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Information’s long reach against wrongdoers

Thursday, May 28, 2009

WE'VE SEEN THE COMMENTARIAT unleash its torrents of assessment on Judge Sonia Sotomayor (left) as a Supreme Court nominee – on both sides of the argument.  

But among her predictable opponents one stands out egregiously, displaying a quality I could call … if you’ll pardon some ethnic insensitivities or just confusion … brazen chutzpah, or even cojones.

 

The first Hispanic (indeed female Hispanic) nominee to the highest court in the land has been criticized by the much lower-ranking lawyer John Yoo (left) who happens to have Korean ancestry. He is of course well-known as the in-house expert who wrote legal opinions - inevitably tagged journalistically as “The Torture Memos” of 2002-3 - providing justification from the Bush Justice Department for the use of "enhanced" forms of interrogation.

 

I'll pass over his tacky suggestion that Sotomayor was distinguished from the shortlist of contenders "only by her race", and that she represented Barack Obama's attempt at "locking in the political support of Hispanics".

 

The crunch comes with a jaw-droppingly tendentious claim, which cannot help but recall that infamous role of his in authorizing waterboarding, wall-slamming and the rest. And on reflection I think it's not boldness, but either blithe stupidity, or at the least complete obliviousness to irony, that must lie behind Yoo's warning that - if confirmed - Judge Sotomayor would be “voting her emotions and politics rather than the law”. 

 

Thus speaks the man who opted for deliberate savageness and ruthless abuse, as required by his political masters, and in so doing flouted the law.

 

Grimy shades here of a blackened kettle and pot, don’t you think?

   

   

 

MORE REVELATIONS ABOUT the Bush team’s torturing could shortly reach across the Atlantic, in the form of legal news. 

 

John Yoo himself has already been put on notice, largely due to work by a British attorney, Philippe Sands (highlighted here in THE MEDIA BEAT last summer) that he could face international charges for his law-breaking, even if (or especially if) no judicial remedy is pursued against him inside the United States.

 

You may recall how Yoo’s ex-colleague in the Bush Administration, Larry Wilkerson of the Colin Powell State Department, was compelled by Sands' evidence to voice, in the British media, a remarkable warning. It far pre-dated this month’s resounding condemnation of Yoo and his fellow JoD lawyer Jay Bybee from the Department’s own Office of Professional Responsibility. Of the torture-supporters, Wilkerson said flatly that:

 

  “... they broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court."

   

 

** EVERY WEEK CONNECTICUT'S NPR STATION, WHDD (ROBIN HOOD RADIO) AIRS A DISCUSSION BASED ON THIS COLUMN - Fridays at 7.35 am, and Saturdays at 4.45 pm.**

 

Listen to THE MEDIA BEAT podcasts by clicking HERE.

   

 

THE ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE  that could emerge, about the human consequences of the Yoo-Bybee recommendations, is being sought through a rare coordinated effort by both American and British media.

 

An alliance has formed of the UK's Press Association, the BBC, The Guardian, The Observer, Times Newspapers, The Independent and, from the US,  The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press (distinguished from its close British counterpart by reversing its name) in order to jointly press a Freedom of Information suit in London’s High Court.

 

Their case centers on the Ethiopian-born, former UK-resident Binyam Mohamed who was released from Guantanamo in February and flown to Britain, where he’s now living – in an unfunny echo of the nowadays all-too-visible ex-Vice President Dick Cheney’s former habits – at what British reporters are calling "an undisclosed location". 

 

The media groups want access to British government documents which they claim prove the Brits knew more than they’ve ever previously admitted about Mohammed’s treatment while in custody. In particular the journalists are demanding that an official but secret letter from Washington to London should be published, which apparently threatens to withhold American intelligence cooperation if UK authorities do release this sensitive information. The British courts may still favor its publication anyway.

 

Mohamed for his own part is suing – separately and in the US – an American air traffic company for its role in his “extra-ordinary rendition”, or abduction, from Pakistan to Morocco and Afghanistan, and his alleged torture during those enforced journeys.

 

The more that new details pile up in public, the less tenable, internationally and at home, becomes the position of those who promoted and tried to legitimize torture in the first place. If John Yoo, for instance, were to lose any legal action in a US courtroom, he would – we can be sure – appeal vigorously.

 

I wonder if the appeal would go as far as the Supreme Court? I wonder whether he’d get a chance to experience at first hand if Sonia Sotomayor truly makes decisions based on emotions and politics, rather than on the law.
 

 

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