YOO (Scared Shitless) WSJ Editorial: "Yes, We Did Plan for Mumbai-Style Attacks in the U.S."

[kpete]

Yes, We Did Plan for Mumbai-Style Attacks in the U.S.
Why the latest assault on Bush antiterror strategy could make us less safe.
By JOHN YOO

Suppose al Qaeda branched out from crashing airliners into American cities. Using small arms, explosives, or biological, chemical or nuclear weapons they could seize control of apartment buildings, stadiums, ships, trains or buses. As in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, texting and mobile email would make it easy to coordinate simultaneous assaults in a single city.

In the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on New York City and Washington, D.C., these were hypotheticals no more. They became real scenarios for which responsible civilian and military leaders had to plan. The possibility of such attacks raised difficult, fundamental questions of constitutional law, because they might require domestic military operations against an enemy for the first time since the Civil War. Could our armed forces monitor traffic in a city where terrorists were preparing to strike, search for cells using surveillance technology, or use force against a hijacked vessel or building?

In these extraordinary circumstances, while our military put al Qaeda on the run, it was the duty of the government to plan for worst-case scenarios -- even if, thankfully, those circumstances never materialized. This was not reckless. It was prudent and responsible. While government officials worked tirelessly to prevent the next attack, lawyers, of which I was one, provided advice on unprecedented questions under the most severe time pressures.

Judging from the media coverage of Justice Department memos from those days -- released this week by the Obama administration -- this careful contingency planning amounted to a secret plot to overthrow the Constitution and strip Americans of their rights. As the New York Times has it, Bush lawyers "rush into sweeping away this country's most cherished rights." "Irresponsible," harrumphed former Clinton administration Justice Department officials.

more (this guy IS scared) at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638439733558185.html

(yeah, and what if my cat threw up a hairball that turned into a giant slimy monster that attacked idiot lawyers and rogue politicians, kpete)

[babylonsister]

1. CYA, a bit too late? This is bizarre. nt

[Iwillnevergiveup]

2. It is outrageous that John Yoo

still has a position at UC/Berkeley Law School. He is a traitor, pure and simple.

[bluestateguy]

3. Yoo should be deported back to North Korea

His methods would be more appropriate there.

[Patsy Stone]

4. "Dick Cheney told me to write this article to cover our asses."

Did he mistakenly leave that part out?

[pmorlan1]

5. John Yoo - Liar

I hope everyone posts a comment at the WSJ site. I usually never see my comments to the WSJ posted so I'm going to re-post it here (I also made a minor correction to it).

"Congress must have understood that its words included stopping domestic attacks, since the hijacked airliners of 9/11 took off and crashed on American soil." - John Yoo

As John Yoo knows, Congress specifically rejected the administration's request to amend the resolution to include the words - "in the United States" and after "appropriate force" so how can he possibly say that Congress must have understood? He knows darn well that Congress specifically rejected this idea and only voted for limited war powers. But Yoo and the rest of the unitary executive fetishists grabbed that power for the president because they believed that Congress had no business telling the president anything about how to protect the nation.

John Yoo and his delusional idea about presidential power have done great damage to our country. And until this country officially shines the light of day on this anti-democratic theory and banishes it forever we are still at risk as a nation.

[bleever]

22. 'Congress specifically rejected the administration's request to amend the resolution to include

the words - "in the United States" and after "appropriate force" so how can he possibly say that Congress must have understood? He knows darn well that Congress specifically rejected this idea and only voted for limited war powers.'


Excellent point! Thank you.

[kestrel91316]

6. If "Al Quaeda" the ORGANIZATION actually existed, this might be a problem.

But it's about as organized as a herd of cats.

After seeing the documentary "The Power of Nightmares", I'm not convinced there's much there.

[CJCRANE]

19. That's why they set up

that ragtag bunch of idiots in Florida ("The Liberty City Six").

They had to use an FBI infiltrator to pose as an al-Qaeda contact and he even suggested the terror targets himself.

[marmar]

7. "Plan for" or "plan?"

:tinfoilhat:

[bottomtheweaver]

8. What a difference a preposition makes.

But at this point, he might as well drop the formality, since we know he means the same thing with or without it.

[Generic Other]

9. This argument might be valid if I believed the US gov had nothing to do with events

I haven't been reasonably convinced of this fact beyond a tinfoil doubt.

[treestar]

10. It's not the duty of the government to plan for that

beyond the limits in the Constitution. These people try to make a premise that fear of terra allows for anything, whether the Constitution allows it or not. The Constitution contains no exception for terror and fear. It doesn't say that it no longer applies in times of fear or terror. The most it says is that habeas can be suspended if there is so much disorder that courts can't be held.

[malaise]

11. Ah well

Hope he ends up in prison for high crimes.
Fuck Yoo!!

[Peace Patriot]

12. Suppose slimey, corrupt financial speculators branched out from crashing savings & loans

institutions into crashing whole banking conglomerates and investment empires. Using ponzi schemes, derivatives, shady loans, fake ratings, insurance scams, credit card usury and quotes from the chairman of the Federal Reserve, they could seize control of the United States Treasury and demand a trillion dollars in protection money, and thus grab control not just of all existing cash, credit and reserves of the people of the U.S., but all future cash, credit and reserves unto the 7th generation. As in the Crash of '09, using the speed of high technology would make it easy to coordinate simultaneous massive lootings all over the world...

-------


"Suppose al Qaeda branched out from crashing airliners into American cities. Using small arms, explosives, or biological, chemical or nuclear weapons they could seize control of apartment buildings, stadiums, ships, trains or buses. As in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, texting and mobile email would make it easy to coordinate simultaneous assaults in a single city."--John You-Know-Who

--------

Gee, what should the government have done, just in case all this might happen? Prepare special prisons for the rich, and special tortures just for them, like a glass wall behind which bricks of thousand dollar bills are piled up to the ceiling, that they can't get at, or send the odors of Italian pastries and cappuccinos through the ventilator shafts, but no food arrives except the slop we feed the millions in our "prison-industrial complex," or perhaps put them in a dark room where the only entertainment is a video of Saddam Hussein being hung, over and over and over again?

I can think of a lot of illegal things to do our financial sector, and I'm not even a lawyer. Seems to me Yoo was worrying about the wrong people. (Oh, maybe punishments for Rumsfeld merited some serious legal thought.)

[myrna minx]

13. K&R n/t

[Binka]

14. John Yoo Is Full Of Shit

How this fuckwittage manages not to choke to death on his toenails is amazing. What a creepy asshole.

[fascisthunter]

15. John Yoo is a Traitor to this Country

lock up everyone of these nazi bastards.

[madmom]

16. But..but condi said nobody could imagine they would fly airplanes into buildings, even

after they were showed/told about it, yet they can come up with these kind of scenarios?

[Occam Bandage]

17. If you take as a granted that there is a potential terrorist threat against the US,

in an immediate and real nature (which most Americans did of their own accord without needing the government to push them in that direction for at least the first year after 9/11) than anyone with half a brain could realize that the most cost-efficient way terrorists could strike in the United States would be through armed gunmen. It was certainly the duty of the government to plan for worst-case scenarios. I would be horrified if they did not, much as I was horrified that DHS apparently did not have any plan in place for a levee in New Orleans being overtopped.

Unfortunately, it is not the duty of the government to plan for the egregious and repeated violation of Constitutional rights. That requires something a little more pressing than belief in a potential threat.

[dickthegrouch]

18. Twitter makes it even easier

Texting an e-mail are pathetically slow and ponderous mechanisms.

Twitter allows broadcasting to any number of people (theoretically worldwide).

I hope someone is dreaming up very good detection algorithms to watch for coordinated malfeasance.

[Solly Mack]

20. Fuck Yoo and every single one of his defenders and apologists

K&R

[bleever]

21. They were insisting immediately after 9/11 this was a MILITARY, not police situation.

That talking point was primed and ready to go immediately after the attacks.

It was one of those strange things they said, like "We had no warning!", when no one had even suggested that they had. Of course, we later learned that they had plenty of warning.

At the time it seemed strange that they had an orchestrated campaign already to go insisting that 9/11 required a military response, and that anyone saying it was a matter of law enforcement was recklessly endangering the nation.

Now we know that law enforcement, in the form of the FBI, or INS, or even CIA cooperating with such agencies, had the wherewithal to prevent the attacks. Future such attacks could have been approached in the same way, and of course armed conflicts with terroristic criminals could have been, if necessary, handled by SWAT forces and National Guard forces.


Yoo's article tips their hand. They were relying on public panic to sell the idea that "Al Qaeda" was an army-like enemy, similar to Nazi Germany or imperial Japan, except we were to believe that we had already been invaded! Stopping the attacks was never as important as using them to bend the Constitution beyond the breaking point. And in hindsight, the more they try to explain, the more transparent their lies and distortions, and the more obvious their treasonous motives.

[blogslut]

23. I want this man in front of Congress and cameras.

He's got a hell of a lot to answer for.

[galloglas]

24. Give Yoo , Ashcroft, Cheney et al., their own "Bail Out"

Let's pack their butts up in the ass-end of a C-47, fly them over the Swat Valley in Pakistan, and drop them out like the human equivalents of Yellow Rain that they are! 'Chutes should normally be at the option of the lowest enlisted man on board but, given that no 'chutes would be a humanitarian thing, we should let them flutter down to be picked up and enslaved by (or married to)the Taliban.

[Oilwellian]

25. and....

they should be naked.

[struggle4progress]

26. Ex-officials from the Bush era seem to enjoy publicizing techniques terrorists could use to attack.

Professional security experts don't behave that way: it's irresponsible, and it's irresponsible of a newspaper like the WSJ to lend a hand

[tomp]

27. there was no serious investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

any argument that starts with, "we did this because of 9/11," is bullshit, pure and simple.