Our Awful Situation

Bush, a law unto himself

Posted by patriot on April 1st, 2008

A 2003 memo, declassified in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, shows to what extent Mr. Yoo was willing to go to declare the President a law unto himself (or, in other words, a King):

The Pentagon Tuesday made public a now-defunct legal memo that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying President Bush’s wartime authority trumps any international ban on torture.

John Yoo’s memo was rescinded nine months later by his Justice Department successor.

The Justice Department memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al Qaeda and Taliban detainees overseas — so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captors.

Even so, the memo noted, the president’s wartime power as commander in chief would not be limited by the U.N. treaties against torture.

“Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion,” said the memo written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

King George… now that has a familiar touch, doesn’t it?

2 Responses to “Bush, a law unto himself”

patriot Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Glenn Greenwald blogged on Yoo today. Check it out.
patriot Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
The ACLU has a writeup on this as well.

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Our Awful Situation

Bush, a law unto himself

2 Responses to “Bush, a law unto himself”

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