John Yoo – Presidential Powers Extend to Ordering Torture of Suspect's Child

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Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:37:42 +0800

John Yoo – Presidential Powers Extend to Ordering Torture of

Suspect's Child

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http://rwor.org/a/028/john-yoo.html

 

 

John Yoo – Presidential Powers Extend to Ordering Torture of Suspect's

Child

 

by Philip Watts

 

December 30, 2005, posted at 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. "

 

Send us your comments.