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Can President Bush legally crush a child's testicles? His lawyer says, "It depends ..."
Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Jan. 13, 2006
It is easy for us armchair warriors to see where the
government is wrong in its prosecution of this war. This is
particularly true of the actions of individual soldiers in the field.
Unless you've been in a theater of war, especially as a civilian
(virtually no US citizens are in that category) it is impossible to have
any understanding of the motivations of people who are fighting, and
therefore difficult for us to stand in judgment of their conduct.
The
things people find themselves doing in the heat of combat commonly
transcend anything that non-combatants can relate to. That said, it is
also true that most soldiers retain some sense of personal decency in
spite of the pressures of the battlefield that try to turn them into
monsters.
Q: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?
John Yoo: No treaty.
Q: Also no law by Congress -— that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...
John Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that...
Such a courageous and humane soldier has just died. Mr.
Hugh Thompson was the low ranking officer who ordered that weapons be
trained on our own troops to stop the My Lai massacre.
Recently, we
saw a high ranking general contradict Secretary of War Rumsfeld in
public debate on the issue of the right of individual soldiers to
deliberately disobey illegal orders. He sacrificed his career in the
process. These people, and thousands of others who's actions go
unnoticed, restrain their need to be ruthless in battle with the
exercise of some degree of human decency.
Of more concern to me than the actions of soldiers in the field in the midst of battle, is the progressive tendency of our politicians
to abandon all sense of decency in pursuit of power. It can never
become trite to learn from Lord Acton, "Power corrupts. Absolute power
corrupts absolutely."
As the program to make the US presidency a virtual "dictatorship of the
world" progresses, we will undoubtedly see (when we are allowed to see,
or something accidentally shows beneath the skirt of secrecy that hides
almost all unfavorable facts) a litany of ever more depraved and
perverse conduct on the part of these people, who's stated aim is to
conquer the entire world and subject it to their whims. The first use
of nuclear bombs is waiting in the wings, for instance.
Personally, I draw the line, beyond which I see irredeemable depravity,
at the torture of children. Believe this: this is not an accident, not
some mere "incident" caused by low level soldiers. It has been
revealed that the deliberate, cold blooded, heinous practice of
torturing of children is US Government policy. Seymour Hersh first
revealed the practice in his reports on the torture scandal in the New
Yorker. It is widely believed that the photos of torture that are
being withheld from public view include such activity.
Underlining
the official nature of a policy amenable to the torture of children,
John Yoo, Bush's attorney and the author of numerous Bush administration policies on torture and spying, has said in public debate that the torture
of children is something Bush can do with impunity.
Doug Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody,
including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no
law that can stop him?
John Yoo: No treaty.
Doug Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the
August 2002 memo...
John Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do
that.
To make it even worse this man, John Yoo, is not just a political
flunky. He is a professor teaching young people law at UC, Berkeley.
Law schools are the temples of our civic religion of civil and human
rights. For him to say that the president has the right to torture
children is beyond the pale, it is sacrilege.
John Yoo is not only
directing, aiding and abetting the torture of children, he is also
busily poisoning the minds of future guardians of the law. I see an
enormous irony here -- a law professor who declares the Office of the
President of the United States is beyond any concept of law, who
declares that absolute power rests in that office.
It is time for us
to recognize that there is nothing left in this Federal Executive
Branch of Government but absolute corruption. It is a perverse
abomination; an insult to all that is sacred.
If we citizens are to be concerned about our own decency as human
beings, the imperative is clear. We must reject, no matter what the
consequences, the depravity of our government. I suggest that if you
want to keep your courage and dedication to the project of removing
these depraved people from power and rooting them out of all the
positions of influence they have wormed their way into, you keep in
your mind a picture of a child's testicles being deliberately crushed.
I am writing to Governor of California to urge him to ask the Regents
of the University of California to expel John Yoo from his position as
professor at UC, Berkeley, for reasons of moral turpitude. Please join
me.
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