Yoo is another example of the binary, us vs everyone else', thinking tht permeates the Repub party and the entire con/neocon/theocon/fascist world.

I grew up surrounded by this type of thinking. Not from my family but from my religion, where everyone was either Catholic and if not then they were all non-Catholic. And the world was just ridden and polluted with all those nasty non-Catholics.

What I'm leading up to is that Yoo, were he not teaching at Berkeley Law School, would easily find a teaching position at any number of law schools. These would certainly include law schools such as Georgetown, Notre Dame, Ave Maria or Liberty Law Schools(Falwells law school). These are all fundie law schools at fundie universities, ridden with fundamentalist thinking.

Add to the above short list, there are probably dozens or hundreds of law schools that would be glad to hire Yoo. There are no shortage of places that would gladly hire fundie or binary thinkers. Douglas Feith and one of his binary, or 'us vs everyone else' thinkers are teaching at Georgetown.

After the damage, death and destruction wreaked upon the world by people such as these one would think that any university would shun or at least avoid any such light being thrust upon them by hiring such people. Obviously, such is not the case with radical, extremist, fundie or binary thinkers and the universities that espouse similar beliefs.

Possibly, they are so bound up in their thinking that the light of day never penetrates. Possibly, they are so bound up in their thinking that either they will never change or not change until they cause so much death and destruction, that by some unforseen miracle an 'enlightenment' will befall them. Though from where it will come I cannot foresee.

Yoo is not a 'singularity' in our world, and seems to be but one among millions, possibly including the 59 million who just endlessly vote for the Repubs/ Bushies. All of them are such small and fearful people, protecting their turf, their mindset.

The point about them being captured in their homes, not being captured shooting weapons on a battlefield, is that the risk of error or worse is higher, thus heightening the need to have the Government prove the accusations are true before locking them away for life.

Actually, isn't it true that all the government has to do show it has reasonable grounds to hold the prisoner, and not prove the accusations to be true? E.g., obviously every habeas corpus hearing for people accused of murder does not turn into a murder trial.

Since the government has to explain why it is holding the prisoner (the prisoner aided so-and-so who was a suicide bomber) it gives the prisoner's counsel a chance to prove, e.g., that so-and-so is no suicide bomber and is alive and well.

e.g.

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

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Moreover habeas corpus is no guarantee of no mistakes

From Wikipedia:

"A writ of habeas corpus, Murat Karnaz v. George W. Bush, was submitted on Murat Karnaz's behalf.[12] In response, on 15 October 2004, the Department of Defense published 32 pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

On 30 September 2004 Tribunal panel 5 confirmed his "enemy combatant" status.[12]"

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"It is still astonishing that no one has pointed this out in terms of Sadam and the missing WMD. How could he prove that he does not have WMD anyway?"

The procedure was for Saddam to allow surprise visits by UN teams at any location of their choice in the country. It would never constitute proof, but it would allow desired degree of confidence, depending on how much effort the inspectors were willing to expend.

I'm a bit impressed that Mr. Greenwald deigned to answer my objection, and a bit puzzled at how weakly he did it.

Glenn wrote:

Do you really not understand the difference between (a) requiring a Government to give someone a hearing before locking them away and (b) prohibiting the Government from locking someone away?

I do understand that difference. Do you not understand the difference between addressing one portion of an argument, and addressing the entire argument?

I objected specifically to your first objection to Yoo's article, vis: "Yoo is lying, because he says 'They were fighting against the US,' and they weren't firing a weapon at US soldiers when we took them.'"

This argument, as I pointed out, relies entirely on an insanely narrow definition of "fighting against the US." If one applies such a narrow definition, there are all sorts of miscreants whom we cannot say are "fighting against the US;" spies, propagandists, etc. If we apply the normal meaning of the phrase, the mere fact -- on which your first argument relies -- that we captured these individuals while they were doing something other than shooting at US soldiers (for instance, debarking at O'Hare) does not falsify Yoo's claims.

It's your second argument that pertains to these captures, if an argument pertains at all; but that's not what I was objecting to.

Since you brought it up, though, I will address that argument as well. Simply put, you seem unable to grasp that the argument is not over whether there should be a hearing, but over whether that hearing has to be in domestic, American, criminal courts. As Chief Justice Roberts' dissent pointed out, the procedure defined by Congress in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for evaluating the detainees met and exceeded all the requirements, not only of the Geneva Convention, but of the majority opinion's own definition of a proper procedure. Boumediene struck down the most generous detainee hearing procedure in the history of American warfare, and possibly in the history of the world.

Yoo was correct; the Court striking down the Military Commissions Act, especially after specifically recommending such an act in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, was an act of pure, judicial fiat. Yoo's only mistake was in agreeing that the Bush administration should go along with the decision; they should ignore it, and would be completely within their Constitutionally-granted rights if they did so.