5 wrong justices - John Yoo Responds

[kpete]

5 wrong justices
Updated 6/29/2006

By John Yoo

By putting on hold military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes, five Supreme Court justices have made the legal system part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the challenges of the war on terrorism. They tossed aside centuries of American history, judicial decisions of long standing, and a December 2005 law ordering them not to interfere with the military trials.
OUR VIEW:Suspects deserve fair trials

As commander in chief, President Bush has the authority to decide on wartime tactics and strategies. Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR settled on military commissions, sometimes with congressional approval and sometimes without, as the best tool to punish and deter enemy war crimes. Bush used them to solve a difficult tension: how to try terrorists fairly without blowing intelligence sources and methods.

...................

What the justices did would have been unthinkable in prior military conflicts: Judicial intervention in the decisions of the president and Congress on how best to wage war. They replaced his wartime judgment and Congress' support with their own speculation that open trials would not run intelligence risks. Their decision to impose specific rules and override political judgments about military necessity mistakes war — inherently unpredictable, and where our government must act quickly and sometimes secretly to protect national security — for the familiarity of the criminal justice system.

Two years ago, the same justices declared they would review the military's detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Congress and the president expended time and energy to overrule them. Hamdan will force our elected leaders to go through the same exercise again, effort better spent preventing the next terrorist attack.

more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-29-oppose_x.htm

[grytpype]

1. F*ck Yoo.

[AndyA]

3. Ditto. n/m

[Warpy]

12. I have a headache.

This article is just sour grapes at a thwarted military power grab.

The military has ALWAYS been subject to higher civil authority.

Stupid has been telling them that they are not. The USSC said otherwise.

[Howardx]

2. damn beat me to it!

haha yeah fuck yoo

[XNASA]

4. Fascist.

[Hubert Flottz]

5. What a Yoo Yoo!

He has a criminal mind...

[Justitia]

6. John Yoo is one of the WORST things to happen to the USA ever!

This disgusting piece of shit is the monster that delivered twisted legal logic to the White House allowing them to torture anybody, anywhere, any time.

He is directly responsible for many, many atrocities & deaths - both theirs AND ours!

:puke:

[Marnieworld]

22. He wrote the permission slip to torture

Children should eventually learn his name in school when the story of these war criminals is told.

[blogslut]

25. And he knows it too

What I find so freaking ironic about Yoo is that his father-in-law was one of the first journalists silenced for the sake of Enduring Freedom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arnett

[lonestarnot]

7. ditto two YOO!

Warmonger! Sense of entitlement to power monger asshole.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. "They tossed aside centuries of American history,

judicial decisions of long standing..." :wow:

Fuck Yoo!

[gratuitous]

23. And which judicial decisions would those be, Mr. Yoo?

From what I can see, the article is long on cant and rant, but lacking a little substance. He doesn't cite even one decision of long or short standing that the Supreme Court ignored. The fact that he doesn't cite one implies that there are none. Mr. Yoo is not only a poor scholar, it appears he's a dishonest one as well.

I wonder why the USA Today saw fit to grant him space in the paper? And if Ward Churchill's job is at risk for his public pronouncements, why is UC Berkeley continuing to pollute its faculty with such an intellectual flyweight as Yoo?

[Tesha]

9. Note that this *ISN'T* USA-TODAY's opinion. Just some yahoo...

Note that this *ISN'T* USA-TODAY's opinion.

It's just the opinion of some yahoo who helped Bush draft
this appallingly awful infringement on human rights. He'd
hardly be expected to think otherwise about this, would he?

Here's the paper's editorial in support of the Supremes:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-29-our-view_x.htm

Tesha

[originalpckelly]

10. This is my favorite quote:

"They tossed aside centuries of American history"

Hmmm, what about that warrantless wiretapping program? The phone call records program? The torture? The signing statements that effectively act in place of veto? I guess Mr. Yoo is only talking about some parts of our history (Pre-1776.)

[grytpype]

11. If Yoo is unhappy, then this is a great decision.

[librechik]

20. He was on the NewsHour yesterday looking like somebody killed his puppy

how could 75% of Americans be so treasonaous as to imagine WE run things rather than his client King George? We're just wrong, that's all.

[Bob3]

13. Putz.

As the court said - if congress had wanted * to have the powers they claimed from the Iraq resolution - they would have specifically put them in.

And again - we're not at war - we are dealing with a loosely organized group of extra-national organizations and groups with widely variant goals and and the internal revolt against the occupation of a country we invaded. Not so much world war 2 as the Zulu war of 1879.

[wellst0nev0ter]

14. If Only Clinton Were President

President Clinton exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the utmost in the area in which those powers are already at their height — in our dealings with foreign nations. Unfortunately, the record of the administration has not been a happy one, in light of its costs to the Constitution and the American legal system. On a series of different international relations matters, such as war, international institutions, and treaties, President Clinton has accelerated the disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law.

--John C. Yoo, "The Imperial President Abroad", in Roger Pilon, ed., The Rule of Law in the Wake of Clinton(2000)

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/02/ill_stop_callin.html

[gumby]

16. What?

Does that mean Yoo is a super-double hypocrite?

Yuck Foo!

[wellst0nev0ter]

17. Nope, Just That 9-11 Changed Everything

<insert sarcasm icon here>

[IndependentVoice]

15. THE OTHER PRESIDENTS DID DIDN'T BREAK THE LAWS OF THE GENEVA

CONVENTION.


dumbass

[ixion]

18. the so-called 'War on Terror' is not a war

hence the whole 'wartime' argument is pretty much bogus.

Sorry, fascist scum. :grr:

[The_Casual_Observer]

19. Yoo ought to sign up and go over to Baghdad for a tour or two.

And stop waging war from some office in Washington. Yoo gives "Idiot Savant" a whole new meaning.

[Marnieworld]

21. There's a cell in the Hague waiting for you YOO!

I am amazed that he had the audacity to do this. He is challenging the Supreme Court's interpretation of the COnstitution? WHo the fuck is he? :grr:

[Beelzebud]

24. Phiuck Yiou!

[Dudley_DUright]

26. It boggles my mind that UC Berkeley actually hired this cretin

He does not know the first thing about the basic principles of our system of law.

[AndyTiedye]

27. There's a Cell Waiting for YOO In the Hague

[hedda_foil]

28. I wonder if there's any connection between Yoo and Rev. Moon?

His philosophy fits right in with the fascism of Moon.