posted October 12, 2006 02:39 PM              

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.

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."

http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=504353

posted October 12, 2006 03:01 PM              

Paul Joseph Watson
September 29 2006

Slamming the final nail in the coffin of everything America used to stand for, the boot-licking U.S. Senate last night gave President Bush the legal authority to abduct and sexually mutilate American citizens and American children in the name of the war on terror.

There is nothing in the "detainee" legislation that protects American citizens from being kidnapped by their own government and tortured.

Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."

Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."

We have established that the bill allows the President to define American citizens as enemy combatants. Now let's take it one step further.

Before this article is dismissed as another extremist hyperbolic rant, please take a few minutes out of your day to check for yourself the claim that Bush now has not only the legal authority but the active blessings of his own advisors to torture American children.

The backdrop of the Bush administration's push to obliterate the Geneva Conventions was encapsulated by John “torture” Yoo, professor of law at Berkeley, co-author of the PATRIOT Act, author of torture memos and White House advisor.

During a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel, John Yoo gave the green light for the scope of torture to legally include sexual torture of infants.

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.

Click here for the audio.

So if the President thinks he needs to order children's penises to be put in vices, there is no law that can stop him and after last night's vote, the Senate and Congress, exemplified by sicko 16-year-old boy groomer Mark Foley (R-FL), has graciously provided Bush its full support for kids around the world to be molested in the name of stopping terror.

Yoo's comments were made before the passage of the torture legislation last night. Up until that point Bush had merely cited his role as dictator-in-chief as carte-blanche excuse for ordering torture - now his regime have the audacity to openly put it in writing - going one step further than even the Nazis did.

Again, for those who are still deluded into thinking the extent of the "pressure" is loud music and cold water being thrown over Johnny Jihad in Ragheadistan, consider for a moment the fact that your own Congress and President who, according to the Constitution, are mandated to serve you, have just legalized abducting your kids from your home and electric shocking their genitals.

Now that the criminals have declared themselves outside of the law does that mean we'll see Bush barbecuing babies on the White House lawn? Of course not, but the policy of torturing children in front of their parents has already been signed off on by the Pentagon and enacted under the Copper Green program and it happened at Abu Ghraib.

Women who were arrested with their children were forced to watch their boys being sodomized with chemical glow sticks as the cameras rolled. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says that the U.S. government is still withholding the tapes because of the horror of the "soundtrack of the shrieking boys" and their mothers begging to be killed in favor of seeing their children raped and tortured.

Your government has just lobbied for and Congress has passed legislation to discard the Geneva Conventions and mandate all this.

Pedophiles nationwide should rejoice - they can comfortably take a stroll down to the local swimming pool, grab whoever they like, drag them home, rape and torture them, and then in their defense cite the U.S. government as an example of how one should conduct themselves.

The bill also retroactively gives Bush, the Neo-Cons or any of their henchmen immunity from war crimes charges dating back to September 11. Ask yourself why they would be so careful to protect themselves from accusations of war crimes.

Could that possibly be because they are knowingly committing war crimes?

The legislating of torture itself should be a criminal act. All laws that contradict the U.S. Constitution are null and void. It was once a law that black people were slaves.

Only by engaging in civil disobedience and refusing to tolerate or acknowledge the laws of a criminal regime that has greased the skids for sexually torturing kids can we ever have a hope of returning America to its past glory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRjbIQMXGQ

posted October 12, 2006 03:41 PM            

How nice salome. Say, you ever run into Rainbow over there? She's posted articles from "World Can't Wait".

You know salome, there's only one question remaining in my mind about the revolutionary communists and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.

How many of them will we have to kill before they get it through their bird brained minds that they are not going to impose either an Islamic or communist dictatorship over the United States.

Something for their adherents to think about before they pick up weapons and start their conversion jihad or Bolshevik revolution here.

I noticed the so called audio tape couldn't be identified as John Yoo...unless we are prepared to take the word of lying communists and I'm not.

posted October 12, 2006 04:36 PM              

of course you'll deny this; it's what you do.

i don't think your ideological feint will detract from the reality of this very serious situation though.

posted October 12, 2006 08:47 PM            

quote:

---

There is nothing in the "detainee" legislation that protects American citizens from being kidnapped by their own government and tortured.

Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."

---

posted October 12, 2006 10:08 PM              

As he spoke to the Heritage Foundation, you would never have guessed that mild-mannered John Yoo paved the legal road to torture.

By Walter Shapiro

John Yoo

Feb. 23, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- John Yoo was in a jaunty mood.

The former Bush deputy assistant attorney general, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, returned to Washington Wednesday to rhapsodize about his theory of an all-powerful wartime presidency. Yoo clearly felt on safe territory at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative refuge where he was unlikely to face too many intemperate questions about his 2002 Justice Department memos arguing for a narrow eye-of-the-needle legal definition of torture when questioning al-Qaida captives.

Relaxed and smiling during his 30-minute speech and the question-and-answer session that followed, Yoo revealed his lighter side with a series of faculty-lounge laugh lines. He announced that his presence at Berkeley was part of a conservative plot "to balance out Chief Justice Earl Warren," a graduate of the law school. He joked about nervously following the Amazon.com ranking of his 2005 book, "The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11." And cheerfully alluding to his own hot-potato reputation because of the torture memos, Yoo said, "Congress has the power to confirm appointments and prevent people from taking office with whom it disagrees. I would probably fall under that category these days."

In his talk, Yoo played semantic legal games to argue that when the Constitution unequivocally states that Congress has the power "to declare war," it somehow does not mean that the legislative branch can "begin a war" or, presumably, end one. Prodded by a sympathetic Heritage fellow, Yoo even gleefully danced around a how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin question about whether Congress has the power to forbid the Pentagon to spend any money to launch cruise missiles during wartime.

Watching this over-intellectualized performance by Yoo, I kept harking back to the legal opinions that he wrote asserting anything-goes standards for questioning war-on-terror prisoners. This affable man sat in an office in the Justice Department and typed sentences like this to define torture: "Where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to what which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure." (That quotation is taken from an Aug. 1, 2002, memo largely drafted by Yoo, but signed by his boss, Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general.)

What was Yoo thinking as he wrote those words? Was this just an abstract legal game for him, an intellectual exercise that he pretended would have no real-world consequences? Another theory is that Yoo gave way to amoral careerism -- this was the way that Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld wanted al-Qaida captives to be questioned and it was up to the Justice Department to concoct a fig-leaf legal rationalization. Or maybe, just maybe, in the panicked aftermath of Sept. 11, Yoo was personally convinced that virtually any style of coercive questioning would be justified if it might deter another terrorist attack.

So I asked Yoo whether before he wrote his 2002 memos, he had been briefed about the effectiveness of the "aggressive interrogation techniques" that he flatly stated are legal despite federal laws and international treaties forbidding torture. (I will ruefully confess to a bit of linguistic apple polishing in using the phrase "aggressive interrogation techniques" in my question.)

"That's a very good question," Yoo replied, "but I'm afraid that I don't think I can answer it. I can describe what we thought we were doing in the memo itself, but I'm not at liberty to say exactly how these questions arose." Yes, it is tempting to parse Yoo's phrasing and analyze his body language in an effort to decode his answer. My guess from watching him is that these legal opinions were prompted by something far more overt than a simple query from then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales.

Even though I did not specifically refer to the Bybee memo in my question, it seemed clear that this was the document that Yoo was referring to in his answer. The former Bush official tried to distance himself from any pain that had been inflicted on actual captives as a result of this legal opinion. "I will point out, that memo by its own terms is not written about any particular interrogation method," Yoo said. "The memo in its own terms is about not committing criminal acts."

Yeah, sure. The Bybee memo states, "Because the acts inflicting torture are extreme, there are a significant range of acts that though they might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment fail to rise to the level of torture." By declaring virtually any conduct this side of ripping out a prisoner's liver to be something other than torture, Yoo and his colleagues at the Justice Department did not have to write a specific interrogation rule book. Their message was clear: If the prisoner is alive at the end of the day, it is legal.

posted October 12, 2006 11:58 PM            

I would like the name of any children Bush ordered tortured.

I would like the name of any terrorist Bush ordered tortured.

I would like the name of any person Bush ordered tortured.

posted October 13, 2006 12:13 AM              

Contacting the White House

Mailing Address

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

TTY/TDD

Comments: 202-456-6213

Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

E-Mail

Please send your comments to comments@whitehouse.gov. Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message. For further up-to-date information on Presidential initiatives, current events, and topics of interest to you, please continue to use the White House website.

Vice President Richard Cheney: vice_president@whitehouse.gov

posted October 13, 2006 12:36 AM              

quote:

---

the following should be able to help with all your questions jwhop.
Contacting the White House

---

I doubt he'll contact the White House...ignorance is bliss...and I doubt they'd even attempt to answer such questions truthfully.

Here's a few...

Iraq's Child Prisoners
A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees – some as young as 10 – are also being subjected to rape and torture
By Neil Mackay
http://www.sundayherald.com/print43796

posted October 13, 2006 12:52 AM            

Surely someone making such outrageous allegations would know.

So, what are all their names.

posted October 13, 2006 01:10 AM            

This is just more brain dead leftist bullsh*t which is about the only thing coming off their keyboards or out of their mouths.

posted October 13, 2006 01:33 AM              

US held youngsters at Abu Ghraib

Children as young as 11 years old were held at Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison at the centre of the US prisoner abuse scandal, official documents reveal.

quote:

---

I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians. We're winning the war

~Comment attributed to Maj Gen Wodjakowski

---

they say there wasn't torture, but they're a bunch of liars.

Disgusting..

Seymour Hersh : The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6492.htm

posted October 13, 2006 08:39 AM              

MIKLASZEWSKI: Rumsfeld then dropped a bomb, revealing that there were more photos, even videos depicting abuses far worse than what has been seen so far.

RUMSFELD: There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.

MIKLASZEWSKI: U.S. military officials tell NBC News, the unreleased images, show American soldiers severely beating one Iraqi prisoner to near death; apparently, raping an Iraqi female prisoner; acting inappropriately with a dead body; and Iraqi guards apparently videotaped by U.S. soldiers raping young boys.

SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM ®, SOUTH CAROLINA: We‘re talking about rape and murder here, we‘re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience, we‘re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.

MIKLASZEWSKI: Senator Carl Levin raised questions about one photo which appeared to show the abuse of prisoners may not be random, but part of routine operations.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4945202/

posted October 13, 2006 12:30 PM              

they have legislation now giving them immunity from all war crimes, retroactive to 9.11.

they have a law professor who re-defines the constitution and drafts policy defining torture as nothing short of death or 'organ failure'...and giving license for the rape and torture of young children and infants....saying there is no law or treaty that can prevent the administration from doing so, or for being held accountable for war crimes.

anyone, including american citizens, can be considered a terrorist for any reason whatsoever...subject to these same tortures, with no legal protection or recourse.

see ~

What Are We Becoming?

that these rapes and tortures have been done there is no question...far worse even, as the worst will never be known. but these are non-issues in the scheme of things, because there is nothing and nobody anywhere to hold the administration accountable for these crimes against humanity. the bush administration has given themselves every legal greenlight to torture and maim and destroy without any repercussion whatsoever.

so demanding names doesn't matter...as the crimes are legal according to the administration. they've publicly given themselves every right to commit these crimes...and let us know...there is nothing stopping them. and they don't care because they have declared absolute and unadulterated power to do anything and everything they desire. they have immunity. and they have declared the war on terrorism ongoing and unending.

think about it.

posted October 13, 2006 01:20 PM            

First off this article was printed BEFORE the passage of the Military Commission Act, YET this weirdo states that Bush can "crush the testicles of children" because "Well, there is nothing in the law holding him back".

Do things REALLY have to be spelled out for the leftest morons here and elsewhere?

The Act had to already spell out WHAT A TERRORIST / ENEMY combatant really is and what it is not - even though our Military has had the same law for years upon years.. we still had to spell it out for the brain dead. Even then, they now jump to the conclusion that calling Bush a retard while speaking to Aunt Bessie will get you 10 years of torture at Gitmo.

Do you people really read and believe the articles that you post?

What facts, other than someone saying in an artilcle "well, they COULD do it if they wanted to, even though there is NO history, but technically.. blah blah blah.." do you have to substantiate the claim?

Let's look at this quote:

"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." "

How long has the Constitution listed the President as "Commander in Chief"? Does that mean since Clinton, Carter and Reagan served as the "Commander-in-Chief" they ALSO had the right to torture children and squish their testes? Anyone recall that whole argument being played out here in the past?

Nope.. only when it comes to Bush do we see these lying articles containing the merest kernel of truth (as in.. well, there was the time that I head Yoo say "Nazi" and "Bush" in the same breath, therefore he meant Bush is a Nazi.)

This whole twisty turvy lie stems from a hypothetical question asked of Yoo by Cassel

"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."

Yet, the raving lunatic fringe, the communistic wacknuts, take that exchange and turn it in to an argument to demonize Bush.

I wonder why this did not make the MEDIA back in January when it was first published on the communist website?

Hmm..... and then to stretch it to cover SEXUAL ABUSE and torture..

How many cases have we heard concerning sodomozing children with freaking glow sticks? I want proof if some a-hole is going to make these types of allegations.

Salome,

Don't even pretend you have a compassionate bone in your body. You only post this, not to inform, but to start arguments. Then you hide behind this "oh, the sad, sad world... what are we going to do".

Where were you when the children were REALLY being raped, mutilated and tortured by Saddam and his henchmen?

Talk about sick and disgusting. Some people foam at the mouth waiting to find fake evidence against this President. One wonders if they get a thrill out of publishing such crap.

posted October 13, 2006 02:15 PM            

I did not "flame" you, but I did call you out for what you did. You posted incredibly inflammatory accusations concerning the President without one iota of evidence to back it up.

Even the title of this thread is inflammatory and insinuates that 1) Bush's current advisor said this and 2) Bush is going to torture children.

The fact remains that you do not have any evidence to back up your allegation. To post something to endorse it.

You can hide behind stating that I am flamming, but you would be dead wrong. Then again I can see how living in your self-righteous bitter world waiting for new lies to post about the President would make any opinion differing than yours appear to be "negative", "angry", "bitter" and qualify as "flaming".

posted October 13, 2006 02:18 PM              

i'm sorry you misunderstood. i meant flaming as in fiery nature. i didn't intend it to mean it as you took it.

you are a fiery passionate woman.

posted October 13, 2006 02:24 PM              

i'm very pleased that it's perceived this way. i do hope this topic will get lots and lots of attention.

to re-post ~

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: To those Iraqis who were mistreated by member of the U.S. Armed Forces, I offer my deepest apology.
MIKLASZEWSKI: Rumsfeld then dropped a bomb, revealing that there were more photos, even videos depicting abuses far worse than what has been seen so far.

RUMSFELD: There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.

MIKLASZEWSKI: U.S. military officials tell NBC News, the unreleased images, show American soldiers severely beating one Iraqi prisoner to near death; apparently, raping an Iraqi female prisoner; acting inappropriately with a dead body; and Iraqi guards apparently videotaped by U.S. soldiers raping young boys.

SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM ®, SOUTH CAROLINA: We‘re talking about rape and murder here, we‘re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience, we‘re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.

MIKLASZEWSKI: Senator Carl Levin raised questions about one photo which appeared to show the abuse of prisoners may not be random, but part of routine operations.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4945202/