bush's former legal council, john yoo says bush can sexually torture children

Yoo's view of international law and foreign policy isn't unique by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, what it boils down to, is two competing views of international law and treaty obligations.

On one hand, you have many scholars and people (myself included) who believe that international law is a binding obligation that functions as law. The moment the Senate ratifies the treaty, those treaties and agreements should carry the same force as any domestic law and should be treated as such.

On the other hand, people like Yoo contend that treaties and international law are different from domestic legislation. International law is not binding and is merely a voluntary accession by member nations. (essentially a unilateral moratorium rather than true legal prohibition) His contention is that the voluntary nature of international law has two implications. First, international law is purely a domain of american foreign policy rather than congressional law and thus it is within the jurisdiction of the executive branch since the executive is in charge of carrying out foreign affairs. Secondly, the voluntary nature of international law means it can be selectively applied and that courts have no jurisdiction on the matter since article III doesn't grant the courts any foreign policy powers.

Yoo's argument is that on a purely theoretical basis, Bush could torture children because that his under his domain in terms of foreign policy. Now where Yoo gets screwed on this issue is the fact that in 1996, the Clinton administration passed the War Crimes Act which essentially codified the Geneva Convention protections into law, essentially erasing much of Yoo's position on this issue. This has shifted from a foreign policy question to a question of domestic law. So his and the conservatives's position has shifted from whether or not the Geneva Conventions can be applied at will to legal semantics about the language of the Conventions and its applicability to "enemy combatants."

And sadly, they've largely won on this issue. The only thing the court could apply to "enemy combatants" was common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions which specifies that it applies not only to prisoners of war, but to anyone involved in combat. However, Common Article 3 is written like the preamble of our constitution and consists of a bunch of vague, idealistic statements about human dignity and rights without ever going into specifics.

This is a tough and complicated question that unfortunately isn't as clear cut as we wish. And more importantly, the determinations of executive power that the court will be forced to wrestle with, will impact us for generations.

Honestly, the easiest solution is for Congress to force a showdown with the President. I honestly hope the Democrats can take back Congress and just blast the president with legislation on this issue and force him to veto. The "do-nothing" Congress of Truman did more than the one we have now.

 

wow.

crushing testis is not cool

Yoo is a freak. Its one thing to think something - another to advocate it. You'd hope this is just isnt something that woud literally come to be, but I bet somewhere, somehow it may already have.

And Bush may not only have been aware of it, he may of sanctioned it.

 

So who is behind that tingly feeling between your legs, is it Satan? Or is it Bush? Or are they the same? Let me call Hugo for clarification.

 

Doesn't ratification of a treaty make it a law?

 

What is the point of laws you can interpret them however you want.