John Yoo and John Bolton: “Don’t Try Us for War Crimes!”

[babylonsister]

John Yoo and John Bolton: “Don’t Try Us for War Crimes!”
By: Scarecrow Monday January 5, 2009 9:17 am


Partners in Crime, and in the Times


John Yoo and John Bolton, two recently coverted and now stalwart defenders of the Constitutional principle of separation of powers, kidnap and torture the NYT op-ed page to urge the Obama Administration to restore that principle with respect to treaty ratification after its long abuse by . . . Bill Clinton. Why would they do this?

Well it seems both are worried that Obama's penchant for negotiations might actually result in an agreement with other nations to control global climate change or perhaps some agreement to, God forbid, limit nuclear proliferation. (Surely Mitch McConnell ought to have the right to obstruct such mischief.)

Even worse, according to these scholars, would be for the US to sanction an international judicial system that would hold nations and their officials publically accountable for committing war crimes.

Now why would a man who sanctioned aggressive war against a country that did not attack or threaten us, and who helped misrepresent the case for war, and a man who sanctioned the use of torture and found it to be consistent with US law, be concerned about international justice?

After all, these scholars are Very Serious People, and attention must be paid (or op-ed pages made available). John Yoo was an essential DoJ official, a lackey in the Addington cabal of Bush/Cheney attorneys who believed their job was to sanction whatever an unbridled executive asked for (h/t Greenwald), the law, hundreds of years of democratic tradition and just ordinary human decency notwithstanding.

more...

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/2808