Letters to the Editor
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Notforsale
I've noticed that many Americans have difficulty in distinguishing between their country and their government. I'd hoped that Glenn was smart enough to avoid that logical trap.
The government has repeatedly endorsed what John Yoo enabled. The country as a whole has not.
Who elected this government, twice - including once after much of these torture claims were known?
And who elected the Congress which enacted the Military Commissions Act?
Acting as though the government is somehow separate from the people is the only "logical trap" that I see here.
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Moral blind spot or NO moral?
"Elephantman reveals his own moral blind spot."
@Paul Dirks
The elephant boy has NO blind spot, as a true blood Republican, he demands morality only of the other side. They are after all the chosen Party God designated to keep America Pure.
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@ Glenn Greenwald: The Government And The People
Who elected this government, twice - including once after much of these torture claims were known?
And who elected the Congress which enacted the Military Commissions Act?
Acting as though the government is somehow separate from the people is the only "logical trap" that I see here.
Respectfully, I think there is reasonable doubt about the veracity and legitimacy of both elections.
So much was hidden - and still remains hidden, that I don't think the voters had any unimpeded and accurate ability to foresee that Congress would abdicate its responsibility and approve such an abomination as the Military Commissions Act.
In writing this, I don't disagree that the people are responsible, only that the government has become uncoupled or untethered from acting in accordance with the will of we, the people.
My question is at what point is this going to be publicly and more formally acknowledged and by whom?
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Notforsale
The government has repeatedly endorsed what John Yoo enabled. The country as a whole has not.
When McThuselah is elected in November will you then allow that the country as a whole has endorsed what John Yoo enabled?
Look at the protests in San Francisco against the Olympics.. Why are these people protesting the Chinese government's record on human rights and not that of their own government?
The sheer willful myopia is staggering.
Or would be if you thought Americans actually cared about what their government does in their name.
The *only* reason the occupation of Iraq is unpopular is because it has become such a huge disaster, not because it was illegal and immoral from the very beginning.
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Total Cleansing
We can debate if we should or not go after Johnny Yoo. Mr. Greenwald is entirely right when he suggests we should also go after the big fish. There so many culprits in so many layers of the Administration, Business, Finance and the Press that it will take us a life time to give America back her fine looks. Let's get busy! The Moral Majority might get a new name: The Immoral Majority. See the movie/short story: Rain. Somerset Maugham.
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Che Pasa. Buenas Diaz, and have a trial for Mr. Yoo.
Birds coo! Che, I knew I could count on you. The birds cooed.
But please, no sneeze on the window screen. Achillea. Yarrow...
Where is Achilles? Bless Yoo. People need healing medicine herbs.
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Is John "Ich war erst nach Auftragseingang" Yoo a Scapegoat?
In the essay below, former CIA Officer Ray McGovern makes the same point, with additional details and links to other memos, as does GG regarding the danger of scapegoating of John Yoo in the design and implementation of the Bush torture regime.
If you haven't yet read it, Bush's "smoking gun" memo, authorizing the torture of detainees, that he signed on February 2, 2002, is available for viewing online: go to Consortiumnews.com for the link.
McGovern writes:
"Is it because John Yoo, the former Justice Department's hired hand, is such an easy target? Is it because of the cheeky, in-your-face way in which Yoo argues that the president has the authority to have your eyes poked out and your sons' testicles crushed, because we are 'at war' and he is commander in chief?
"Or is it because our press is STILL reluctant to go after Yoo's guys – first and foremost his ultimate client – President George W. Bush? Oh, but that would be hard, you say.
"Nonsense.
"Available on the Web, in its original format, is a 7 Feb. 2002 action memorandum that the president signed to implement the dubious advice he was getting from Yoo and those at Justice who hired Yoo – and from the vice president's office which guided Yoo. [emphasis added].
"Yoo did their dirty work (and now he takes the rap).[my emphasis]
"Weren't Yoo's co-conspirators careful to keep their fingerprints off the more blatantly offensive memoranda? Sure, they were.
"But there was one problem. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then-CIA Director George Tenet could not get their people to torture folks without written, signed authorization by the president.
"And we have a copy of that authorization? Yes, it's been available for years. You have to download it to believe it.
"In his Feb. 7, 2002, memorandum, Bush wrote: 'I determine that common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either al Qaeda or Taliban detainees.' (Common Article 3 bans 'torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.')
"Then, drawing on the lawyerly legerdemain, Bush did something really dumb. Using words drafted by Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer, David Addington, for a memo dated Jan. 25, 2002, signed by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the president ordered that detainees be treated, 'humanely ... to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity.'
"Tacked onto the end of that sentence is a classic circumlocution: 'in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.' But that is not what Geneva says, and there is no way to square that circle.
"This is the giant loophole through which Rumsfeld and Tenet drove the Mack truck of torture ... yes, signed by the president. The rotten apples were – demonstrably – at the very top of the barrel.
"Typical of the timid treatment accorded this issue is what initially seemed to be a straightforward article by Don Eggen in Sunday's Washington Post. It spotlighted scapegoat-of-the-hour Yoo, noting that he advised that in time of war the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief trumps laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators.
"In focusing on Yoo's legal advice, however, Eggen joined his 'mainstream' journalist colleagues in omitting the smoking gun – Bush's implementing memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002. That document already had cleared the way for waterboarding, stress positions, forced nudity and other abuse of detainees – as well as for further legal musings about the unlimited powers of a wartime president, like Yoo’s newly disclosed March 14, 2003, memo.
"The omission was all the more conspicuous in that a listing of nine memoranda relevant to the story sits side by side with Eggen's article. Guess which memo did not make it onto that list?
"Again, I urge you to download the president's Feb. 7 smoking gun from the Web and read it yourself. The Jan. 25, 2002, memo bearing Gonzales's signature is also available – in its original form."
("Yoo's on First?" by Ray McGovern, Consortiumnews.com, 4/10/2008).
KR