Berkeley law students denounce professor for POW memo

[maddezmom]

By Terence Chea
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:24 a.m. May 22, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO – A growing number of law students at the University of California at Berkeley are denouncing a professor who reportedly helped the Bush administration develop the legal framework that led to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.


A legal memo written by law professor John Yoo "contributed directly to the reprehensible violation of human rights in Iraq and elsewhere," according to a petition being circulated among students and faculty at Berkeley's Boalt School of Law.

As of Saturday morning, about 200 people had signed the petition, which was launched Thursday night.

Protesting students planned to wear red armbands during Boalt's commencement ceremony Saturday afternoon and pass out fliers denouncing Yoo for "aiding and abetting war crimes." Yoo said he didn't plan to attend the graduation.

The Jan. 9, 2002, memo co-written by Yoo, first reported in Newsweek magazine this week, laid out the legal reasons why the United States didn't have to comply with international treaties governing prisoner rights. The memo argued that the normal laws of armed conflict didn't apply to al-Qaeda and Taliban militia prisoners because they didn't belong to a state.

~snip~
more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040522-1024-ca-prisonerabuse-lawprofessor.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Boalt is responsible for some of the worst Repub lawyers!

like Petey Wilson

[Snellius]

7. And Ted Olson, Solicitor General of the United States of America

formerly sleazy, shyster hit man for the Arkansas Project.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. Yeah I used to have a list of the assholes that Boalt gave us somewhere

it ought to be enough to pull their acceditation...unfortunately their in the top ten

[Eric J in MN]

2. It doesn't say anywhere in the Geneva Convention that if

It doesn't say anywhere in the Geneva Convention that if you suspect a prisoner isn't fighting for a government, you can torture him.

Article 5 requires every prisoner to be treated "with humanity."

[Scooter24]

20. I agree...

It's obvious they are interpreting the text very broadly. In a quick move to justify the abuse, the US officials have forgotten that Al-Qaeda and some Taliban members do belong to a state that had signed the Geneva treaty. The US is trying to bend the rules in their favor because we have waged war on a group of individuals and not a particular state.

[Just Me]

3. I love it, I love it, I can't get enough of it!!!!

Although Pappa Bush was worried about stirring up a "wasp's nest" in the ME, I'll betcha' neither he or his "born again" son ever expected that what would really happen is the stirring up of a "wasp's nest" RIGHT HERE!!!!

They are both way, way too out of touch with REAL people to have ever imagined THAT!!!

:bounce:

[Trillo]

4. Why do some lawyers spend so much of their time . . .

. . . trying to figure out how to usurp laws instead of just following them?

[Just Me]

6. Some lawyers are noble. Some are crooks. Some don't care. n/t

[LizW]

18. Lawyers provide ther service their clients want

Yoo gave Bushco exactly what they wanted.

Every client I ever had when I was practicing wanted to know how to get around the law, or to get around being punished for breaking it. When I told them what the law was and what they had to do, they usually wanted a different lawyer.

[Eric J in MN]

5. war criminal and Professor

(The Dean) Berring said faculty members have to right to take "extreme positions."

"The image of Berkeley is the very progressive image," Berring said, "but I think you'd find at Berkeley a pretty wide range of opinions. Professor Yoo is certainly not the only conservative on campus or at the law school."

--------------

This is more than taking a position.

This is war crimes.

Prisoners who were beaten to death would still be alive if not for John Yoo.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Personal info. on John Yoo

John Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he has taught since 1993. From 2001-03, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security, and the separation of powers.

Professor Yoo received his B.A., summa cum laude, in American history from Harvard. Between college and law school, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C. Professor Yoo was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal, and after graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit. He joined the Boalt faculty in 1993, then clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. He also served as General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

He has been a visiting professor at the Free University of Amsterdam. He received a UC Berkeley Junior Faculty Research Grant for 1997-98 and a John M. Olin Faculty Fellowship for 1998-99. In 2001, Professor Yoo received the Paul M. Bator Award for excellence in legal scholarship and teaching from the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. From 2000-2001 he was the director of Boalt Hall’s international legal studies program.
(snip)

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/yoo/

This would be a great time for a move away from the Neo-Con death grip on the world.

[maddezmom]

10. Silberman, Thomas and Olin....eeewwww

[Cooley Hurd]

23. Is his resume...

...printed on Charmin?

[Just Me]

11. Yet, he is the author of this letter!!! WOW!!! Awesome. n/t

[aquart]

12. Would you want a lawyer taught by him?

[Eric J in MN]

13. Not one who believed him.

Not one who believed him.

It doesn't say anywhere in the Geneva Convention that captors can label a prisoner "stateless" and then beat him to death.

But that is where his memo has led the US.

[saigon68]

15. BOO WHO YOO WHO ?????????????

O.K. John Yoo explain why these actions are OK

When the POW had a PLASTIC FLASHLIGHT RAMMED UP HIS RECTUM ???

When a GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG BIT HIM IN THE TESTICLES ???

When the POW had a 220 Volt wire attached to the TIP OF HIS PENIS ???

When Lynndie England was encouraged to help the POWs obtain erections so they could perform
ORAL SEX ACTS ON EACH OTHER and the PERKY PRINCESS OF ABU GHRAIB
PRISON COULD SHOUT "HE'S GETTING HARD"???

When a POW was beaten to death, HIS BODY PACKED IN ICE and TAKEN OUT IN THE
DESERT AND DUMPED

When a Civilian Interrogator ANALLY RAPED A 16 YEAR OLD BOY IN FRONT OF GI
WITNESSES and is going to get a free pass because he was under NO ONES JURISDICTION ???

What a disgusting degenerate TEACHER AT A MAJOR UNIVERSITY !!!

[LiberalFighter]

22. Federalist Society

The scum of the earth!!

[petronius]

14. I think this criticism is a stretch

Saying that the Geneva Accords don't apply to non-state prisoners is not at all the same as saying that non-state prisoners can be beaten and tortured. It sounds like Yoo said that this particular legal framework doesn't apply to these particular prisoners; saying that one set of laws doesn't apply is not the same as saying no laws apply (ignoring the fact that laws aren't the only applicable moral/ethical rules...). So, I have some trouble with blaming Yoo for the abuses - he was asked about the G.A., and I imagine his memo would have read a bit differently if the question had involved electrodes and truncheons...

[Edmond Dantes]

24. You don't understand how OLC works...

First, see LizW's comments above.

Unlike other DOJ offices, ALL of the Deputy Assistant Attorneys General in OLC are politically appointed. There are no career deputies.

OLC's political appointees tell the White House exactly what it wants to hear. In return, those appointees are handsomely rewarded. Did you know that Rehnquist was once OLC's Assistant Attorney General? So was Scalia. And Ted Olson. And William Barr (who later became AG). And Michael Luttig (who was later appointed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals). And Timothy Flanigan (who later became Principal Deputy White House Counsel in W's Administration).

The White House is not so stupid to ask its outside counsel (OLC) "can we shove a flashlight up a detainee's rectum?"

I assure you that Yoo was well aware of the significance of this legal opinion. The consequences were reasonably foreseeable. He and co-author Robert J. Delahunty are morally culpable for everything that transpired thereafter because they gave the initial legal "green light" that set this whole thing in motion.

[petronius]

27. I'm still not convinced

Assume, for the sake of discussion, that there is sound legal reasoning behind the idea that international law does not apply to these prisoners. In that case, Yoo has two options:

1) he can provide an accurate assessment of what the law says, or

2) he can provide an inaccurate assessment, in an attempt to protect against possible (and perhaps foreseeable) negative consequences.

Personally, I would prefer him to choose option 1, and let others be responsible for the appropriateness of their own behavior. And, as I said in my other post, it is not valid to claim that Yoo saying that one law doesn't apply is the same as him saying all actions are permissible.

Of course, if my opening assumption is invalid and Yoo did shade his analysis towards what his client wanted to hear, and be damned to the consequences, then I agree that he is culpable.

[Edmond Dantes]

30. Let me try again with limited space/time ...

Several of the OLC memoranda appear at this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5032094/site/newsweek/ You can read them for yourself. Be forewarned, however, that the smartest neo-con lawyers (the ones who make it to lofty places like OLC) are those capable of writing legal opinions that appear brilliant on the surface but cannot withstand close scrutiny by other sharp legal minds.

By the way, I worked in OLC as a career attorney in Bush I. Although my tenure did not overlap with Yoo's, I know how the office operates from personal experience. Generally, OLC spins out whatever legal theory is necessary to support the White House. If OLC tries to tell the White House that the law does not support the contemplated executive action, and the White House feels strongly enough about that contemplated executive action, the White House Counsel's Office is perfectly capable of producing its own draft legal opinion to "help" OLC understand how the law might be twisted to support that contemplated executive action.

There was a female attorney who tried to blow the whistle on this practice back in 1992. She was burned at the stake (figuratively speaking, of course) by the neo-cons.

[petronius]

33. What you describe does sound rather wrong.

I have always had the impression that the White House Counsel (Gonzales?) was a hack, but I didn't consider that that extended to others. What I've been imagining is that the WH, requiring explication on some point of law, calls up whoever is tops in that particular area and asks for a straightforward analysis - color me idealistic...

Is there general consensus among other sharp legal minds that Yoo's memos are a spin job?

Anyway, thanks for the reasoned responses...

[nonbelief]

16. While we're talking about professional whores...

Can anyone tell me if the AMA is investigating the doctors who supposedly supervise the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq?

Their actions are in contravention of AMA rules. They need to have their credentials revoked.

[Catt03]

29. I agree with you

I read in the testimony where doctors, nurses and other medical personnel testified they were really appalled but did not report the injuries.

Do they also operate under a different code when at war?

[Nlighten1]

17. A conservative professor?

Wait...how can this be? I thought college campuses were dens of liberal sin full of communist professors corrupting the minds of poor, young, white conservatives

[farmbo]

19. Don't forget Harvard Law's torture enabler/apologist: Alan Dershowitz

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/cnna.Dershowitz/

These people are learned advocates of the Rule of Law?

The Law West of the Pecos, maybe.

[LiberalFighter]

21. He is a disappointment

[Just Me]

25. Dershowitz always makes my blood pressure go UP UP UP!!!

Everytime I watch him, my face burns. I mean, the man advocates, actually advocates policies which violate international laws created in reponse to Nazi Germany. It's as if,...he has become the horror he most fears. Yuck!!!

[othermeans]

31. I have a torture question

Does Dershowitz want to allow torture of American citizens? Also since the prison scandal (where they tortured one Iraqi's son in order to extract information) I began to wonder if torturing children is also acceptable to Professor Dershowitz?

[dusty64]

26. He should also

be disbarred at the very least.

[AP]

28. Yoo was on newsnight and he's smart.

I'll tell you, I didn't agree with a thing he said, but I'd much rather spend my time arguing people like Yoo than arguing with O'Reilly, Hannity and those other assholes.

So, rather than debasing ourselves with O'Reilly-level criticisms of this guy, maybe it'd be more interesting to read what he has to say and have an intelligent debate about his ideas.

[gratuitous]

32. Yoo won't attend the commencement?

Because he might see some graduating students wearing red arm bands? The poor, diaphonous fragile flower! Sounds like Mr. Yoo is a lot tougher on paper than he is in real life. Why am I not surprised?