The criminally insane fascist fantasies of John Yoo

[pat_k]

THE MEMO, by JANE MAYER
How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted.
New Yorker 27-Feb-06 Issue
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060227fa_fact

Jane Mayer reports on a twenty-two-page memo written by Alberto Mora, outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy. Her article is the best factual summary I've seen of the timeline and players in the Bush regime's War Crimes.

At the heart of it all, we find John Yoo's criminal insanity.

Note: In case you are not familiar with them, some info on key players is provided at the end of the post.

From the article:

The memo is a chronological account, submitted on July 7, 2004, to Vice Admiral Albert Church, who led a Pentagon investigation into abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It reveals that Mora’s criticisms of Administration policy were unequivocal, wide-ranging, and persistent. . . Mora also challenged the legal framework that the Bush Administration has constructed to justify an expansion of executive power, in matters ranging from interrogations to wiretapping. He described as "unlawful," "dangerous," and "erroneous" novel legal theories granting the President the right to authorize abuse. . .

According to Mayer, in his discussion of a January 2003 opinion issued by the Justice Dept's Office of Legal Counsel, which was written by John Yoo, Mora wrote that, in Yoo's opinion, "cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees could be authorized" at Guantánamo. . .and further, that the opinion "espoused an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the President’s Commander-in-Chief authority."

Mora concluded that Yoo’s opinion was "profoundly in error." He wrote that it "was clearly at variance with applicable law." When we spoke, he added, "If everything is permissible, and almost nothing is prohibited, it makes a mockery of the law." . . .

On February 6th, Mora invited Yoo to his office, in the Pentagon, to discuss the opinion. Mora asked him, "Are you saying the President has the authority to order torture?"

"Yes," Yoo replied."

"I don’t think so," Mora said.

"I’m not talking policy," Yoo said. "I’m just talking about the law."

. . . (Yoo said that he recalled discussing only how the policy issues should be debated, and where. Torture, he said, was not an option under consideration.)

Fascists always seem to have such conveniently selective memories, don't they?

. . . under the supervision of Mary Walker, a draft working-group report was being written to conform with Yoo’s arguments. Mora wrote in his memo that contributions from the working group "began to be rejected if they did not conform to the OLC"—Office of Legal Counsel—"guidance."

The draft working-group report noted that the Uniform Code of Military Justice barred "maltreatment" but said, "Legal doctrine could render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful." . . .

So, Yoo, Addington, Haynes, and other promoters of the fascist fantasy of an American unitary authoritarian executive, have constructed a twisted interpretation of "legal doctrine" that makes crimes not crimes.

More from the article. . .

A few days after his meeting with Yoo, Mora confronted Haynes again. He told him that the draft working-group report was "deeply flawed." It should be locked in a drawer, he said, and "never let out to see the light of day again." He advised Haynes not to allow Rumsfeld to approve it.

I would add that John Yoo must be prosecuted, locked in a secure facility, and never let out to see the light of day again.

In December, 2003, in an extraordinary repudiation of the Administration’s own legal work, the Office of Legal Counsel quietly withdrew the Yoo opinion. The new head of the O.L.C., Jack Goldsmith, a conservative legal scholar who now teaches at Harvard Law School, told the Pentagon that it could no longer rely on the legal analysis. Among other problems, Goldsmith had found Yoo’s interpretation of the President’s powers overly broad. . . .

But the insanity continues. . .

Just a few months ago, Mora attended a meeting in Rumsfeld’s private conference room at the Pentagon, called by Gordon England, the Deputy Defense Secretary, to discuss a proposed new directive defining the military’s detention policy. The civilian Secretaries of the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy were present, along with the highest-ranking officers of each service, and some half-dozen military lawyers. Matthew Waxman, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, had proposed making it official Pentagon policy to treat detainees in accordance with Common Article Three of the Geneva conventions, which bars cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, as well as outrages against human dignity. . .

. . One by one, the military officers argued for returning the U.S. to what they called the high ground. But two people opposed it. One was Stephen Cambone, the under-secretary of defense for intelligence; the other was Haynes. They argued that the articulated standard would limit America’s "flexibility." It also might expose Administration officials to charges of war crimes: if Common Article Three became the standard for treatment, then it might become a crime to violate it. Their opposition was enough to scuttle the proposal. . .

But, I thought that Yoo's fantastical interpretation made crimes not crimes?? Oh yeah, that insanity had already been rejected (only to be referenced and relied on in Alito's hearings. . . it goes on and on.)

In exasperation, according to another participant, Mora said that whether the Pentagon enshrined it as official policy or not, the Geneva conventions were already written into both U.S. and international law. Any grave breach of them, at home or abroad, was classified as a war crime. To emphasize his position, he took out a copy of the text of U.S. Code 18.2441, the War Crimes Act, which forbids the violation of Common Article Three, and read from it. The point, Mora told me, was that "it’s a statute. It exists—we’re not free to disregard it. We’re bound by it. It’s been adopted by the Congress. And we’re not the only interpreters of it. Other nations could have U.S. officials arrested.". . .

We don't need to wait for other nations. The time is now. These people need to be locked up.

Not long afterward, Waxman was summoned to a meeting at the White House with David Addington. Waxman declined to comment on the exchange, but, according to the Times, Addington berated him for arguing that the Geneva conventions should set the standard for detainee treatment. The U.S. needed maximum flexibility, Addington said.

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Summary of Key Players

Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS.)

Criminal Investigative Task Force (C.I.T.S.)
Made up of NCIS, FBI, Army CID, Air Force OSI, tasked with lawfully eliciting incriminating information and evidence from detainees at Gitmo that could be used for prosecutions.

Army intelligence, Joint Task Force 170 (J.T.F-170)
Established 16-Feb-02 and tasked with handling interrogation operations at Gitmo for the Department of Defense. Responsible for getting intelligence on Al Qaeda’s next move and coordinating operations among government agencies involved in the interrogation of the suspected terrorists.

John Yoo. Author of the January 2003 opinion from the Justice Dept. Office of Legal Counsel that displayed "catastrophically poor legal reasoning."

David Addington. Cheney's Chief of Statf. One former government lawyer described him as "the Octopus"—his hands seemed to reach into every legal issue.

Addington's ties go back to Reagan years when Cheney, as a Rep. from Wyoming was the ranking Republican on the House select committee investigating the Iran-Contra scandal. Addington assisted with a report for the committee’s Republican minority, arguing that the law banning covert aid to the Contras—the heart of the scandal—was an unconstitutional infringement of Presidential prerogatives. In 1989, when Cheney was named Secretary of Defense by George H. W. Bush, he hired Addington as a special assistant, and eventually appointed him to be his general counsel. Addington, hired Haynes as his special assistant and soon promoted him to general counsel of the Army. With Libby's indictment, Addington took over as Cheney's Chief of Staff.

William Haynes, Pentagon general counsel protégé of Cheney’s influential chief of staff, David Addington. In 2003, President Bush nominated him to the federal appeals court in Virginia. His nomination is one of several that have been put on hold by Senate Democrats. As general counsel, he frequently warns subordinates to put nothing in writing.

Mary Walker, Air Force general counsel, To placate Mora, in Jan-03 a working group was formed to develop "new" interrogation guidelines. Rumsfeld appointed Walker to head the group. A minion for Haynes, Walker ensured that the working group report conformed to John Yoo's opinion.

David Brant, former head NICS. On 17-Dec-02 brought Guantánamo abuse to Alberto Mora's attention

Michael Gelles, a psychologist with NCIS. Had access to J.T.F.-170 "interrogation" (torture) logs and escalated to Brant.

General Michael Dunlavey. Commander J.T.F.-170. After receiving Lt. Col Diane Beaver's 11-Oct-02 legal analysis that soldiers who planned to violate the law might be able to obtain “permission, or immunity” from higher authorities "in advance", he requested that permission, and got it in the form of Rumsfeld's 2-Dec-02 memo.

Diane Beaver, Lt Col -- top legal adviser to J.T.F.-170 in 2002, issued October 11, 2002 legal analysis in which she reasoned that U.S. soldiers preparing to violate that law as set forth in the Uniform Code of Military Justice might be able to obtain “permission, or immunity” from higher authorities "in advance." Later promoted to staff of the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, where she specializes in detainee issues.

General Geoffrey Miller, Commander Gitmo from Nov. 2002. Also sought permission for "more flexibility" to violate the law in interrogation.

Steven Morello, general counsel of the Army. On 18-Dec-02 met with Mora and provided paper trail leading to "authorization" of abuses.

Gordon England, the Secretary of the Navy in Dec 2002, who is now the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense

Jane Dalton, Captain -- legal adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Donald Rumsfeld, Secty of Defense