Posted on 07/21/2010 6:16:33 PM PDT by SmithL
SACRAMENTO — John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law school professor who gave legal sanction to the Bush administration's views on torture, has been on a national image-rehabilitation tour, presenting a softer, more human side than is generally accepted by his critics.
For instance, before a relatively small gathering Tuesday at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon, he joked about the lively dinner table discussions he has with his father-in-law, the former CNN wartime correspondent Peter Arnett. And he boasted that he'd bested Jon Stewart in an appearance he made on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" earlier this year.
But his core message served to undergird his role in one of the most scrutinized wartime epochs in U.S. history — President Bush's prosecution of the war on terror. At all turns, Yoo insisted that American presidents have always had the ability to expand their powers during times of war.
And he continued to maintain that the administration did not authorize torture and that he did not consider waterboarding torture. Waterboarding had been designated a war crime as late as 1983. As deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel after 9/11, his memos gave what his critics call legal cover to torture suspected terrorists.
"No torture was authorized," he said after his presentation.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
He doesn’t have to defend himself to me. I wish the Bush administration had engaged in a little torture of those metrosexual jihad muzzies. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been over a long time ago if we had.
All this over some loud music and water-boarding of high level terrorists. Nonsense.
In WWII, after the first mutilated American POW bodies showed up at Guadalcanal, most Marines agreed - no more prisoners.
The Islamofascist scream like stuck pigs whenever we do anytingthat works . Just remember the horribklescenes on 9/11 at the twin towers. Waterboard every stinking captive terrorist found. Make it so.
Someone who’s been subjected to a waterboarding should travel to the Middle East and THEN discuss his notions of torture.
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