In 21st century America, war criminals proudly strut around and brag of what they did. At any other time in this nation's history, there would be outrage and consequences. Today, a shrug, if these stories are reported at all.
Ashamed yet?

US Civilization has declined since the Nuremberg trials, when we understood war crimes.

Under the Nuremberg Principles, authored by justices from and representing the US, Yoo would be guilty of an offense for which hanging was the punishment. Under the same principles, any member of Congress that voted for invasion of Iraq would be guilty of an offense for which hanging or life imprisonment was the punishment, depending on specifics. Under the principles, any member of Congress that votes to continue funding the war in Iraq would be guilty of an offense for which life imprisonment was the punishment. This "American exceptionalism" is great, huh? Amazing what you can do when your guns are bigger than everyone else's and you have the arrogance to match.

Yoo is an insult to the American people. Why do the "radicals" at Berkeley not run him out of town.

He seems to think the Geneva Conventions has a clause that exempts the President of the USA.

Curt at 17:23, good commentary again. Thank you.
Nuremberg honestly was more about victor's justice than "universal principles." The US clowns just wanted to "teach a lesson" to their enemies; the legal charges were just an excuse. The mentality of the US elite is just more obvious now.

Shouldn't the statement be : "interpreted their executive powers broadly, especially in war CRIME, not "time"??

Many good comments here. But I wonder what Yoo would say if by some set of circumstances it was his son upon whom the president was to order his testicles be crushed in order to extract "information" from him. Would that be OK, Mr Yoo, since the president deemed it necessary? I'm a UC Berkeley graduate ('55, '58)and I can tell you the university is not the kind of place one might think it is because of Yoo's employment there - not then and not now. I've written twice to the Dean of the law school asking that Yoo be discharged. He answers citing "tenure" regulations. I know that based on my many years at Stanford University that is so much BS -he could be removed if the will was there. But I don't have the clout or the money to make it so. And our own DoJ just made it likely that will never happen

The United States and Israel: the two most dangerous terrorist nations on earth. John Yoo, Bybee, Mukasey, Ashcroft, Gonzales, et al, are psychopaths, however much they might wish to conceal it, who were employed by psychopaths: Bush & Cheney. And no one in government or out seems to have the balls to prosecute any of them. All of them should face war crimes tribunals in the Hague; following their convictions -- on evidence from their own arrogant bragging mouths -- they all should be executed. Include in that members of the military, "contractors" and CIA operatives who participated in their treachery and sadistic debauchery. Next: Olmert, the General Staff of the IDF, and all participants in the Gaza and Lebanon atrocities.

GW Bush got one thing right: we need to rid the world of 'evil-doers'. But we need to start with the "home-team" of evil doers. Sadly, it's unlikely to happen.

I am ashamed to be amongst the midst of 300000000. This makes all of us criminals. A Vet.

John Yoo is one of the most terrifying breed of college grads with no moral fiber whatsoever.

He is an automaton used by POWER to justify their heinous crimes. I say, place John Yoo's children's testicles in to a vice and see if he blinks.
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If not. Place him in an airplane and send him to Somalia.

I dont think he is at berkeley anymore. i believe he went down to chapman in orange county.

we can go run him out down there.

he is pure scum. ..........

Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."

While there are many thoughtful comments here, a couple of them are down right horrific, and a few others would do well to review their history. We've become worse since the Nuremburg trials? Weren't we confining japanese americans in camps at the time, looking the other way from Jim-Crow, and forgetting incidents like what our soldiers did to the Phillipines or native americans even earlier than that. Im so tired of that mentality of if only we could return to such and such time....
And place Yoo's children's testicles into a vice?? Hit him in his face and never stop until I die??
I used to always think that there are no black and white issues. There's always a shade of gray. But I find myself increasingly gravitating towards a philosophy of absolute non-violence. Why? How on earth can we ever solve the problems of violent behavior, like that for which Yoo has provided a legal framework, with more violent behavior? It can't be done. Those who would beat him senseless do so because they feel circumstance justifies the violence....now think hard here, where the hell does that sound familiar?! Once you accept violence as ok in one situation due to circumstance, how can you reason limits to justifiable violence, or "necessary" violence in a way that is not subjective? Only in self-defense? What is that exactly? At what level of perceived aggression is violent retaliation justified? Against a common burglar, only against nazis? Where is the line between self defense and preemptive?
I don't care if it's cliché to reference Ghandi because he was exactly right, "we must first be the change we seek in others",to not do so begins the dangerous process of absolving the individual of any personal responsibility for the condition of our world, and thus people continue doing horrible things to other people for whatever reason. In any given moment, in any situation where individuals are confronted with the prospect of violence, you always have a choice: will you personally choose to engage in violence and help continue the cycle, or will you choose not to on principal regardless of the personal costs. Anyone who would torture a torturer and pretend it was the right thing to do has already lost in the worst of ways as they've already become what they claimed to abhor.

The world needs to grow up. We're living in the 21st Century. Act like it.

RE: "Many good comments here. But I wonder what Yoo would say if by some set of circumstances it was his son upon whom the president was to order his testicles be crushed in order to extract 'information' from him"

Great point. Of course when it comes to anyone but Right Wing candidates such questions like that get asked, like Mike Dukakis. Otherwise the MSM would consider in inappropriate. "Liberal press" my ass.

It seems to me that the Constitution has always been voided for the powerful elites. They only follow it when it benefits them for the sake of staying in power. We are the ones who are meant to follow the laws to keep us in check. The system of government has always benefited the rich and powerful. The Constitution was written by lawyers in a way to keep the system the way it is even up to modern times. Yoo is just one of those people who the elites use to get their way. Nothing more than pawns to the elite. Torture is morally wrong no matter how you present it. It wasn't meant to get answers but to kill the spirit of those who want to rebel.

What is the difference between torturing a person's child because you "deem it necessary" to fulfill some political agenda (e.g., the "War on Terror"), and killing numerous unarmed civilians, including women and children, and claiming they are "collateral damage"? In both cases, the deaths and suffering of innocents are brushed off as a necessary evil, a means to an end. In both cases, human life takes a back seat to ideology and political or economic goals. This is just another case of our gov't putting an abstract set of principles before living, breathing human beings.

"Woo and his kind have been and are, in charge!" Looks like it from here. We are likely mesmerized, controlle, by the hierarchy rules governing our wolfpack . The strongest DO lead according to their tribe's rules as the power in charge interprets them. Or law rules are overrode. Ignored. Being that we are of that pack order, born to it and thus are not able to rid, revolt, destroy what we are. We are trapped, what's new? Unwilling conditioned nation folks that we are, trapped in our nation's plan to dominate everything for our own interests. The elite's interests are out interests. Believe it! So that, convinced we are chosen, we are always bottom line righteous within our invasion of selected enemy private rights. Rights for themselves to be righteous, their way.

Yoo is scum; Yoo' book is filth. Tell bookstores carrying it that you will report them for displaying filth on their shelves. Make it so that only Porn stores can carry it. We already know such mental midgets as Scaiffe and Ailes have bought up all the copies to make bookstores carry them, so the argument "people want it" won't stand. Regardless of how filthy rich he is now, put him on the shelf in Porn stores so that Larry Flint can complain about the degradation of his image, having to be on the same shelf as un-American filth.