebody’s got to)
~ Net Nuremberg ~
No my America. Where is OUR UnAmerican Activities Investigation?
Unfortunately, in this country war is a business to make BIG money. Citizens are very naive and when someone waves a flag and shout patriotism, off we go to war to make companies very rich at the expense of our young people, no questions asked. gw and cheney do not have a conscience since they rationalize Iraq in the fact that our soldiers are “volunteers”. John Cusack was on Bill Maher last Friday and he really hit the nail on the head. He has a movie coming out, War, Inc. which should be very interesting – art imitating life.
you idiots are totally wrong. steve bradbury, olc head, declassified the memo by his own free will. it had nothing to do with foia, which does not have jurisdiction over classified material.
The President and his pals are using loopholes in our own laws in order to torture people. Disgusting.
Here is something related that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere else. Look at the Military Commission Act of 2006. What it says in there is that if a person is an “alien unlawful enemy combatant”, rather than what must be a citizen unlawful enemy combatant, they get a different punishment. So it is based on them being an alien. Now, look at the US Code: Deprivation of rights under color of law. This makes it illegal to give different punishments to aliens under color of any law. This is a very serious civil rights law. Depending on the circumstances involved–kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse–violation of the law can be punishable by death.
From what I read between these two laws, the only reason Bush and many others are not currently facing not only prison but death sentences hinges solely on an issue of land ownership–that Guantanamo Bay is merely leased Cuban land, just as the Panama Canal was leased from Panama.