FIRE JOHN YOO!: Curt Wechsler, The World Can't Wait: May 2011 Archives

Obama administration attempts to cover up crimes at Abu Ghraib...

May 31, 2011 4:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

by asking Supreme Court not to hear case

By Kenneth J. Theisen

The Obama Administration has once again taken a stand in favor of covering up the crimes of the Bush regime. On May 27, 2011 in an amicus brief, Obama's Acting U.S. Solicitor General, Neal Katyal, advised the Supreme Court not to hear a 2004 lawsuit that claims employees of U.S. corporate military contractors CACI and Titan (now L-3 Services) participated in torture and otherÂ heinous and illegal acts committed against Iraqi detainees while they were employed to provide interrogation and interpretation services, respectively, at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq. The case is Haidar Muhsin Saleh, et al. v. Titan Corporation, et al.

Continue reading Obama administration attempts to cover up crimes at Abu Ghraib....

Boalt Hall legacies: the Patriot Act

May 27, 2011 10:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, President Obama signed into law a four-year extension of emergency powersÂ allowing authorities to use roving wiretaps to track an individual on several telephones; track a non-US national suspected of being a "lone-wolf" terrorist not tied to an extremist group; and to seize personal or business records or "any tangible thing" seen as critical to an investigation.

Today, The Daily Californian features an article on the "activist past" of UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, and I think this provides an opportunity for us to recognize another of his "passions": sponsorship of the torture program embodied in the above legislation and facilitated by Law School professor John Yoo (who brags about his involvement in drafting key provisions of the Act here).

Noting thatÂ nothing about Berkeley is quite as straightforward as it seems..."We're actually a fairly broad church here,"Â Birgeneau says, "we've got the law professor John Yoo, who has been a prime advocate of the US government's torture policy, and the biggest student club on campus is the Republican."

UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau andÂ

Law School Dean Christopher EdleyÂ

"OK" with Torture... are you?

for families, WAITING is torture

May 26, 2011 3:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Guantanamo man's child appeals to Barack Obama to release dad

"I am nine-years-old and I never met my daddy. At school I get bullied a lot, they say bad things about my daddy, and I become very upset and cry. I am telling you my problem because you are the only one who can bring him back. I feel sorry for my dad because he gets tortured I have never seen him and I want to really see him and only you can let him free so please let him free I want to play with him so let him free."

- Faris Aamer, youngest child of Shaker Aamer, held at Guantanamo since Rebruary 2002 but never charged with any offence

Â

Why the US government is reluctant to allow the release of Shaker Aamer

May 25: San Francisco Republicans toast Torture

May 26, 2011 3:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last night about a dozen protesters assembled outside the Marines' Memorial ClubÂ to "greet" torture enthusiasts arriving for a Lincoln Day Dinner with Bay Area resident war criminal John Yoo. Navigating around reproductions of the infamous Abu Ghraib photographsÂ and a large banner denouncing war policy enabled by Yoo's work for the Bush administration, attendees were offered brochures on The Truth About Torture to the tune of "Torture Is A War Crime, Arrest John Yoo."

more photos here

Higher Ed, last refuge of war criminals?

May 18, 2011 1:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Rendition Under the Radar

"it's yet another example of a top Bush lawyer who, after abusing the rule of law while in government, is being rewarded with a job teaching the next generation of lawyers. -- emptywheel

Center for Constitutional Rights Questions Appointment of Former Deputy AGÂ

Larry Thompson to University of Georgia Law School Post Over Role inÂ

Rendition and Torture of Canadian Citizen

Report and video of Berkeley Law Commencement

May 18, 2011 12:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

with thanks to all who participated in protesting UC complicity in torture

The American Enterprise Institute hosted a torture fest yesterday,

May 17, 2011 3:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

giving a large platform to at least two people who should be in prison for war crimes, to continue to forward the torture apologists narrative that waterboarding led to bin Laden. To give you an idea of the tenor of the procedure, John Yoo acted as moderator. On the panel were Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former general counsel to the CIA John Rizzo (who worked with both Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury to pre-authorize torture), torture cheerleader Marc Thiessen, Benjamin Wittes from Brookings (a constitutional scholar who arguesÂ for the benefits of ignoring the constitution) and a lone voice of morality and sanity, Elisa Massimino from Human Rights First.

You can [watch] theÂ whole thing here, if your stomach and blood pressure can handle it...

see AEI's torture panel gives platform to war criminals

NO! to Torture video goes viral... pass it on

May 17, 2011 2:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

click on "YouTube" icon lower right corner of screen for latest count

Andy Worthington on the unedifying nationalistic chest thumping over bin Laden

May 17, 2011 11:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A few days ago, I spoke, for the 27th time, to the irrepressible Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio, in response to the ongoing -- and false -- narrative propagated in the US by torture apologists including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, which has arisen, like a malignant phoenix, in response to the death of Osama bin Laden.Â

The 22-minute show is available here.

And, don't miss Marjorie Cohn's piece on Targeted Assassination, here.

Obama Does Bush Lawyers Proud

May 16, 2011 2:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Now we know why Obama has gone to such outrageous lengths to keep Bush's lawyers out of prison, claiming powers of secrecy and immunity beyond Cheney's wildest dreams and pressuring foreign nations to clamp down on any outbreaks of law enforcement:

Sixty More Days in Libya

"State Secret": Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan case

May 16, 2011 1:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to revive a lawsuit challenging a controversial post-Sept. 11 CIA program that flew terrorism suspects to secret prisons.

The appeal asked the court to examine two controversial aspects of the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks, "the extraordinary rendition" program that sent the suspects to secret prisons and the "state secrets privilege."

The high court has refused several other appeals based on the government's invocation of state secrets to derail lawsuits...

Justice Elena Kagan took no part in the case because she worked on it when she served in the Justice Department.

Supreme Court won't revive torture lawsuit

Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: katmere, Beth Rankin

A message to Dean Edley: the prohibition against torture is not negotiable

May 13, 2011 3:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Essentially worthless legal concepts are being packaged and sold as if they represented valid jurisprudence. Take enemy combatant as an example of a junk concept. The point of this neologism is clear - it's an end run around the Constitution to allow things that are wildly impermissible. An enemy combatant is neither a criminal nor a soldier, and hasn't the rights of either. Where did we get "enemy combatants" from? Junk peddlers like John Yoo and Michael Mukasey...

see Junk Law Will Damage Our Legal System

Last year, Christopher Edley (photo left) assessed Obama's performance: "I wouldn't give as high a grade as President as I gave him when he was my student. I know he can do better." Hmmm... harsh words from a mentor. Just what kind of example does the law school dean offer?

Torture: the Devil is in the System

May 13, 2011 10:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Torture is the new state religion. The arguments between those who find torture effective and those who find it ineffective are like the arguments between Catholics and Protestants in the seventeenth century, articulated with great passion and earnestness, but totally besides the point. Underlying the actual conflicts and debates is nothing more than a raw grab for power, as the U.S. seeks greater instruments of repression at home and abroad in the name of securing the world for U.S. plunder for the greater good of a small clique of corporations and a coterie of military men, academics, and spies that keep the wheels of the machine well-oiled and ready to strike...

see Making GuantanamoÂ Permanent, and OtherÂ

Portents

Yoo's "I told you so" a syllogism from Hell

May 10, 2011 11:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"Since When Are Moral and Constitutional Violations JudgedÂ byÂ

WhetherÂ or Not They Work?Â

-- Judge andÂ playwrightÂ H. Lee Sarokin

imagine Boalt Hall free of John Yoo

May 9, 2011 12:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

After reading John Yoo's attack on the president for not taking Osama alive and bringing him to Gitmo, I thought I might take a minute to explain something I sometimes say. Once in a while I mention, in passing, that the Bush administration saw torturing people as a plus, not a cost. And whenever I do, some readers clutch their breasts and reach for the smelling salts: how dare I say such a thing?

But it's true -- not because they're sadists, but because it suited their self-image...

see Shadow of the Torturers

UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau "OK" with Torture...

May 9, 2011 11:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

are you?

Take Friday morning off work or school May 13, to protest outside the UC Berkeley Law graduation ceremony, because Torture Professor John Yoo STILL teaches there.

No war criminal should be harbored by the university, and every year graduation is an opportunity for the community at large to bring that message out! With Yoo all over the news right now, crowing that now it's been proven that "torture works" - it is especially important for a determined and DIVERSE presence to be seen, refusing to allow UC to condone torture in silence.

Meet up at 8:30 AM Friday May 13 in front of UC's Greek Theater. Help end Boalt Hall's legacy of torture.

Obama and Torture

May 8, 2011 3:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

radio interviews with Ted Rall, Jason Leopold and Will Durst

John Yoo to address Alaska Bar Conference

May 8, 2011 3:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: Lawyers walk outÂ

The president of the Alaska Bar Association has an interest in hearing about torture...Â

how about ending it?

"Yoo comes to Fairbanks ready to debate and defend his opinions. To all lawyers asked to render opinions on legal issues, it is a lesson of just how important every opinion lawyers give can be, no matter what our position. It also is a symbol of the power of every young voice. -- Jason Weiner

He continues,

"I am glad I was not put in the position of having to render an opinion regarding the legality of 'enhanced interrogation techniques'.

Which I think accurately defines the real problemÂ

here, thatÂ professional associationsÂ haveÂ

abandoned their standards and obligation toÂ

protect.

Torture: not open to "debate"

May 7, 2011 10:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"There is no debate to be had on torture. Torture is illegal, it's immoral and it's counterproductive. We're not allowed [legally] to have a debate on it, and it's rather underhand for media outlets in the United States to claim that there are any circumstances in which this should be happening. -- Andy Worthington

I personally think it's a mistake to imply legitimacy to arguments in favor of torture by providing a forum for the same, but the Fairbanks Daily New-Miner recaps the exchange between war criminal John Yoo and detainee defense attorneyÂ Steve Wax yesterday:Â

Alaska attorneys face off over use of torture

defense of torture program: it's all about Yoo

May 6, 2011 11:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

c/oÂ Justice Watch:

The architects of the Bush Justice Department's "Torture Memos" have wasted little time in claimingÂ that their endorsement of torture helped pave the way for the successful assault on Osama bin Laden's final hiding place in Pakistan...

It's hardly surprising that Yoo would take this opportunity to rush to his own defense.

He and other torture apologists saw this instance [Bin Laden's death]Â as their last, best hope for justifying the ethically and morally repulsive policies of torture, but their arguments fall flat on basic facts and basic morality.

Glenn Greenwald: why it is more important than ever to repudiate the Bush regime

May 5, 2011 3:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"Criminal, morally depraved acts don't become retroactively justified by pointing to the bounty they [claim to have] produced...

see The illogic of the torture debate

more on "the battle for America's conscience" here,Â

plus a statement from theÂ National Religious Campaign Against Torture

the Unjustifiable Defense of Torture

May 5, 2011 12:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

With the reported assassination of Osama bin Laden, one of the most alarming responses has been a kind of casual and widespread acceptance that the death ofÂ America's number one bogeyman would not have been achieved without the use of torture...

Torture remains illegal, as well as counter-productive, and attempts to revive it as a topic for "debate" are as vile and unprincipled as attempts to claim that the death of Osama bin Laden somehow justifies the ongoing existence of GuantÃ¡namo.

-- Andy Worthington

Twenty years of American bombing, invasion, occupation and torture: Let us not forget what "humanitarian intervention" looks like

May 2, 2011 2:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: Most recent, May 6 protest video here

On April 9, Condoleezza Rice delivered a talk in San Francisco. Or tried to. The former Secretary of State was interrupted repeatedly by cries from the audience of "war criminal" and "torturer". (For which we can thank our comrades in Code Pink and World Can't Wait.) As one of the protesters was being taken away by security guards, Rice made the kind of statement that has now become standard for high American officials under such circumstances: "Aren't you glad this lady lives in a democracy where she can express her opinion?" She also threw in another line that's becomeÂ de rigueurÂ since the US overthrew Saddam Hussein, an argument that's used when all other arguments fail: "The children of Iraq are actually not living under Saddam Hussein, thank God..."

-- William Blum, The Anti-Empire Report

"Torture Professor" Proves He's an Academic Fraud --

May 1, 2011 11:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Again

"will UC Berkeley finally do anything about a professor

who essentially abandons his legal opinions, and effectively

refutes his own work?

-- Robert Gammon, author of "The Torture Professor"

Friday May 13: Help end Boalt Hall's legacy of torture

Since 2008, the commencement ceremonies at UC Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) have been the site of large-scale protest actions. World Can't Wait, human rights and civil liberties groups working against torture, and others have called on graduates to protest John Yoo and torture.

John Yoo did his most notorious damage as deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel, where his legal opinions were used to justify torture. But he is still a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Law School. We'll be at the graduation on the morning of May 13 to continue the demand he be fired, disbarred, and prosecuted for his criminal lawyering as a Bush administration official. We plan to have orange jump suits in tableau, lots of orange ribbons, and excellent signs for the many expected to come out for this action.

The ceremony itself starts at ten, but our protest will happen BEFOREHAND, beginning at 9 am when the gates at the Greek Theatre open to guests (only folks with tickets will be allowed inside, but we'll have plenty of opportunity to make our point as students, faculty, and families arrive).

A note to Boalt graduates and their families: Please be assured that the graduates and their families and friends are not the targets of our protest. We have no intention of heckling attendees or disrupting the graduation. However, we do believe that it is an appropriate time and place to express our outrage that someone who is clearly guilty of war crimes under all internationally recognized standards is teaching constitutional law at Berkeley. We hope that attendees will agree with this position and choose to express that by wearing an orange ribbon during the ceremony (note ribbons in photograph from last year, below). Rather than diminishing their pride in their accomplishment, taking a stand against injustice should increase it.

Curt Wechsler, The World Can't Wait: May 2011 Archives