Tag: John Yoo

Crossposted from Antemedius

A new draft Department of Justice report, not yet approved by Attorney General Eric Holder, is recommending that Bush administration torture memo authors Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and Steven Bradbury not be prosecuted, but will apparently ask for disciplinary reprimands and/or disbarment by state bar associatons.

“The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said,” reported the New York Times.

“The conclusions of the 220-page draft report are not final and have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials said it is possible the final report might be subject to revision, but they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or recommendations.”

“Lawyers familiar with the process said the department’s willingness-as recently as this week-to solicit responses from the former officials indicated that there were no plans to conduct a criminal investigation,” reported Politico. ‘They don’t let you comment if they’re going to refer you for prosecution,’ said one former Justice Department official, who asked not to be named.”

Also posted at AlterNet and Invictus

Reading the just released August 1, 2002 memo by John Yoo (reportedly ghosting for Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General of the United States, and now an Appeals Court Judge for the Ninth Circuit), to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel for the CIA, on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, is a surreal experience. There is so much that is strange and awful in it, it's hard to know where to begin.

But one thing that struck me right off the bat was the similarity of the statistics presented in the early part of the memo with the statement of Dr. Jerald Ogrisseg, a psychologist with Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, United States Joint Forces Command, before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on June 17, 2008.

Let's review some of the relevant text.

Jason Leopold reported today that the Senate Armed Services Committee is very close to releasing — “possibly as early as next week” — its 200 page, 2000 footnote

… voluminous report on the treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody and the interrogations methods they were subjected to, according to Defense Department and intelligence sources, who described the report as the most detailed account to date of how the Bush administration and Defense Department implemented interrogation methods widely regarded as torture.

Levin and the SASC’s investigation is a gold mine of information about how the Bush administration implemented its torture program. Both the documents produced by the investigation, and the declassified 19-page summary released by Sen. Levin last year contained important new information, such the details surrounding John Yoo’s drafting of the torture memos.

John Yoo and David Addington managed to show up yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee (HOLY Bamboo under the fingernails, Batman!  They showed up?!?) and started laying out a considerable load of crap before the members of the Judiciary Committee regarding their “diminished roles” compared to what people have been led to believe regarding interrogation techniques.  Well, among other things like Presidential powers, and just plain raping and pillaging the image of America.  

First, lets get a little background on these two scumbags (purely MY opinion; McClatchy did not weigh in on this description).

John Yoo – (AKA Bamboo Yoo)

A professor of Law at The University of California, Berkley, Bamboo Yoo is best known for his stint in the U.S. IN – Justice Department’s Office of Legal Council while assisting the Attorney General to give IL – Legal advice to the President (Yes, Bushie) from 2001 – 2003.

After he left the Department of IN – Justice, we learned that Yoo authored memos, including co-authoring the Bybee memo defining torture and American habeas corpus obligations narrowly. The memos, known today as the “torture memos,” advocate enhanced interrogation techniques, while pointing out that refuting the Geneva Conventions would reduce the possibility indivuals face future prosecution under the US War Crimes Act of 1996 for actions taken in the War on Terror.  

This is where the Imperial Presidency got it’s beginning.  Bushie loved this guy!!

In addition, a new definition of torture was issued. Most actions that fall under the international definition do not fall within this new definition advocated by the U.S.  Top military lawyers, including Alberto J. Mora, reported that policies allowing methods equivalent to torture were officially handed down from the highest levels of the administration (see Cheney, VLAD and Bush, Bimbo), and led an effort within the Department of Defence to put a stop to those policies and instead mandate non-coercive interrogation standards.  But, Mr. Mora didn’t succeed, because Vlad and Bimbo loved ’em some “enhanced interrogation torture techniques.”

Since he left the Department of In – Justice in 2003, after his return to Cal-Berkley, student protesters at Berkeley have demanded, that he renounce the memos or resign his professorship.  However, being a Wingnut Neo-Con, he of course would never ADMIT to having done anything wrong (without the bamboo treatment, of course) and he has thumbed his nose at his detractors ever since.

On to our Not-Friend David Addington (AKA Scooter Two).

This scum-sucking-triple-asswipe of a human being is currently occupying Scooter’s previous job of Chief of Staff to VP Vlad Cheney and was a former legal council to teh Vice Vampire prior to Scooter-boy being convicted of LYING (OMG!  A Republican?  Lie?  NOOOOOOoooooooo!!).

Addington was previously assistant general council for the CIA and an assistant to then Congressman Cheney during the heady days of the Iran-Contra scandal.  Addington is also the Main, Number 1 Cheerleader for the idea that the President has Unlimited Powers as our Lying-Cheating-Murdering-Commander-in-Chief during wartime.

Ok, enough with the niceties.  On to what McClatchy (whose Service Mark is “Truth to Power”) has to say about these two

%@#*#’s.  

To bias or not to bias?  THAT is the question…

If behavioral scientists are concerned solely with advancing their science, it seems most probably that they will serve the purposes of whatever individual or group has the power.

The quote above is from U.S. psychology pioneer Carl Rogers. It is worth pondering his statement as we consider both recent developments in the fight against U.S. torture, and more general considerations about the role of psychologists, physicians, and other scientific and medical personnel in interrogations for Bush’s “War on Terror.”

I was reading the New York Times’s article on the decision by the “Convening Authority” at Guantanamo to drop all charges “without prejudice” against purported sixth 9/11 Al Qaeda hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani, when my attention was drawn to an ad from the CIA trumpeting the announcement that they were seeking applicants for “National Clandestine Service Careers.” A few clicks later, curious to see what they were offering for my own profession (not that I wish to apply), I found a number of positions open. Here’s one that caught my eye:

Cross-posted at DailyKOS

Memos written at the request of high-ranking government officials by Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo on August 1, 2002 (also signed by Jay Bybee, now a federal judge) and March 14, 2003, assured the Bush administration that

. . . . the Department of Justice would not enforce the U.S. criminal laws against torture, assault, maiming and stalking, in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants.”

Of course, we know that the purpose of Yoo’s memos were simply established as a means of legal clearance for all that ensued thereafter.  

Daniel Levin, Acting Assistant Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel (December 30, 2004)

. . . . specifically rejects Yoo’s definition of torture, and admits that a defandant’s motives to protect national security will not shield him from a torture prosecution.  The rescission of the August 2002 memo constitutes an admission by the Justice Department that the legal reasoning in that memo was wrong.  But for 22 months, the [sic] it was in effect, which sanctioned and led to the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.”

Note:  all quoted material above from Marjorie Cohn, President National Lawyers Guild.

Following a pivotal article by Jeff Stein at Congressional Quarterly a few weeks back, today’s Washington Post published an important article today, “Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned.” The story, by Post staff writer Joby Warrick, notes U.S. denials in using drug injections for coercive purposes during interrogations.

Adel al-Nusairi, a Saudi national imprisoned for years at Guanatanmo, and now released without charges, has a different memory:

“I’d fall asleep” after the shot, Nusairi, a former Saudi policeman captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002, recalled in an interview with his attorney at the military prison in Cuba, according to notes. After being roused, Nusairi eventually did talk, giving U.S. officials what he later described as a made-up confession to buy some peace.

“I was completely gone,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Let me go. I want to go to sleep. If it takes saying I’m a member of al-Qaeda, I will.'”

Recent revelations that torture was approved, applauded, and enjoyed by senior Bush administration officials have caused quite a stir. Bush now freely admits that he “approved” of the CIA torturing a few “high value” terrorism suspects in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. All those assertions that the United States does not torture were knowingly false. While lying to Congress, the American people, and the world community might get another president in trouble, even impeached, war crimes appear to be much more acceptable in post-9/11 America. The mea culpa simply forces the administration and its supporters to create a new mythology of torture.  

The National Lawyers Guild has issued a press release calling for University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school to fire Professor John Yoo. The NLG calls for the rescission of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 provisions that allow immunity and the prosecution of Yoo as a war criminal. Meanwhile, yesterday, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) threatened to subpoena John Yoo to testify about the memo at a May 6 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

The declassification and release of Yoo’s memorandum to William Haynes, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, written in March 2003, has caused a firestorm in the press. Yoo’s memo is the smoking gun for those looking for evidence of how the Bush Administration flouted basic human rights law, the UN Convention Against Torture, and the U.S. War Crimes Act to initiate a campaign of torture against detainees swept up in the aggressive U.S. military and covert campaigns that followed 9/11.

The New York Times today reports that Justice Department is going to investigate the Justice Department’s approval of the CIA’s use of waterboarding torture:

The Justice Department revealed Friday that its internal ethics office was investigating the department’s legal approval for waterboarding of Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency and was likely to make public an unclassified version of its report.

The disclosure by H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was the first official acknowledgment of an internal review of the legal memorandums the department has issued since 2002 that authorized waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Mr. Jarrett’s report could become the first public accounting for legal advice that endorsed methods widely denounced as torture by human rights groups and legal authorities. His office can refer matters for criminal prosecution; legal experts said the most likely outcome was a public critique of the legal opinions on interrogation, noting that Mr. Jarrett had the power to reprimand or to seek the disbarment of current or former Justice Department lawyers.

You’ll pardon me, please, for not dancing in the streets.  “Waterboarding” shouldn’t be the focus of the inquiry.  The focus should be on torture in all of its forms and in all of the locations where it might be practiced (including Gitmo, Black Sites, Diego Garcia) and all of the agencies of the Governmetn and their contractors who might be using it.  And we don’t really need an “unclassified version of a report” about how torture was approved.  We need an end to torture. Period.  And we need criminal prosecution of all of those who approved it.

Some context, if you will:

*C.I.A. director Michael V. Hayden admitted a couple of weeks ago that the CIA used waterboarding in 2002 and 2003 on 3 prisoners but claimed that the CIA didn’t do that any more and that the legality of what it did was “uncertain.”

*Attorney General Mukasey refused to launch a criminal investigation of those who used torture waterboarding or of their superiors, because CIA employees couldn’t be prosecuted for things Justice had told them were legal.  Jarrett’s review focuses on the government lawyers who gave that advice.

*According to the Times, prosecutors and F.B.I. agents have launched a criminal investigation of the C.I.A.’s destruction in 2005 of videotapes of harsh interrogations torture and a week after Congress passed a ban on coercive interrogations, which President Bush has said he will veto.

According to the Times:

In a letter to two Democratic senators, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Mr. Jarrett wrote that the legal advice approving waterboarding was one subject of an investigation into “the circumstances surrounding the drafting” of a Justice legal memorandum dated Aug. 1, 2002.

The document declared that interrogation methods were not torture unless they produced pain equivalent to that produced by organ failure or death. The memorandum, drafted by a Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, and signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, was withdrawn in 2004.

Mr. Jarrett said the investigation was also covering “related” legal memorandums prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel since 2002. That suggested the investigation would address still-secret legal opinions written in 2005 by Steven G. Bradbury, then and now the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, that gave legal approval for waterboarding and other tough methods, even when used in combination.

We know about the Yoo and Bybee memoranda and how they were altered in 2004.  We know about the Bradbury opinions.  Doubtless there are others as well. Don’t we know that those reached barbaric, incorrect conclusions about the legality of torture?

Mr. Jarrett said his office was “examining whether the legal advice in these memoranda was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys.”

Doh.  We don’t need a further, public investigation of these opinions that might endanger prosecution of these individuals.  We need to prosecute them.  The public investigation is a day late and more than a dollar short.