UC professor (Yoo) under fire for White House memo

[DogPoundPup]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Berkeley's city council will delve into national policy again next week when it votes whether to demand the United States charge Berkeley resident and former Bush adviser John Yoo with war crimes.

Yoo, a tenured professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, wrote the memos offering legal justification for torture while he worked for the White House from 2001 to 2003.

The five measures attacking Yoo were drafted by the city's Peace and Justice Commission, the same group that recommended that the city tell the Marines they were "unwelcome intruders."

The city council will vote Monday on the five measures. In addition to demanding that Yoo be charged with war crimes, the city will decide whether to order Boalt to offer alternatives to Yoo's courses, so no student is forced to take a class from him if they don't want to. Yoo has taught constitutional and international law at Boalt since 1993.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/1...

[StrictlyRockers]

1. Good. That man is a war criminal and an enabler of evil.

[rhett o rick]

10. Agree. How can he teach? nm

[roguevalley]

14. who would agree to take his classes?

[tblue37]

21. Campus Republican groups. nt

[Doctor_J]

2. I can't believe the People's Republic Of Berkley hasn't run that

guy out of town yet.

[Buzz Clik]

4. They're doing it just right -- keep him around to put him on trial.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Send the motherfucker to jail!

He is THE reason why Bush Co may escape prosecution for their abuses.

Seeing his sorry ass in jail would make me grin ear-to-ear.

[tritsofme]

5. I don't know if a bunch of self-important city council members issuing meaningless proclomations

counts as "delving into national security policy"

[David__77]

19. So loca officials shouldn't condemn fascists?

That's exactly, in the strictest sense, what Yoo is. He advocates presidential dictatorship and revoking habeas corpus. Perhaps Obama should declare him an enemy and send him to the salt mines.

[bemildred]

6. Good. Reality TV at its finest.

[aquart]

7. And yet, no firing squad.

I would so like to see that smug, cold-hearted bastard punished. Oh, well.

[antimatter98]

8. I'm in favor of this move against Yoo.

Here is a professor, safely protected from the real world by tenure (which means: lifetime employment, benefits and great income, and able to set the world on fire with no penalty), who helped the Bush White House justify torture, against the Geneva
Conventions.

I say, yes, drag him off his safe little crystal palace chair into the real world to answer for
his crimes.

Good going Berkeley City Council.

[nebenaube]

11. And yet...

If he got busted for smoking pot his tenure would be history in a heartbeat!

[annabanana]

9. I was astonished to see him get that tenured spot at Berkeley

after it was so well known that he was a torture apologist of the first water...

He should have been run out on a rail, tarred & feathered.

[annm4peace]

12. Yoo should be Prosecuted !

If Yoo and Delahunty are not prosecuted and if guilty imprisoned.. then it will happen again, and again.

They should have been fired from the Universities a long time ago, and especially shame on catholic University of St. Thomas for not firing Robert Delahunty for being a co-author of the Torture memo.

[struggle4progress]

13. National Lawyers Guild calls on Boalt Hall to dismiss law professor John Yoo, whose torture memos

led to commission of war crimes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 9, 2008
Contact:
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, [e-mail] ; 619-374-6923
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, [e-mail] ; 212-679-5100, x11

New York. In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.

The federal maiming statute, for example, makes it a crime for someone "with the intent to torture, maim, or disfigure" to "cut, bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut out or disable the tongue, or put out or destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb or any member of another person." It further prohibits individuals from "throwing or pouring upon another person any scalding water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance" with like intent.

Yoo also narrowed the definition of torture so the victim must experience intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result; Yoo's definition contravenes the definition in the Convention Against Torture, a treaty the US has ratified which is thus part of the US law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Yoo said self-defense or necessity could be used as a defense to war crimes prosecutions for torture, notwithstanding the Torture Convention's absolute prohibition against torture in all circumstances, even in wartime. This memo and another Yoo wrote with Jay Bybee in August 2002 provided the basis for the Administration's torture of prisoners.

"John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act," said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn ...

http://www.nlg.org/news/index.php?entry=entry080409-083...

[Kablooie]

15. He needs to be tortured! It's what he wants the goverment to do after all.

[judasdisney]

20. I'll do it -- Somebody has to.

[Piewhacket]

16. I can't post about Yoo...

everything I can think of to say about him is either obscene
or might be taken as a criminal threat.

I can only say...
He should (deleted) his (bleeping bleep), pour some gasoline in it,
and set the (censored) thing on fire while millions watch.

He should not be teaching anything. He should not have a law
license. He is a putrid stain on humanity.
He should emigrate to another planet.

(The rest is not fit for print)

[AnneD]

24. Well spoken.....

I too, hsve the same problems when I speak of him. There should be special places for these pus filled boils on humanities butt.

[bjobotts]

17. He was justifying Bush's actions to cover Bush's ass.He even looks tortured.

[bjobotts]

18. His actions were shameful and his memo illegal, immoral, and inhuman

[DBoon]

22. Don't UC employees have to sign a loyalty oath

supporting the US constitution?

If so, he is certainly in violation of this McCarthy-era relic.

[wryter2000]

26. They do sign an oath

I signed it. I don't remember that it mentioned the Constitution but rather that I didn't want to overthrow the government of the US. I signed it 18 years ago, though, and may not remember correctly.

[struggle4progress]

58. STATE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the

Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.

The SOB certainly didn't defend the Constitution against its domestic enemies

[Cronus Protagonist]

23. Waterboard YOO!

Has a nice ring to it, dontcha think?

[wryter2000]

25. I wonder

If nothing's done about him in this country, I imagine other countries might try him as a war criminal. Then, if he set foot on their soil, they could arrest him and send him to the Hague. That peabrain Bush will never want to go abroad, but an academic is expected to have colleagues in other countries.

Somehow, I'd hoped he was a professor or torts or something unrelated to his crimes. It's saddening, indeed, that they saw fit to give tenure to someone with such ludicrous ideas about Presidential powers.

BTW, Boalt also has Phillip Johnson on the faculty. He's the Christian Dominionist who's always writing books "disproving" the theory of evolution in favor of "intelligent" design.

[BrotherBuzz]

27. A brief primer designed to help you understand Yoo's circular logic

Jon Carroll

Monday, January 2, 2006

Perhaps you have been unable to follow the intricacies of the logic used by John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor who has emerged as the president's foremost apologist for all the stuff he has to apologize for. I have therefore prepared a brief, informal summary of the relevant arguments.

Why does the president have the power to unilaterally authorize wiretaps of American citizens?

Because he is the president.

Does the president always have that power?

No. Only when he is fighting the war on terror does he have that power.

When will the war on terror be over?

The fight against terror is eternal. Terror is not a nation; it is a tactic. As long as the president is fighting a tactic, he can use any means he deems appropriate.

Why does the president have that power?

It's in the Constitution.

Where in the Constitution?

It can be inferred from the Constitution. When the president is protecting America, he may by definition make any inference from the Constitution that he chooses. He is keeping America safe.

Who decides what measures are necessary to keep America safe?

The president.

Who has oversight over the actions of the president?

The president oversees his own actions. If at any time he determines that he is a danger to America, he has the right to wiretap himself, name himself an enemy combatant and spirit himself away to a secret prison in Egypt.

But isn't there a secret court, the FISA court, that has the power to authorize wiretapping warrants? Wasn't that court set up for just such situations when national security is at stake?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court might disagree with the president. It might thwart his plans. It is a danger to the democracy that we hold so dear. We must never let the courts stand in the way of America's safety.

So there are no guarantees that the president will act in the best interests of the country?

The president was elected by the people. They chose him; therefore he represents the will of the people. The people would never act against their own interests; therefore, the president can never act against the best interests of the people. It's a doctrine I like to call "the triumph of the will."

But surely the Congress was also elected by the people, and therefore also represents the will of the people. Is that not true?

Congress? Please.

It's sounding more and more as if your version of the presidency resembles an absolute monarchy. Does it?

Of course not. We Americans hate kings. Kings must wear crowns and visit trade fairs and expositions. The president only wears a cowboy hat and visits military bases, and then only if he wants to.

Can the president authorize torture?

No. The president can only authorize appropriate means.

Could those appropriate means include torture?

It's not torture if the president says it's not torture. It's merely appropriate. Remember, America is under constant attack from terrorism. The president must use any means necessary to protect America.

Won't the American people object?

Not if they're scared enough.

What if the Supreme Court rules against the president?

The president has respect for the Supreme Court. We are a nation of laws, not of men. In the unlikely event that the court would rule against the president, he has the right to deny that he was ever doing what he was accused of doing, and to keep further actions secret. He also has the right to rename any practices the court finds repugnant. "Wiretapping" could be called "protective listening." There's nothing the matter with protective listening.

Recently, a White House spokesman defended the wiretaps this way: "This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings and churches." If these very bad people have blown up churches, why not just arrest them?

That information is classified.

Have many weddings been blown up by terrorists?

No, they haven't, which is proof that the system works. The president does reserve the right to blow up gay terrorist weddings -- but only if he determines that the safety of the nation is at stake. The president is also keeping his eye on churches, many of which have become fonts of sedition. I do not believe that the president has any problem with commuter trains, although that could always change.

So this policy will be in place right up until the next election?

Election? Let's just say that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It may not be wise to have an election in a time of national peril.

[MasonJar]

28. No law student should have to take classes from him, especially

international and constitutional law. What a warped view he must expose future lawyers too. I am surprised the school has not lost students.

[natrat]

29. thats one of the issues, they want to make sure students have an altrnative

[newtothegame]

30. What do they mean "demand?"

Berkeley's city council will delve into national policy again next week when it votes whether to demand the United States charge Berkeley resident and former Bush adviser John Yoo with war crimes.

What will this accomplish? I can stand outside of the White House and DEMAND they end the war, but for what? You can't make demands if you don't make the decision.

[Octafish]

31. John ''OK to crush a child's testicles'' Yoo?

Good on you, Berkeley.

[Ichingcarpenter]

32. Berkeley to weigh war crime charges against 'torture memo' author Yoo

Source: Raw Story

John Yoo, author of the infamous 'torture memo' which the Justice Department used as a legal basis for the Bush Administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques, is under fire once again.

On Monday, Berkeley's city council will vote on a proposal by its Peace and Justice Commission as to whether they will recommend war crimes charges for the UC Berkeley constitutional and international law professor. If passed, the measure would also order UC Berkeley to provide alternative courses to Yoo's class at the Boalt Hall School of Law.

"It gives students with a conscience the freedom to exercise their options," Berkeley Councilman Kriss Worthington told the San Francisco Chronicle. "You shouldn't be punished academically because you have a moral compunction about taking a course from someone who says it's OK for the U.S. to torture people."

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Berkley_city_council_to_w...

[jwirr]

33. Do they have authority to do this and how far does this authority go?

[Ichingcarpenter]

35. Its mostly symbolic and has no bearing on his tenure at UCB

But I like the idea of making people aware of this guy's responsibilities
on the torture memos

[ColbertWatcher]

54. Yes, I agree. n/t

[Titonwan]

36. WTF?

They're not going NEAR far enough, if it was up to me. This jerk needs to spend time in Gitmo until they close it down. Then off to Pelican Bay or San Quentin. The worse, the better for this worm. Next up! Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Addington and Rove. Can't wait.

[PatrynXX]

37. Move him to Alaska in an Igloo with no clothes.

=D

[jwirr]

40. I merely was asking if they were going to be able to make this into

a real trial of symbolic. You know "rule of law" and stuff like that. I was asking for a clarification. The OP answered my question.

[AndyTiedye]

52. To the Hague With Them!

[supernova]

34. Better late than never I suppose

I'd rather see him living under a bridge without even a trash can fire to keep warm by.

[Peace Patriot]

38. Yoo teaches compulsory classes? That is outrageous!

It's bad enough that UC and Boalt Law School gave this war criminal a nice cushy job. But forcing students to attend his classes is DISGUSTING! Am I reading this post right? The Berkeley City Council recommends that his classes NOT be compulsory. Which means that they are presently compulsory classes--classes that students must take, to graduate. That's terrible. I never imagined that that could happen. In fact, I hoped that he would be running some obscure seminars, or doing research--a sort of emeritus position (reward for torture services rendered), with minimal contact with young legal minds. That should be remedied immediately.

[Seldona]

55. One wouldn't want to turn in a late paper. nt

[Vattel]

39. He's not only evil,

he's stupid. His scholarship is a joke.

[davidinalameda]

41. the Berkeley City Council can't order UC-Berkeley to do squat

no wonder people think the city is a joke

they screwed themselves when they passed that ordinance saying that the Marine recruiters weren't welcomed and gave Code PInk permission to harass them

with all the problems in the city that they can actually fix, why waste time on crap like this?

[Doctor_J]

42. They shouldn't be allowed to prodecute a confessed criminal who

lives and works in their city?

[davidinalameda]

45. the City can't do squat in regards to prosecuting anyone

that's up to the police to arrest him for something that's against the city criminal code or the county criminal code or the state criminal code or maybe even federal

then it's up the appropriate prosecutor to indict him; then its up to the courts to hear the matter

and the city certainly can't tell the law school to do anything in regards to who teaches classes

that's an internal matter; the state legislature could do something since they control the budget, but not the city

these people are a joke and they keep reminding everyone of it

[Acadia Blue]

43. Why this monster was hired by UC Berkely is unknown to me. He

should be in jail.

[annabanana]

44. Is Berkeley acting like "Berkeley" again?

I was surprised when he got a job there... It just didn't seem like "Berkeley '.

[tularetom]

46. Never a dull moment in Berkeley

I did two stretches there during the 60's - first as a Cal student after I got out of the service and later on involved with the construction of the Shattuck Ave. BART station. I was there for the Free Speech Movement, Peoples Park and all the other fun shit that went on there in those days.

The Bezerkeley City Council was always far to the left of the university and it made for some interesting confrontations even 40 years ago. Glad to see nothing has changed.

[Autonomy]

48. Where'd you live tulartom?

I spent most of my Cal time in the International House, about 100 feet from Boalt, and a few months in Oakland.

[tularetom]

49. I was a veteran and married

Lived just off Solano Ave in Albany and on Dwight just down from Telegraph while I was at Cal. When I came back in 68 we lived on Marin Avenue on one of the real steep hilly blocks.

[Autonomy]

47. Berkeley City Council does not have the authority

It looks like another symbolic action on their part. War crimes are international jurisdiction, and University of California matters are state jurisdiction. Either the UC chancellor, or Arnold, would need to get involved. Berkeley CC are pot-bangers, and they make liberals look weak and ineffectual.

[davidinalameda]

53. you're pissing in the wind

you can't make some of these people understand that the Berkeley CC is blowing even more hot air than usual

[EFerrari]

50. Good. Keep the buzz going.

[EFerrari]

51. The good people at democrats.com have sent out an email.

[Senator]

56. It's Called Shunning. And You Must Do It Too !!

The only reason these monsters have not been impeached (yet) and are not facing certain prosecution is the beltway paranoia about "divisiveness" (whatever that means). You'd think there was something wrong with "dividing" real Americans from war criminals.

Therefore it is incumbent upon each one of us -- yes, you too -- to actively shun and/or peacefully harass all torture suupporters/defenders at every opportunity. If you find yourself on any council or board that has the capacity to express opinions like this you must force the issue. The "outcome" of your effort is virtually irrelevant.

Now, for most of us this means confronting right-wing and apathetic relatives, "friends," and others we come into contact with -- loudly. And never underestimate how effective these one on one contacts can be. Yes, you might cause some social or familial discomfort. But others have suffered far worse things over this.

Torture is not a "policy issue" that one can "agree to disagree" about. You either actively oppose it by attacking its supporters or you tacitly aid and abet it.

Sadly, too many of our DC-Dem "leaders" have found their way into the second category.

---

[blackbart99]

57. The secret pardons are coming....

Not a single one of them will ever be tried here. Bush will have the secret pardons ready on his last day...I mean after all, what are we going to do about it, impeach him.....

[Nikki Stone1]

59. About fucking time.

He's a disgrace to the UC system.

[yurbud]

60. this is what congress & federal courts should be doing, but they are cowards