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.
That
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 âwar 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.
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 âCommander-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.’
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolution Online