Torture Justifier Bybee now sits on Federal bench.

[BurtWorm]

:puke:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/politics/24MEMO.html?hp


Author of '02 Memo on Torture: 'Gentle' Soul for a Harsh Topic
By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: June 24, 2004
The Bush administration is distancing itself from a memorandum prepared two years ago by a government lawyer asserting that the president's power to use torture to extract information from suspected terrorists is almost unlimited.

Before the recent controversy concerning his work, however, some of the officials who received the memorandum worked diligently to elevate the lawyer, Jay S. Bybee, to the federal bench. Nominated by President Bush in 2002 and confirmed by the Senate last year, he now sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Former colleagues say the judge, whose chambers are in Las Vegas, is a serious, soft-spoken, reflective man. They say it is difficult to reconcile his discussion of torture in clinical, dispassionate detail with his background. A former legal academic, Judge Bybee told Meridian, a Mormon magazine, last year that he hoped to be remembered for his probity.

"I would like my headstone to read, `He always tried to do the right thing,' " Judge Bybee said.

[BurtWorm]

1. "I would like my headstone to read, `He always tried to do the right thing

The memorandum, dated Aug. 1, 2002, defined torture narrowly under a federal law that prohibits it. Only pain like that accompanying "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" qualifies, Mr. Bybee wrote. It went on to say torture is unlawful only if the infliction of pain is the offender's specific objective. "Even if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent," he wrote.

The memorandum also discussed various potential defenses to criminal prosecutions for torture, including necessity and self-defense. Finally, it asserted that the president was free under his authority as commander in chief to order torture notwithstanding treaties and laws barring it.

The memorandum said it was addressed to Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, in response to his questions. At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Gonzales specifically disavowed the part of the memorandum discussing the president's authority as commander in chief, saying it was "irrelevant and unnecessary."

Senior Justice Department officials took a broader view, saying the entire memorandum would be withdrawn.

Judge Bybee, 50, served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, an elite unit of the Justice Department that advises the executive branch on the law, from 2001 until he joined the appeals court last year. Among his predecessors in the office were William H. Rehnquist, now the chief justice, and Antonin Scalia, the associate justice.

[BurtWorm]

2. kick

[seemslikeadream]

3. BurtWorm funny story about Judge Bybee

I just saw this and would like to add something about the judge and George Bush Sr.

I'll be back in a minute.

Torture memo puts focus on Nevada judge


CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A legal memo advising the White House that torturing al-Qaida captives "may be justified" in the war on terror has focused attention on Jay Bybee, a Nevadan who signed the document as a top Justice Department adviser in 2002.

Bybee, a former professor at the UNLV Boyd School of Law, headed a team that provided legal guidance to the Bush administration on a range of issues, including its course in pursuing terrorists and those with potential knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

An authority on constitutional and administrative law, Bybee, 50, returned to Las Vegas last year as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He was confirmed by the Senate on a 74-19 vote in March 2003.


Bybee's signature on a controversial 50-page memo was reported on Tuesday after being obtained by The Washington Post. Bybee was assistant attorney general and chief of the Office of Legal Counsel.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2004/jun/10/061010210 ...

...a Bush 03' appointee..


War is Golden for the Bush Administration - Jay Bybee


The Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary funnel used by the first Bush Administration to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States like, weapons merchant Matrix Churchill. (As always with the Busha Nostra, geopolitics--in this case, helping Saddam wage aggressive war against Iran--and crony profits go hand in hand. Once the war was over and Iran was left a shattered hulk, with millions dead and displaced, the useful idiot Saddam was expendable, swiftly morphing from good buddy into budding Hitler.)

As soon as the BNL case broke, President Bush I moved to throttle the investigation. He appointed lawyers from both Cardoen and Matrix to top Justice Department posts--where they supervised the officials investigating their old companies. Meanwhile, White House aides applied heavy pressure on other prosecutors to restrict the range of the probe--especially the fact that Bush cabinet officials Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger had served as consultants for BNL during their pre-White House days as spear-carriers for yet another secretive international front that profits from war, weapons, etc., etc.: Kissinger Associates.

Which brings us to the judicial appointment. One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. Last week, said factotum was nominated by the current warmer of the Oval Office seat, George W. Bush, to a place on the federal appeals court--a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html