The Inquirer here in Philly ran two articles of interest in this morning paper. Whenever the Enquirer has John Yoo write anything in the paper it raises my ire, and a letter to the editor is usually eminent. I was already composing the letter in my mind when I saw a second article that made me almost laugh out loud.
That story after the jump.
The first article is entitled:
Election was no sweeping mandate
by John Yoo
Then a few pages later there was this gem:
Obama must abide by the law and punish the torturers
By Anthony D'Amato
Oh the irony. The Philadelphia Enquirer, who chose to tap Yoo as someone to write weather or not Obama received a mandate (an irony in itself) chose to describe Yoo as:
John Yoo (jyoo@law.berkeley.edu) is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Something of course is missing from that description. I will do the enquirer a solid here, and offer the full disclosure they should have written. If they are going to have Yoo write on political matters, it seems fitting to add another important piece of his bio that they left out.
From wikipedia
John Choon Yoo (born 1967 in Seoul) is an American professor of Law at the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, known for his work from 2001 to 2003 in the United States Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, assisting the Attorney General in his function as legal advisor to President Bush and all the executive branch agencies.
He contributed to the PATRIOT Act and wrote memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions. Yoo has also worked as a visiting scholar at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute since 2003.
So, right there on the front pages of the Enquirer, is a former member of the Bush team, discussing the validity of Obamas mandate. Nowhere is it mentioned who Yoo is. Nowhere is it mentioned that Yoo is the author of the infamous Torture Memos. At this point my letter to the editor is a sure thing.
So a man who helped legitimize Torture for Bush now weighs in on Obamas victory. This should be good. I am sure the article will both be fair, and balanced.
Despite comparisons of our economic crisis with the Depression, it would be a mistake for Obama to think of himself with a mandate like FDR's. We still live in the era of Reagan - Obama himself campaigned on a platform of tax cuts and deficit reduction.
Any regulation of the financial markets will be driven by a panicked response to the collapse of the credit markets, not a new philosophical dedication to an activist state. Obama may propose new spending on infrastructure, but only to stimulate the economy out of a recession, not because the American people have a newfound love of bigger federal government.
After reading this drivel I turn a few pages to find the second article. The two articles are in such opposition to each other that one wonder how the Enquirer could have thought to put them both in the same paper. Anthony D'Amato and Jordan J. Paust make the case for holding those who brought torture to America, accountable.
President-elect Barack Obama has a duty to prosecute those reasonably accused of having authorized, committed and abetted war crimes or crimes against humanity during the Bush administration's "program" of "coercive interrogation" and secret detention, which denied protections to detainees under the Geneva Conventions. Extradition to a foreign country is an alternative.
Well said and I couldn't agree more. The article continues.
In fact, every relevant federal judicial opinion for 200 years has affirmed that all persons within the executive branch are bound by the laws of war. Moreover, Obama has assured the American people that he will work to restore the rule of law and integrity in our government, which clearly have been among the casualties of the Bush administration's "war" on terror.
The 1949 Geneva Civilian Convention, which is treaty law of the United States, expressly and unavoidably requires that all parties search for perpetrators of breaches of the treaty and bring them "before its own courts" for "effective penal sanctions" or, "if it prefers ... hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party."
Yoo, a big fan of the Unitary Executive, was of the opinion that in a time of war the President, cannot be bound by law or Congress. He claimed that since the primary task of the President in war time to protect the citizens of the US, any attempts to hinder that effort, by US and international law or by Congress, can be considered unconstitutional. Yoo contends that only the President has authority to interpret international treaties like the Geneva Convention.
back to D'Amato and Paust
The obligation is absolute. The United States must either initiate prosecution or extradite to another state.
"Grave breaches" of the Convention include "torture or inhuman treatment" and unlawful transfer of a non-prisoner of war from occupied territory. Similarly, the Convention Against Torture expressly and unavoidably requires that a party to the treaty extradite or "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution."
So let's recap. On one page the Philadelphia Enquirer uses a former Bush loyalist, who helped Bush justify torture, to weigh in on Obama with not a no disclosure that Yoo was a part of the Bush Administration. then, a few pages later, another article in the paper basically calls for Yoo to be arrested under the Obama Administration. The irony is rich. In the end, I put my paper down and wrote my letter to 'inquirer.letters@phillynews.com'.
I hope people who live in Philly will join me.