Blue Bluegrass Kentucky Politics and Policy
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    The Nuremburg Defense Lives

    Posted December 10th, 2009 6:01 am

    yooJohn Yoo, has been allowed to be employed as a UC Berkeley law professor, after he worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was the author of a 2002 memo that said rough treatment of captives amounts to torture only if it causes the same level of pain as “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants. Therefore, Yoo has said that the president can order captives killed, since that was part of the definition of torture envisioned by Yoo.

    Not even when the United States was fighting to be created did such an unAmerican and immoral view as governmental justifiable homicide of prisoners ever appear before. And our own country successfully prosecuted in the face of such so-called defenses at the Nuremburg trials of German Nazis for their atrocities during World War II.

    But now, our country has formally asked in court for Yoo to be given a get out of jail free card for his memos urging our country to cause organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death. The Obama administration has asked for Yoo to not even face civil responsibility for his memos justifying governmental homicide.

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2 Responses to “The Nuremburg Defense Lives”

  1. kentondem1 December 10th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    They might as well issue a get out of jail card to every future legal adviser. If you can’t be prosecuted for advocating the right to torture someone, in direct conflict with American law, you will never be prosecuted for anything in the future.

    What an absolutely horrible idea.

  2. LumberJock December 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    The lure of nearly absolute power is probably irrestable. That’s why O’Bama is acting in defence of ‘Executive Priviledge’.

    I would warn him, but my warning will fall on deaf ears. If O’Bama or any of his advisors makes a mistake, they won’t be spared by republicans who replace them. They will be excoriated and cruxified – just for fun – and then … prosecuted and possibly with capital offense statutes.

    republicans have no respect for non-believers and fundamentalists even less. That’s why they are on the same side and have the same uncompromisingly evil philosophy they jointly espouse.

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