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Could the President have a prisoner's eye poked out?

washingtonpost.com — The dry discussion of U.S. maiming statutes is just one in a series of graphic, extraordinary passages in John C. Yoo's 81-page memo that spell out presidential prerogatives during war. "He is saying that poking people's eyes out and pouring acid on them is beyond Congress's ability to limit a president. It is an unconscionable document."

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  • riverrunner, on 04/07/2008, -0/+53Pathetic excuse for a human being.
  • pintomp3, on 04/07/2008, -0/+42this administration seems to think being president means being king for 4 years.
    • theaceoffire, on 04/07/2008, -0/+12*8.
      If George Bush can get 8 years, the bar is pretty low.
    • Hangly, on 04/07/2008, -0/+9Even kings are bound by law. At least they have been in the West since the Magna Carta was written. This level of tyranny is something we haven't seen in a long time.

      This is the kind of ***** I would expect from Mugabe or Idi Amin.
    • Rizzen, on 04/07/2008, -1/+0What should we call this? Democratic Monarchy?
      • AmericansRevolt, on 04/08/2008, -0/+0its called nazi amerika 2008
  • dj43, on 04/07/2008, -0/+11I doubt that a video blog of Dick Cheney shooting me in the face would get him impeached. It would get him massive diggs though.
    • simonecaldana, on 04/07/2008, -2/+1Dick. DICK! what the hell is wrong with you?
      Nothing, dj43, never felt better in my life.
    • SuperMoses, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3We should all shoot Dick Cheney in the face.
    • TheSwashbuckler, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2If Bush or Cheney killed a baby on live TV this spineless Democratic Congress wouldn't do a damned thing about it...
      • Monk22, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1most likely since congress isn't for enforcing the laws, that's what the other branches are for.
  • itsthemechanic, on 04/07/2008, -0/+19Permitting the exact same acts used as justification to invade other countries = Epic fail.
    • theaceoffire, on 04/07/2008, -0/+11No, it will be Epic Fail if the people in our Government get no punishment for doing said acts.
      Nothing would be worse (in my mind) then just letting them go... it would be like we approved of it, as if it was not really a horrible action.
      • Rotzooi, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3We DID approve of it. Nevermind all the cheating and rigging, an enormous amount of people voted for Bush the second time. These people knew of the crimes our administration was committing. Every last one of them is as guilty as the people whose hands are torturing those prisoners.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5"you all have armies! INVADE US" -Lewis Black.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1"You all have armies... INVADE US!" -Lewis Black
      • lamiaconfitor, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1how did that end up posting twice? I am sober...dammit digg!
  • Berkana, on 04/07/2008, -0/+38Damnable hypocrites, every last one of them. There will be no mercy for the merciless. They are war criminals, and as the Nazis rose to power in Germany by the passivity of the "good Germans" who did nothing, our congress, bush supporters, and the rest of us who don't seem to care as long as we're not at the receiving end of this injustice are facilitating them.
    • KhanneaNL, on 04/07/2008, -0/+7Yep and that is why at least a billion people on this world could care LESS if a nuke detonated in a major US city.

      Blowback.
    • Hangly, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2I'm willing to resist, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do it alone.
      If anyone out there is planning anything, I'm down. Drop me a line. FYI I'm not a fed.
  • Berkana, on 04/07/2008, -0/+36Wow, this piece of *****, John C. Yoo teaches law at UC Berkeley? WTF is going on‽

    Quote from the article:
    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.
    • SuperMoses, on 04/07/2008, -0/+12He should take a course on morals and ethics.
      • lamiaconfitor, on 04/07/2008, -5/+1he isn't endorsing that action, he is making you aware of the word of law, unfortunately he is correct.
        • Berkana, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6In case you don't know, John Yoo, along with Rove and Cheney, are the masterminds of this coup. Listen:
          http://digg.com/political_opinion/This_American_Li ...

          His interpretation (or rather, dismissal) of the constitution amounts to endorsement of that interpretation. I hope he, Rove, Cheney, and Bush get tried and punished. They disgust me.
      • Hangly, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5If he needs special classes to know that throwing acid on people and biting them is wrong, maybe he's too ***** up to be in government in the first place.
      • bacon_skoda, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1I say we try all that on John Yoo first.
        or better yet, give him a free ticket to Afghanistan.
    • Hangly, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1What about biting?
    • ProjectGSX, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5I am stunned that this guy works at UCB. With all of the anti-war protesting there this guy goes and argues his way to approving torture. Just disgusting. Even more amazing is that Im not hearing about any protests.
  • wootup, on 04/07/2008, -2/+46***** Yoo
  • fabiosir, on 04/07/2008, -2/+10Well, you know what they say. It's all fun and games until...
  • smacksaw, on 04/07/2008, -6/+2On one hand, it's obviously pretty ***** what he is saying. On the other, it's genius if he's opposed to it at the core. He is bringing this to light for whatever reason. He's not claiming executive privilege or anything like that.

    I think the visceral reaction is to be pissed at Yoo, but upon closer inspection I think he's talking the talk to do the bare minimum of his job, but he sure is making his bosses look bad. So maybe he's alright after all. He can defend this stuff as he did, but considering he totally let the cat out of the bag, I don't think his defence or explanation of it is all that near and dear to his heart.
  • Rotzooi, on 04/07/2008, -1/+21Let's have a show of hands, who would like to poke the President's eyes out!?
    • KhanneaNL, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4Not me. I don't torture - not unless a slow and drawn proceedings for severe human rights abuses constitutes torture, in that case - yes.
    • Berkana, on 04/07/2008, -1/+6You know, with the political environment nowadays, you just might get accused of threatening and inciting violence, and then it's off to Gitmo for you.
    • SuperPhantom, on 04/07/2008, -1/+3BRB, FBI
    • stealthc, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5I've seen the president. He doesn't have eyes. Only dark holes in his head where Death peers out of his skull.
  • ambion, on 04/07/2008, -0/+24I've worked with amnesty international for some years now. This article makes me sick. Nevertheless, this is just an attempt to make the waterboarding and all that other ***** look lighter and more acceptable.
  • lamiaconfitor, on 04/07/2008, -2/+4it is the states burden. Poor Bush has to have people interrogated, how do you think that makes him feel? Its a burden he carries alone.
    • bsmang, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Huh? Probably his 2nd favorite part of the job after the ability to manipulate his wealth.
  • DeviousEgg, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Apparently he can...
  • Bushlied, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6The Inevitability of a violent revolution may come if these ***** continue to, " Stay the course." As Americans it is are duty's to protect this country and the world form a fascist pricks called, the Bush administration. ***** them and their supporters. History has funny way of reminding us how foolish we've become.
    • sremick, on 04/07/2008, -2/+1"are" -> "our"
      "form" -> "from"

      It's our duty to use a dictionary and write legibly, too.
  • cbeach, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6As a Brit I'm starting to wonder whether my country should be an ally of the USA. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be an enemy...
    • BlacklabelSAR, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2it's telling isn't it? You more or less defined Tyranny. And being imposed upon your country by a superpower, who happens to have China as it's primary trade partner.....
      It would make an Epic Sci-fi/political espionage story script if it wasn't real. I can see the opening scene: Primary character comes to the realization that he and his side are not the good guys. Infact, he realizes that there are no good guys. This makes him feel crazy.
    • AmericansRevolt, on 04/08/2008, -0/+0uh... speaking of china... when we finally do go to war with that country- where the ***** would i go? this country has personally screwed me so bad im afraid i would not be able to defend it.... how ***** sad of a life is this? 60 years ago and we had kids dreaming of growing up and fighting for our country with pride... now its rare to even find one person walking down a busy street that would claim this country provides "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". how do you screw up the best set of written laws ever created fior mankind? the constitution would have held up over many many more generations if it wasnt for BUSH. he found it when it was already down and limping, and he PATRIOT ACTED that ***** right on its throat. Well, in any case, thank you, forefathers. it was a nice couple hundred years all in all.....
  • Deathfrogg, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6But 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.

    Now, does this include other "wars" we have going on? The "war" on drugs, the "war" on poverty etc. John Ashcroft has already asserted that not enough is being done in the "war on drugs", that law enforcement is crippled by "liberal interpetations" of Constitutional law concerning cruel and unusual punishment. That stronger methods should be used when conducting investigations into drug/gang networks. This administration has already asserted that such methods cannot be made illegal because it would cripple law enforcement efforts on the domestic front. We now see on a regular basis, the use of paramilitary police units being used even on the most basic drug busts. Many innocents have been shot dead including hundreds of childeren, and nobody has ever been prosecuted when the cops kick in the wrong door and hose the place down with automatic weapons fire. Such tactics are becoming common enough that local authorities are using the war on drugs excuse to merely confiscate coveted property without due process. Such tactics are the methods of tyranny. Are we now going to see the local dimebag distributor waterboarded or drugged with psychotropic chemicals during the course of investigations? How about his young daughter being prodded with a taser while he's forced to watch?

    These methods are being used in Abu-Garaib and Guantanamo right now. THe USA has "black prisons" all over the world, nobody knows who is in them, nobody is allowed to question why such methods are nessesary. Natural born US citizens have been arrested in the middle of the night, on the word on an anonymous informant, without warrants and flown outside the country for interrogation, held for years and their families have been threatened with arrest if they speak to anyone about this. Reporters have been murdered in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Phillipines, specifically targeted as reporters, not enemy combatants, not foreign intelligence resources but REPORTERS. Corporations like FOX news have been given carte blanche to make up whatever they want while people like Robert Fisk have been denied access even to civilian areas in countries where their visas were always routine, untill the Bush administration came about.

    I guess we never really learned anything from WW2. At least, ordinary citizens didn't. The Bush administration obviously learned plenty. Keep it out of sight, and anyone who tries to see is the enemy.
    • BlacklabelSAR, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1What a person does to others, he will eventually do to you.
  • Observer001, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6Hm. In the memo that article is on about, Yoo asserts that an interrogation tactic isn't considered torture by the United States judicial system unless it would result in "death, organ failure or serious impairment of bodily functions." If I were to invent a Horrifying Pain Field Generator that causes no lasting physical harm, would being subjected to the unimaginable pain it would cause be torture? It would almost certainly do just amazingly bad things to a person's psyche to be subjected to the highest level of pain possible. Is this torture? I'd say it is.

    Limiting the scope of the harm considered in the determination of what is torture to physical harm is intentional blinding to the actual facts of what they're talking about. Torture is about suffering, it always has been. You torture a sample because you want to create a situation so unbearable that it will do anything, give up any guarded secret, to avoid that situation. Suffering is mental.
  • bsmang, on 04/07/2008, -1/+4Obviously, if the president can have a prisoner's eye poked out, then a prisoner definitely should be able to have the president's eye poked out.
  • ReeferChiefer42, on 04/07/2008, -0/+11The last time I checked, our excuse for being in this war was to take a dictator out of power who felt he could get away with things like this and not have his power questioned. Now this jackass is saying Bush can do what he wants, when he wants, without being questioned?

    Oh hypocrisy....you never cease to amaze me, or depress me.
    • BlacklabelSAR, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Insert the fact that Fundamentalist America considers this to be God's will. Ironically, Fundamentalist Islam feels exactly the same way.
      Educated people refer to this as "crazy", see also "*****-insane". i.e. "The Fundamentalist Christians that burned innocent people as witches were *****-insane."
  • radiopayola, on 04/07/2008, -1/+2Hard to believe... Sad...
  • mrzack, on 04/07/2008, -1/+2Sick Nazi *****. and I can't believe Yoo say these things, shame for all Asians in America.
  • roho76, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1The "Law" is the most evil thing in our world. When you create a "Law" then all you do is create a situation where lawyers will try to interpret the "Law" and the "Law" and the interpretation of the "Law" are different things. So in conclusion we need LESS LAWS, left to interpretation, which is not possible without LESS LAWS period.

    Oh yeah. ***** this guy.
  • Pyehole, on 04/07/2008, -1/+6I wonder why the Code Pink protesters are waging their war in the realm of public opinion on the Marine recruiting office in Berkeley when just a few blocks away is the campus where this modern day fascist is teaching a new generation of lawyers that acts like this are acceptable. Talk about a set of incredibly screwed up priorities.
    • dreamtiger, on 04/08/2008, -0/+4Good point! As I said before, this monster is still employed as a professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is not only at large and dangerous, he is getting paid to hold a prestigious position. He is the one who provided the highly dubious legal framework which will likely allow the Bush Neocon torture system to go unpunished. How can this be?

      There should be a 24/7 protest at his office.
  • thebigbradwolf, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6If only when they founded the nation they'd had the foresight to put this in some kind of document that would be ultimately used to guide policy and law.
    • BlacklabelSAR, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1But Freedom begat prosperity and abundance, which begat complacency and ignorance, which begat tyranny, which will beget rebellion and revolution.
  • gkrodg00, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2FTA:

    "What the government is doing is unpleasant. It's the use of violence. "

    Extraordinary candor to see in print.
  • ZenMojo, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3***** Yoo.
  • kd1s, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4Yoo is a despicable human being. He used the Commander in Chief basis as his entire tipping point. But CoC doesn't mean you can ignore the Constitution.
    I want to see the Bush administration pay for what they have done.
  • BlacklabelSAR, on 04/07/2008, -1/+3Wait! How could a Good Christian President, a Good Fundamentalist Christian President do something like that? Let me refer to the Bible.....hmmm.....yep, it turns out that Christians actually can do anything no matter how brutal as long as God wills it. And the main character, God, he seems to test, torture, kill, and demand worship from the people he creates. Wow that is just sick! What? He is the GOOD guy? You have GOT to be kidding. You're kidding right?
  • hawkeye17, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4This Yoo is a moral blackhole. His whole take on torture set this country back 50 years morally. Congratulations John...I'm sure history will not forget your actions.
  • naithom, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1This memo will come back to bite Yoo in the butt, but that will be OK as long as it's the president doing it....
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