From John Adams to John Yoo
How have we fallen this far? Began watching the brilliant HBO miniseries “John Adams” over the weekend, and watched with respect and wonder as our nation and its most vital principles were formed by men at the risk of their lives, who believed in a cause, a cause called liberty.
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Where are we now?
Permissible Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail
06/04/08 “Washington Post “ – – – Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poked out?
Or, for that matter, could he have “scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance” thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?
These assaults are all mentioned in a U.S. law prohibiting maiming, which Yoo parsed as he clarified the legal outer limits of what could be done to terrorism suspects as detained by U.S. authorities. The specific prohibitions, he said, depended on the circumstances or which “body part the statute specifies.”
But none of that matters in a time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief.</em>
How has this happened? How have the ideals that founded this nation been so totally abandoned?
