This Saturday, a time bomb will start ticking. The eight-year statute-of-limitations period applicable to the Federal Torture Statute will soon expire. Then, for time immemorial, it will be official: If you torture or conspire to torture in the name of the United States of America, no consequences will follow. We will have officially sanctioned torture.
Why this Saturday? On January 9, 2002, a memo not as well known as the so-called "torture memos" was completed by John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. Addressed to Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes II, and titled "Application of Laws and Treaties to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees," it is one scary memo. It may be the first evidence of our national policy of torture, what Major General Antonio Taguba, the man selected by the Pentagon to report on Abu Ghraib, called "a systematic regime of torture." The John Yoo and Jay Bybee memos that followed in August of 2002, with their it's-not-torture-until-organ-failure-occurs, have gotten much more publicity. But the Jan. 9 memo, written in much less inflammatory legalese, was the memo that may well have given the green light for torture. This is where the conspiracy to torture may have begun. Here's why.
This was my comment following Dr. Miles' MinnPost article:
University of St. Thomas School of Law Dean Thomas Mengler has inexplicably and repeatedly insisted in his defense of Professor Delahunty that he (Delahunty) only wrote one of the legal memos drafted by the Office of Legal Counsel. How can the Dean not know of Delahunty's much greater involvement in writing these other cornerstone memos? And how can the Dean not know that other government officials (i.e. State Dept. lawyers, FBI and military officials) vigorously opposed Delahunty's legal opinions supporting torture? The FBI even opened a "war crimes file" on the abuses agents witnessed as a result of Yoo-Delahunty's legal reasoning that the Geneva Conventions did not apply.
The Dean also attempts to distance Delahunty from the later, more explicit "torture memos" authored by Yoo and Bybee, but the St. Thomas "Distinguished Chair" Michael Stokes Paulsen (who is Delahunty's mentor and who St. Thomas hired for some reason at about the same time as Delahunty) does just the opposite in his defense of the authors of the "torture memos". Paulsen has written and testified in May of this year about "The Lawfulness of the Interrogation Memos" by relying on Delahunty's mistaken notion that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Bush's "war on terror". Unless I'm not reading his opinion correctly, Paulsen seems to be defending ALL of the later more explicit torture memos by relying on the initial Yoo-Delahunty faulty reasoning.
What's most disconcerting is that these professors currently teach constitutional law and ethics at St. Thomas. The hypocrisy is breathtaking when Dean Mengler welcomes students to the St. Thomas Law School by boasting that "we have a reputation as an academically excellent law school firmly ground in our Catholic intellectual and social tradition. Our unique mission of 'integrating faith and reason in the search for truth through a focus on morality and social justice' is the foundation on which we build a community that emphasizes professional excellence and servant leadership."
Maybe I'm missing some key legal artifice, but I would challenge St. Thomas Dean Mengler, Associate Professor Robert Delahunty and "Distinguished Chair" Michael Stokes Paulsen to explain how their support of the torture memos squares with "a focus on morality and social justice".
Has Associate Professor Delahunty already gained tenure at the UST Law School? Does anyone else find it odd that a law professor would not accept to debate this huge national issue, an issue that the professor had first hand, personal involvement with? When I went to law school, that's all the law professors did was debate! (And I should add that the law professors I know tend to be very good at it since they practice so much.) So I think the silence of Delahunty and the Dean of the St. Thomas law school is just very telling.
The ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), were among nine GOP senators who sent a letter last week to Holder urging him to back off from the idea of appointing the special prosecutor.(TheHill.com)
Way to go, guys!!! Ehrlichman, Haldeman, G. Gordon and the boys would have loved to have you in the senate, way back when!!!
Now, here's the exchange that "highlights" the GOP's position that when they break laws, laws don't matter:
FLOYD: That pressure has been on to investigate what went on in these interrogations since long before Eric Holder had this job. And yes, it is correct that Obama has said from the beginning that he wants to look forward.
O'REILLY: Yeah, and he's smart to do that. Right.
FLOYD: And he doesn't want to look back.
O'REILLY: Right.
FLOYD: And that's a political choice. And it's probably a wise strategy, but Eric Holder is not in a political job.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but he can get fired.
FLOYD: That's right, he can, but you can't make decisions as attorney general because you're afraid of getting fired.
O'REILLY: But how many attorney generals did Nixon fire? He fired one a week.
O
M
G.
Not only is Billo The Clown claiming that "prosecutorial discretion" should preclude Attorney General Holder from investigating torture crimes, Billo The Clown is using Nixon - NIXON - as a reason why Attorney General Holder shouldn't be investigating crimes of torure!!!
Just as new details emerged on Monday, August 24 of CIA interrogators' abuse of prisoners involving mock executions, threatening prisoners with power drills, and choking them to the point of passing out, Associate Law Professor Robert Delahunty quietly resumed teaching fall classes on constitutional law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. Delahunty along with co-author John Yoo at the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) laid the cornerstone legal memo that gave the green light to "go to the dark side" as Dick Cheney was urging. The 2004 CIA Inspector General report is heavily redacted but it's apparently so disturbing that it led Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on this very same day to appoint a prosecutor-the same one looking at the destruction of the CIA torture tapes-to review the abuses, setting the stage for a probe that could lead to criminal charges of CIA personnel.
In connection with Monday's rally (click here) at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis to "Deter Delahunty", I need to assign some reading of the excellent and relevant academic discussion in today's NY Times: "Torture and Academic Freedom". I would highly recommend that everyone, including lawyers and non-lawyers, all opponents and proponents of torture, rally participants and the Dean and faculty of the University of St. Thomas read these five carefully considered and written academic opinions. The legal opinions actually show, that although there are nuances of disagreement on some points, there is a great deal of consensus that John Yoo's (and his early memo co-author Robert Delahunty's) actions enabling the Cheney-Bush Administration to subvert law and conduct torture were very, very wrong and not within the range of "academic freedom".
The video includes appearances by Oliver Stone, 9/11 family member Patricia Perry, actors Rosie Perez, Noah Emmerich, John Doman and Reg E. Cathey, and musical composer Philip Glass, among others, reading directly from a memo authored by Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration. The memo was released in April as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I received the following via e-mail:
Opponents of torture will rally at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, LaSalle Ave and 11th Street, Minneapolis, on Monday, August 24, 9 - 11 AM to bring letters and voices of discontent to Dean Thomas Mengler regarding Professor Robert Delahunty. Prior to his current stint as professor of constitutional law for St.Thomas University, Robert Delahunty, along with John Yoo, authored an infamous memo (1/9/02) for the U.S. Justice Department which advised that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and terrorism. The 'legal' advice of this memo helped the Bush administration to legitimize harsh methods of interrogation, which are widely understood to be torture.
While the Obama Administration is becoming complicit in the cover up of the Bush Administration's torture policies, at least there is a federal judge forcing the issue. While it is only a civil case, at least one of these war criminals will have to testify under oath.
The New York Times reports that a federal judge in California has ruled that former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo will have to testify in court about accusations that his work led to the torture of a detainee:
The government had asked Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco to dismiss the case filed by Jose Padilla, an American citizen who spent more than three years in a military brig as an enemy combatant. Judge White denied most elements of Mr. Yoo's motion and quoted a passage from the Federalist Papers that in times of war, nations, to be more safe, "at length become willing to run the risk of being less free."
So if Yoo faces heat for his crimes, will Minnesota's foremost proponent of torture, Robert Delahunty, face any questions about his role? Currently, Delahunty is a professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School teaching constitutional law.
(Most excellent, someone else writing about MN's foremost proponent of torture ... - promoted by The Big E)
A move has been started by several progressive organizations called "DisBar the Dirty Dozen",
calling for the disbarment of the lawyers who wrote and authorized the torture memos, which authorized waterboarding and other torture techniques legally accountable for their actions.
They have reported 12 attorneys to the Washington, D.C. Bar and 4 state bar ethics panels.
Interesting enough, University of St. Thomas Law Professor Robert Delahunty, who co-authored the torture memo, "'Application of Treaties and Laws to Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees", along with John Yoo, who is now a Professor of Law at University of California - Berkeley http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...
was not on the list of 12 attorneys, who were reported to their State Bar Ethics Panels.
Two questions: 1. Should Professor Delahunty be reported for ethics violations as the 12 other lawyers have been and 2. If he were reported, would the State Ethics Panel fully and fairly investigate the matter?
Minnesota's foremost advocate of torture and St. Thomas University Law School professor Robert Delahunty may still face sanctions if not prosecution for co-authoring the infamous torture memo with John Yoo. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) held a hearing today on the Office of Legal Counsel's (OLC) legal advice it gave the Bush Administration concerning torture.
Jesselyn Radack submitted written testimony and live-blogged it. Who's Jesselyn? She's an attorney. She's a whistleblower who complained about the government's treatment of John Walker Lindh and faced retaliation for doing her best to represent her client.
Just to be clear, Jesselyn was investigated for 5 years for trying to do what's right while Yoo, Delahunty and Bybee have gotten off scot-free for helping codify our nation's torture policy. Actually, they're all doing quite well. Yoo is teaching law at UC-Berkeley and just scored a gig as a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Delahunty's right here in St. Paul teaching law and Bybee is a federal judge.
It's a little long, at 9 minutes and 36 seconds, but this one is a somber discussion of what Jay Bybee wrote concerning torture, how he got through his Confirmation Hearing, and the dilemma with him now sitting on the bench as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
As the clamor increases for impeaching Jay Bybee and for prosecuting Bush war criminals, Minnesota's connection to these "dark times" has gone unmentioned. St. Thomas Law School professor Robert Delahunty, who co-wrote the infamous torture memo's with John Yoo, is not mentioned as someone who ought to face criminal prosecution. Even though he co-wrote the memo that got the snowball rolling.
So I contacted Stephen Miles, MD, Minnesota's foremost anti-torture advocate. Miles has recently added to his book "Oath Betrayed: America's Torture Doctors" because of recently released memos detailing the history of the Bush Administration's torture policies.
"Nobody is talking about Delahunty because he's small fry," said Dr. Miles. "But he's as culpable as Yoo if Yoo is culpable. He signed the memo [infamous torture memo]. He and Yoo 'concluded' that the Geneva Conventions against torture did not apply to Al Queda and the Taliban detainees."
Delahunty and Yoo didn't just offer options, Dr. Miles asserted. They concluded. He suggested I consider the timelines.
There is a interesting development for Minnesota foremost proponent of torture, Robert Delahunty. Delahunty helped John Yoo write the infamous torture memo rationalizing why the Bush Administration could torture. He and the others who participated in creating and promoting the torture policies of the Bush Administration might be in trouble. At least if they leave the US.
A high-level Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify the use of torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.
The case was sent to the prosecutor's office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who ordered the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was "highly probable" that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants.
The move represents a step toward ascertaining the legal accountability of top Bush administration officials for allegations of torture and mistreatment of prisoners in the campaign against terrorism. But some American experts said that even if warrants were issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was a near certainty that the warrants would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States.
The complaint under review also names John C. Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who wrote secret legal opinions saying the president had the authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions, and Douglas J. Feith, the former under secretary of defense for policy.
(NY Times)
Now maybe someone might ask the University of Saint Thomas why they are employing a potential war criminal. Maybe someone might ask the University of Minnesota why they hired a potential war criminal to teach classes at their law school in constitutional law.
Harboring war criminals can't be good for PR, can it?
Dick Cheney made an interesting admission in an ABC News interview, he admitted that he endorsed torture. He admitted that he approved waterboarding prisoners in our custody. He blew the lid and admitted in an off-handed way that our accusations are all true.
After WWII, japanese soldiers were hanged for the same war crime to which Cheney just admitted. Cheney and others from the Bush Administration need to face criminal prosecution for war crimes. From top to bottom, anyone involved in this travesty needs to answer for what they did.
The Minnesota connection to these war crimes is University of St. Thomas Professor of Constitutional Law Robert Delahunty. Delahunty co-authored the infamous torture memo with John Yoo. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft wanted justification for torture and White House lawyers Delahunty and Yoo obliged. They argued that the Geneva Conventions against torture do not apply to prisoners captured during the war on terror.
We must not forget that many people in the White House, DoJ and Pentagon played roles in the crimes comitted at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, at Abu Ghraib, at secret CIA locations and at Guantanamo Bay. I don't want to go after the soldiers who were following orders, but after the people who authorized and pushed the policy.
