John Yoo speaks

[Keith Millea]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/23-1

Published on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 by Raw Story Top Bush Adviser Defends Allowing President to Massacre, Nuke Civilians


The senior Justice Department legal adviser to president Bush who made the legal case for the Bush Administration's use of torture tactics on terror suspects defended comments that the president could unilaterally "massacre" civilians in wartime in a newly released interview.

John Yoo (File)
"You did argue that the president can legally order a village of civilians massacred," a KQED radio host asked John Yoo, now a professor at Berkeley. "Do you stand by that?"
"If, I thought it was militarily necessary," Yoo replied. "All you have to do is look at American history.... Look at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "
Not backing down, Yoo championed the use of nuclear weapons in World War II.
"Could Congress tell President Truman he couldn't use a nuclear bombing in Japan, even though Truman thought in good faith he was saving millions of American and Japanese lives?" Yoo continued. "Or look at the American bombing campaign of World War II over Europe. Again, terrible things that the country had to do to bring the war to a faster conclusion and in the long run perhaps save more American or German lives."
He also suggested that the decision to use America's nuclear arsenal is the president's alone.
"The government places those decisions in the president, and if the Congress doesn't like it they can cut off funds for it or they can impeach him."
Liberal blog ThinkProgress' Ian Millhiser, which first highlighted the interview, argues that Yoo's understanding of the law in this case is wrong.
"As far back as 1804, a unanimous Supreme Court held in Little v. Barreme that Congress has sweeping authority to limit the President's actions in wartime. That case involved an Act of Congress authorizing vessels to seize cargo ships bound for French ports. After the President also authorized vessels to seize ships headed away from French ports, the Supreme Court held this authorization unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress' decision to allow one kind of seizure implicitly forbade other kinds of seizure. More recently, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court held that the President does not have the power to unilaterally set military policy (in those cases with respect to detention); he must comply with statutory limits on his power. Taken together, these and other cases unquestionably establish that Congress has the power to tell the President 'no,' and the President must listen."
"John Yoo is a moral vacuum, but he is also a constitutional law professor at one of the nation's top law schools and a former Supreme Court clerk," the site added. "It is simply impossible that Yoo is not aware of Little, Hamdi and Hamdan, or that he does not understand what they say. So when John Yoo claims that the President is not bound by Congressional limits, he is not simply ignorant or misunderstanding the law. He is lying."
This weekend, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff noted that Yoo also "told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be 'massacred,' according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility."
Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:

"What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legally -"
"Yeah," Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. "Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions."
"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the OPR investigator asked again.
"Sure," said Yoo.

© 2010 Raw Story

[Ed Jewett]

Who IS this man? Is he so immersed in "law" and power that he can talk about cutting off funding and starting impeachment proceedings AFTER a nuclear weapon has been used? Who destroyed the moral compass of America?

" I wanna know the names in the shadows, I wanna hear someone ask them 'why?'?"[/FONT]

[David Guyatt]

I echo your concern Ed.

"The government places those decisions in the president, and if the Congress doesn't like it they can cut off funds for it or they can impeach him."
Liberal blog ThinkProgress' Ian Millhiser, which first highlighted the interview, argues that Yoo's understanding of the law in this case is wrong.
"As far back as 1804, a unanimous Supreme Court held in Little v. Barreme that Congress has sweeping authority to limit the President's actions in wartime. That case involved an Act of Congress authorizing vessels to seize cargo ships bound for French ports. After the President also authorized vessels to seize ships headed away from French ports, the Supreme Court held this authorization unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress' decision to allow one kind of seizure implicitly forbade other kinds of seizure. More recently, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court held that the President does not have the power to unilaterally set military policy (in those cases with respect to detention); he must comply with statutory limits on his power. Taken together, these and other cases unquestionably establish that Congress has the power to tell the President 'no,' and the President must listen."

The problem as I see it is that Congress don't have the balls any longer to use their authority -- they've long been sold to the highest bidder who've crushed them to pulp.

[Peter Lemkin]

Yoo-Palin next President/V.P. Dream-Team! :damnmate:
Maybe could have Chaney and Rummy back in some capacity too.....ah, Imperialism, Fascism and War with NO regard for Civilians, Genocide, War Crimes, Laws - Domestic or International.....not even an impotent Congress.....what the men behind the shadows have had dreams about since they killed JFK.....now almost a permanent reality.......:afraid::afraid::afraid:

[Jan Klimkowski]

"What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legally -"
"Yeah," Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. "Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions."
"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the OPR investigator asked again.
"Sure," said Yoo.

Lidice.

Oradour-sur-Glane.

Kortelisy.

Sant'Anna di Stazzema.

Notorious examples of the Nazi massacre of entire villages.

John Yoo has revealed himself, and the regime he served, as sharing the Nazi Weltanschauung.

Whilst MSM ignores the story in favour of celebrity sex scandals.

[Peter Lemkin]

"What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legally -"
"Yeah," Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. "Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions."
"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the OPR investigator asked again.
"Sure," said Yoo.

Lidice.

Oradour-sur-Glane.

Kortelisy.

Sant'Anna di Stazzema.

Notorious examples of the Nazi massacre of entire villages.

John Yoo has revealed himself, and the regime he served, as sharing the Nazi Weltanschauung.

Whilst MSM ignores the story in favour of celebrity sex scandals.

Jan, your list of examples could be multiplied by ten or twenty-fold, or more. But you made the point. Yoo is a modern-day neo-fascist who does believe what the Nazi's believed...that civilian deaths mean nothing negative, and perhaps something positive for the oppressor Ubermensch. We have come full circle [again] and NO one in the MSM is even noticing. I begin to feel we are not doing more than documenting for some alien race, when they come in the future, the ethical and moral failures of Humans in the 21st and earlier centuries. It is a very sad note. Celebrity sex they won't understand. Genocide, hate, murder, they will. Our species, I fear, will be rated among the most bestial of the known ones in the Universe. What a joke that those in power see us as the only ones in the Universe and moral as all hell [Dante's seventh level, I think....]

[Ed Jewett]

Let us not forget Sand Creek. Perhaps a list ought to be posted as a sticky. Congressional testicle-crushing was the motivation for the approval of torture (or perhaps it was the inspiration for Yoo's famous thoughts). There ought to be some kind of caption contest for the post-event jelly... perhaps Potomac caviar.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Congress was bought and scared [9-11, Antrax, other Big Lie Magic Shows, enough suspicious deaths...etc.] and Voila'! They'll do dance to the tune of those paying for the 'music'. The 'music' is certainly getting to be Military, Corporate and Finance tunes only. The People get no say and only a handful of representatives. Some democracy! And all those in office watched and herded and frightened by an expanding Praetorian Guard of neocon think-tankers and others who think their ways around the laws and the Constitution....toward.....:driver:

[David Guyatt]

In case some members and visitor are unfamiliar with some of the named events, I'm posting the following.

It needs to be remembered that it was an atrocity and a punishable war crime under the "crimes against humanity". Yoo is a disgrace to humanity.

Lidice Massacre

The best known of these retaliations occurred on June 10. The Nazis chose the village of Lidice for its residents' known hostility to the occupation, from suspicion that it was harboring local resistance partisans, and for its supposed connection to one of Heydrich's killers. German security police surrounded the community the night before, rousted all the residents, forced them into locked buildings, and blocked all avenues of escape from the town. In the early morning all women and children (under 16 years of age), a total of nearly 300, were trucked away to concentration camps, only about half of whom are known to have survived. Later the men were brought out in small groups throughout the day, lined up against walls, and shot to death until bodies were strewn and heaped across the lawns between buildings. Later they were buried in a mass grave.
The village itself was burned to the ground and further leveled with explosives, then bulldozed, including the cemetery and its tombstones. All valuables were looted from the homes, and even domesticated animals were destroyed. Grain was sown over the rearranged earth to bury any sign of the site's past. Later, the name of the village was ordered removed from all German-made maps.
The troops that assaulted Lidice made a film (without audio) to record their operation that day. It survives as a lasting testament to the fate of Lidice and was among the documents entered in the postwar Nuremburg trials.

Memorial to the murdered children of Lidice.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The fifth part of a documentary about Heydrich, with very brief footage and testimony about the massacre at Lidice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKxakC1Db...re=related

Yoo is indeed a disgrace to humanity.

And so are his masters and their Nazi Weltanschauung.