Help save your country step by step. Remove Yoo from Berkeley as a start.

[mmonk]

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24188
Just because there are elections is no reason to wait for someone else to do the work of the people.

Impeach, indict, prosecute. Add pressure points on those that have betrayed our trust and continue to do so. If you don't, lawless rule will continue unabated for there are no consequences. Future generations at times must be saved by those willing to fight in the present. Mechanisms of democray can be broken down permanently without vigilance. Broken governments aren't fixed through inaction or saved by elections that perpetuate the status of inaction.

[Th1onein]

1. DONE.

K & R

[Canuckistanian]

2. Done

Unless Yoo's act has consequences, this has grave implications for democracies everywhere.

[Elspeth]

3. DId this and THANKS!

Excellent idea

[lonestarnot]

4. If Randi R. can be removed from A.A. for her comments, Yoo can certainly be removed for his torture

crafting! K & R And don't forget to prosecute. And R.R. wasn't fired.

[Elspeth]

7. Hey, maybe someone should point that out to Berkeley

...

[screembloodymurder]

5. Done

K&R

[mmonk]

6. American Freedom Campaign's Naomi Wolf on the issue

Closing society, imprisonment, torture, and also Sielgleman issue. Tipping points and public "emergency".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jfcdBbinsA

[warren pease]

8. Removed, then hauled off to his own military tribunal deep in the bowels of the American gulag...

Better yet, how about sending him to the ICC at The Hague so that the rest of the world can have a go at him. After all, he wants to be an international power player; he deserves a jury of his peers.

By the time they're done with him, he should have piled up enough consecutive life sentences without parole that he'd have to outlive Methusalah to serve them all.

And how about kicking the whole thing off with a citizens arrest? Just yank him out of his seminar or lecture, slap on the cuffs, drag him outside and drive him to the nearest federal prosecutor's office -- hopefully in Berkeley you can find one who isn't completely controlled by Mukasey/Cheney et al. A fantasy, I know, but one worthy of Yoo and the rest of the torture gang.

Check federal and state kidnapping definitions first, though, lest the hunters become the hunted.


wp

[mmonk]

10. That would be interesting.

Of course if we are able to force him out, it may finally be a mainstraem issue that torture and barbarism have been deemed illegal in our system and the false conversations surrounding what torture is can end.

[warren pease]

15. Which is one reason it won't happen...

About the last thing these vampires want is an open and uncontrolled national conversation regarding the illegal and probably insane justifications they've concocted regarding the nature and uses of torture.

Yoo, sadistic genius that he apparently is, managed to define it so narrowly that, by his reasoning, torture has probably never been practiced on the face of the earth at any time in recorded history.

Democratic willingness to keep the whole thing as shadowy as possible isn't helping much either. There seem to be many of the usual reasons for their behavior, as there always are whenever they work overtime conniving with the Bushies to legitimize an action or policy so obviously wrong, immoral illegal and destructive that their complicity can only be understood in terms of blackmail or threats of violence.

In this case, Pelosi seems to have created her own personal ethical and legal cage. This was when she was head of the House Intelligence Committee, a position now held by Jane Harman (more on her later).

Remember those "revelations" late last year regarding a "virtual tour" she and other key members of Congress got back in 2002 of the CIA's offshore black sites? The one that revealed the use of waterboarding as a standard interrogation method? That was a genius move on the Bushies' part because, by making her an insider, it effectively shut her mouth on the topic. And you can imagine why:

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Nice.

By not immediately going public and condemning the CIA's routine use of torture, she tacitly agreed to ignore gross violations of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, which made her an accessory after the fact to the Bush administration's war crimes.

By her silence, Pelosi's also complicit in BushCo's daily violations of worldwide bans on torture, a breach of Article VI of the Constitution that requires the US to comply with international treaties to which it's a signatory and, yup, that's another war crime.

All this puts her right in the administration's deepest pocket and has completely neutered her as a political threat.

For the record, here's what she told the Washington Post writers, apparently suffering from the same collective amnesia as the other three Dems present at that 2002 briefing:

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

Democratic right wing rep Jane Harman and senators Bob Graham and John D. Rockefeller got the same presentation. Since then, Harman has introduced HR 1955, the so-called "thought crime bill" that targets the Intertubes as a point of contact among domestic terrorist organizations and other such swill. Rockefeller, among other sins, recently championed immunity for the telecoms/Bushies during the FISA debates.

Graham seems largely untainted, especially since he's no longer in the senate. He did, however, issue this ridiculous comment:

Graham said he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics. Graham left the Senate intelligence committee in January 2003, and was replaced by Rockefeller. "Personally, I was unaware of it, so I couldn't object," Graham said in an interview. He said he now believes the techniques constituted torture and were illegal.

Makes the word "lame" seem woefully inadequate, eh?


wp

[SpiralHawk]

9. Done

k and r

[smoogatz]

11. Though I despise Yoo and everything he stands for, these efforts

to get him fired from Berkeley are disturbing. Until/unless he's charged with a crime (innocent until proven guilty and all that—quaint, isn't it?), the effort to oust him smacks of the same sort of intellectual vigilantism as the witchunt against Ward Churchill. Academic freedom isn't just a good idea for people whose ideas we agree with; if ideology can get you fired from a teaching job, then all academics with controversial opinions are potentially in danger of losing their jobs, given sufficient (manufactured) public outcry.

[scarletwoman]

12. I agree with you completely, thanks for saying this. (nt)

[Mojorabbit]

16. I disagree on this case

this man has blood on his hands. He is a criminal who won't be charged but a criminal nonetheless. He enabled torture to take place. He has no business teaching law. His actions caused untold suffering and he should be held accountable for what he has done. Ward Churchill did none of these things. There is a difference in my mind. This is just my opinion.

[warren pease]

17. These aren't "ideas we don't agree with;" these are efforts by Yoo and his DoJ masters to...

...construct a legal framework that allows the US, acting through trained interrogators in the CIA and other covert agencies, to subvert the rule of both domestic and international law -- violating in the process Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment and Article VI of the Constitution that requires the US to comply with international treaties to which it's a signatory.

We have the memos with his signature; we have leaks from various insiders; we have members of the Principles Committee (AKA the Torture Groupies) describing Yoo's genius at creating convoluted quasi-legal gibberish that gave the Bushies their green light. Here's how a news release from the National Lawyers Guild puts it:

According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.

The federal maiming statute, for example, makes it a crime for someone "with the intent to torture, maim, or disfigure" to "cut, bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut out or disable the tongue, or put out or destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb or any member of another person." It further prohibits individuals from "throwing or pouring upon another person any scalding water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance" with like intent.

Yoo also narrowed the definition of torture so the victim must experience intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result; Yoo's definition contravenes the definition in the Convention Against Torture, a treaty the US has ratified which is thus part of the US law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Yoo said self-defense or necessity could be used as a defense to war crimes prosecutions for torture, notwithstanding the Torture Convention's absolute prohibition against torture in all circumstances, even in wartime.

We're not talking about a philosophy we oppose; we're talking about a war criminal who created justifications for a policy of torture that's so barbaric and counter to the spirit and letter of US and international law that I have no idea what the hell he's doing walking around a free man.

He should be arrested and tried as a war criminal YESTERDAY, not given a prestigious position as a prof at one of the leading law schools in the country.


wp

[scarletwoman]

19. Yes, he should be arrested -- but who will do the arresting?

If no one brings a criminal indictment against him, then he can not be arrested.

That being the case, demanding that he be fired from his job is nothing more or less than an ideological purge.

Either you honor the rule of law or you don't. He is lawfully employed, he no longer works for the DOJ, there are no legal grounds for demanding his removal.

Moral grounds, sure -- but that's a very dangerous double-edged sword. How many morally-suspect professors on the left side of the spectrum are you willing to sacrifice to David Horowitz and his ilk just so you can vent your outrage over Yoo?

sw

[warren pease]

25. I have a hard time finding equivalence between "morally suspect" profs and war criminals...

Unless those profs are also engaged in writing long, tangled, legal fictions in a shamefully successful effort to defend the indefensible.

I submit that, no matter how reprehensible I may personally find the idea of tenured profs groping students and playing grade-creep for favors, that's not even in the same legal universe as the inhuman, illegal, immoral acts Yoo has enthusiastically justified for his bloodthirsty superiors, and which have produced outcomes such as this (an autopsy report describing wounds and cause of death of an "Iragi detainee (who) died while in US custody," excerpted from the OP by kpete):

Circumstances of Death: Iraqi detainee died while in U.S. custody.

Authorization for Autopsy: Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, lAW 10 USC 1471

Identification: Identification by accompanying paperwork and wristband, both of which include his name and a detainee number, 3ACR1582

CAUSE OF DEATH: Blunt Force. Injuries and Asphyxia

MANNER OF DEATH: Homicide

FINAL AUTOPSY DIAGNOSES:
I. Multiple Blunt Force Injuries
A. Cutaneous abrasions and contusions of the scalp, torso, and extremities
B. Deep contusions of the chest wall musculature and abdominal wall
C. Multiple, bilateral, displaced and comminuted rib fractures, with lacerations of the pleura.
D. Bilateral lung contusions
E. Bilateral hemothoraces
F. Hemorrhage into the mesentery of the small and large bowel
G. Hemorrhage into the left sternohyoid muscle with associated fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone

II. History of Asphyxia, Secondary to Occlusion of the Oral Airway

III. Pleural and Pulmonary Adhesions

IV. Hypertensive Cardiovascular Disease
A. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart (2.0-centimeters)
B. Cardiomegaly (450-grams)

V. Enlarged, Nodular Prostate Gland

VI. Toxicology is negative for ethanol, drugs of abuse, select therapeutic
medications, and cyanide


OPINION

This 47-year-old White male died of blunt force injuries and asphyxia. The autopsy disclosed multiple blunt force injuries,including deep contusions of the chest wall, numerous displaced rib fractures, lung contusions, and hemorrhage into the mesentery of the small and large intestine. An examination of the neck structures revealed hemorrhage into the strap muscles and fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone. According to the investigative report provided by U.S. Army CID, the decedent was shackled to the top of a doorframe with a gag in his mouth at the time he lost consciousness and became pulseless.

The severe blunt force injuries, the hanging position, and the obstruction of the oral cavity with a gag contributed to this individual's death. The manner of death is homicide.

If nobody in the DoJ is willing to convene a grand jury or issue a warrant for his arrest, then I think the people of Berkeley are duty bound to initiate a citizens' arrest. All very proper and non-violent, all by the book, but put him in cuffs, drag his ass out to a car and take him straight to the local federal prosecutor's office.

Make sure the media are swarming all over the place. One or two of them -- probably print reporters with the Chronicle -- may actually write about torture to give their stories on the arrest some context. And then they'd pester the prosecutor every other day or so to make sure he/she doesn't just ignore the whole thing.

This is also the perfect made-for-TV-news event. They'll cover the hell out of it because it's great TV, unless it's spiked by the usual management gatekeepers. Even if it is, footage will be all over Youtube and, therefore, all over the world in minutes.

If this all works out and Yoo is indicted, we've taken back a very small but very important piece of the country from the warmongering fascists and their cronies who've used it as their personal money tree and get-richer-quicker fortune-building scheme since they stole their way into power back in the pre-historic era beginning around December 2000.

Maybe I'm just one of those people for whom torture isn't easily justified. Maybe I just need to get with the US program, give up on the idea of moral high ground and get used to the idea of the Torquemada method of "enhanced interrogation."

Before I slip all the way down that rat hole, though, I'd like to find out if it's even possible to lay a glove on these bastards. If it is, well... let the games begin and let the prosecutions get underway. The sooner every single Bushie is behind bars, the safer the world will be.

Personally, I think that's worth the small effort expended to nail this sadistic prick. I'll worry about moral relativism and equivalence some other time. Pick these slime creatures off one by one, life sentences for all at the very least, and then let them try to neo-con their filthy ways out of their fates. Maybe they'll all roll on Rumsfeld and Cheney, making a one-way trip to The Hague for them both virtually inevitable.


wp

[scarletwoman]

28. Look, I know Yoo is scum, you don't have to copy & paste paragraphs of atrocities to get my

agreement on that point.

But you want to interfere with the priniciple of academic freedom, I will not support that.

Get a legal case against him and get him charged. If you want to uphold the rule of law then that is your only course.

sw

[smoogatz]

21. I agree with your premise, but not your conclusion.

Of course Yoo should be tried for war crimes, and pushing for Yoo's indictment seems to me an excellent first step. But I don't think that organizing a mob, furnishing it with torches and pitchforks and setting it loose on the Berkeley campus is really the appropriate response to the charge that Yoo has, you know, subverted the rule of law. It may feel like the emotionally correct reaction, but it's intellectually and morally inconsistent, IMO. And you haven't really addressed the matter of academic freedom: to what extent should universities be expected to respond to orchestrated campaigns to purge the faculty of professors who say and do unpleasant things with which we disagree, but who have never been charged with, indicted for or found guilty of any crime?

[warren pease]

31. "intellectually and morally inconsistent..." WTF??

THIS is intellectually and morally inconsistent, particularly when it's perpetrated by citizens of a country that never shuts up about its intrinsic wonderfulness or its claims of global moral leadership or its condemnation of other countries that don't hold themselves to its high ethical standards:



So's this:



This too:



This guy probably climbed up there on his own and cuffed himself to the rail so he wouldn't fall. The hood is just a way to combat his vertigo. All innocent and above board:



And this happy, well-adjusted guy must have forgotten his Sunday school lessons for a couple of minutes:




I really don't see much equivalence between periodic purges of left-leaning profs and aiding, abetting or employing a man who created the phony legal framework to sanction the acts in those pix above, and for whom there's way more than enough evidence to indict for war crimes. We don't even need the missing million emails or require the cooperation of Mukasey to nail the bastard; it's all over the place: memos, briefing papers, letters and, of course, the Intertubes.

Yes, I want academia populated with as many Howard Zinns as possible and as few Milton Friedmans and Joseph Strausses as possible. Yes, I loathe right wing meddling -- and it always seems to come from the right, doesn't it -- in curricula, political ideology and focus of study. Yes, I realize that my position on Yoo is somewhat hypocritical and intellectually dishonest.

But I really don't give a good goddamn about consistency in this case. I want this bastard indicted and tried for war crimes and anything else a smart prosecutor can hang around his neck. I want him put away for the rest of his life. I want him to experience at least a fraction of what his victims endured -- and I hope a life in solitary in an 8 x 8 cell with one hour exercise a day is Yoo's idea of unsurpassed horror.

I want the whole sorry mess overwhelming all other political coverage for at least a month -- and talk about the impossible dream, when Paris and OJ and Britany are all running free and Obama and Hillary are turning into quote machines in their intensifying dislike of one another.

So be it. If I'm morally wrong, I'm OK with it. Sometimes I think the objective is far more important than its moral underpinnings or lack thereof. It's kind of Jesuitical I know -- ends justifying the means and so forth -- but I would argue that the world is considerably better off without John Yoo sitting in the White House at this moment. Better yet is making sure he never again has any role in formulating or recommending policy about anything more critical than deciding on black tie or white for some formal dinner.

Same goes for the rest of the vile Bushies, but they're cloistered and protected by armed guards. Yoo, on the other hand, roams free. It's just a matter of going after the low-hanging fruit.

Speaking of which, I'd die laughing if Rumsfeld screwed up and headed back to France, where he would be captured and immediately whisked to The Hague. Ahhhhh....


wp

[smoogatz]

32. If the solution you propose to lawlessness is vigilantism,

then of course it's intellectually and morally inconsistent. That's obvious, no? You're clearly emotionally swept up in this whole business, and while I admire your passion it's evident that you haven't really worked through the implications. I mean, why stop at running Yoo off the Berkeley campus? Why not tar and feather him while you're at it?

[warren pease]

34. "Why not tar and feather him while you're at it?"

Indeed, why not?

A little tar and feathers notwithstanding, I'm not proposing vigilantism at all. I'm proposing that citizens perform a job they're tasked with. I'm proposing that if the DoJ remains committed to doing absolutely nothing to impede the Bushies' march to bloody madness -- which unfortunately means painting us all with the same brush in the eyes of the world -- then it's consistent with the law for citizens to arrest the perp.

The process must be calm, orderly, legal and non-violent of course. But it has to produce a result that, thus far, we're not getting and I suspect are unlikely to get no matter who's president or how many Democrats are seated in the House and Senate.

Their current policy of issuing free passes for all things Bushean, no matter how illegal, revolting, inhuman or unconstitutional, speaks volumes about the intentions of Democratic party regarding accountability in the immediate future. In brief, there ain't gonna be any.

There are provisions in all states except North Carolina for citizens arrests. Here's a brief summary of California's criteria for performing a legal citizens arrest:

A citizen's arrest is a formal arrest by a citizen has no official government authority to make such an arrest as an agent of the government. The California Penal Code gives any citizen the right to make a citizen's arrest of another citizen in three alternative situations:

1. A public offense was committed or attempted in the citizen's presence.

2. The person arrested has committed a felony, although not in the citizen's presence.

3. A felony has been in fact committed and the citizen has reasonable cause for believing the person arrested has committed it.

Yoo's case seems to meet criteria two and three. So again, what's so scary about arresting a known war criminal -- or "terrorist" in today's parlance -- and taking him to the legal authorities for further action?

Would you actually rather see this swine get an even break? Hell, there about 1.5 million non-violent drug offenders locked up in US jails and prisons right now.

Do you honestly think all of them got the best legal representation money could buy and appeared every day in a new $2000 suit and highly polished shoes? Got the jury's sympathy based on looks, wardrobe and superior attitude, and got the judge's attention for the same reasons? Do you suppose that, in general, the imprisoned druggies were able to participate in Level One US jurisprudence, a place of legal gentility reserved exclusively for those members of the population too rich or well-connected to be convicted of anything more serious than a parking ticket.

That's who's in the White House. They're insulated for the moment, but Yoo's on his own. We need to eliminate all the slack these bastards have been granted and start getting serious about crime and punishment. If a poor guy in Texas can get a 20 year sentence for selling an ounce of pot, what should the architect and chief apologist for instituting an illegal, immoral and barbaric practice as just another part of standard US interrogation practices?

But first, we've got to round him up, get indictments, determine charges and let the games proceed.


wp

[mmonk]

26. Those the administration relies on for justifications of crimes

can rightfully be called upon to step down. Constitutional scholars currently are being denied high jobs at universities because rightwing groups attack them at the university level until the university agrees to withdraw them. It would seem we have the latitude. I am one does not think that support for the constitution is ideologically based and I think those that don't support it shouldn't be teaching upcoming members of the legal profession erroneous positions.

[smoogatz]

30. Could you cite a particular instance

in which "constitutional scholars currently are being denied high jobs at universities because rightwing groups attack them at the university level until the university agrees to withdraw them?" And then maybe explain why the left should engage in the same sort of intellectual bullying to which we pretend to object when it's done by right-wingers?

[mmonk]

35. Sure. Here's one: Erwin Chemerinsky

http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/new_uc_irvine_dean_hired_fired/

In the case of Yoo, it really isn't a case of intellectual bullying. The White House wanted a legal description or argument in order to engage in illegal activity. Yoo obliged with weak untested constitutional arguments presented to the Wite House in order to engage in illegal acts and what many describe as war crimes based on standards of the Geneva Convention.

[smoogatz]

38. Well, there you go.

Probably the big donors got their panties in a wad. So why would we want to emulate that kind of behavior?

[mike_c]

13. done-- K&R!

eom

[scarletwoman]

14. Sorry, I refuse to become the mirror image of David Horowitz. Ideological purges -- do we REALLY

want to go there?

If he can be charged with a crime, tried and convicted -- hooray! But to attempt to take away someone's livelihood based on that person's actions under a different employer -- that's a terrible precedent to set.

The only rememdy for odious speech is more free speech, not attempting to stifle the odious. I'm really disappointed that so many seem to have forgotten that.

sw

[mmonk]

27. So you believe the constitution an ideological document?

Would that be liberal? What about established rule of law? Ideological? No wonder some people aren't up in arms on the prospect of losing their constitutional rights.

[scarletwoman]

33. Don't be ridiculous. Of course I believe in the Constitution AND the rule of law, and ALL

Constitutional rights, including free speech.

And free speech includes academic freedom. Which means that an academic institution has every right to to hire even Hermann Goerring if he's not breaking any laws while under their employ.

Find a way to actually charge Yoo with a crime UNDER THE RULE OF LAW that you state you want to see upheld, and I will gladly support it.

But I've been watching, appalled, for some years now as rightwingers have gone after universities for be too "liberal". I've seen their witch hunts, their lists of "leftist" professors whose reputations and careers they attempt to destroy. I've seen respected scholars denied tenure, denied prestigious departmental seats for which they are eminently qualified because the right wing attack machine set to work and the colleges caved into their pressure.

Maybe you're not aware of it, but there has been an ongoing battle for years over academic freedom instigated by the Rightwing that has been having very insidious effects on the freedom of professors to hold left-leaning political views without negative consequences. We can only hold the high ground in this battle if we do NOT engage in the same tactics of mob intimidation.

Giving the Right the opportunity to say, "See! They do it too!" will have nothing but deleterious consequences for our side.

It is because I DO hold the Constitution and rule of law so dearly that I want no part in a purge. And it is clearly an attempt to purge Yoo when no actual legal action is being brought against him.

Freedom of speech HAS to protect even assholes, or it protects none of us.

sw

[mmonk]

36. Torture at the time of the requested memos

had no legal argument. The torture engaged in under standing laws and treaties would be illegal. Illegal acts were acted upon on the memo's "latitudes" what could possibly be argued as an accessory to torture.

[scarletwoman]

37. Look, I'm not arguing that he's not a criminal.

He should be indicted. Then he would no longer be teaching at Berkeley.

[L. Coyote]

18. An impeachment placebo?? But, will anyone run with this when BUSH tortured!

Those "saving the country" will be doing something about someone actually involved
in running the country, like maybe ALL the Deciders involved in the torture sessions.

[mmonk]

29. No.

How do you bring awareness to people that criminality in the White House is going on? By doing nothing? This is just a part of the effort for accountability. The American Freedom Campaign is working to restore our constitutional guarantees.

[aikoaiko]

20. He's tenured. the dean should commit hari kari before firing yoo.

If Berkeley chose poorly they get to live with it.

[annabanana]

22. Is he actually teaching? Who would sign up for those classes?

"Berkely" and "Yoo" don't seem like much of a fit..

[Elspeth]

23. Here's some stuff from UC Berkeley dean DEFENDING Yoo

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/news/2008/edley041008.html

"Assuming one believes as I do that Professor Yoo offered bad ideas and even worse advice during his government service, that judgment alone would not warrant dismissal or even a potentially chilling inquiry. As a legal matter, the test here is the relevant excerpt from the "General University Policy Regarding Academic Appointees," adopted for the 10-campus University of California by both the system-wide Academic Senate and the Board of Regents:

Types of unacceptable conduct: … Commission of a criminal act which has led to conviction in a court of law and which clearly demonstrates unfitness to continue as a member of the faculty. "

There's a lot more.

[Elspeth]

24. The course information is accessible only to Berkeley students

:(