The use of the military envisioned in the Yoo-Delahunty reply appears to transcend by far the stationing of troops to keep watch at streets and airports, a familiar sight in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The memorandum discussed the use of military forces to carry out “raids on terrorist cells” and even seize property.
“The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense,” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty wrote to Mr. Gonzales. Therefore any objections based on the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches are swept away, they said, since any possible privacy offense resulting from such a search is a lesser matter than any injury from deadly force.
What utter nonsense. Equating the actions of public officials in ignoring the Fourth Amendment with the private right of self-defense? That’s like arguing it’s fine to serve motor oil on scrambled eggs, since, after all, it works great in your car. The one situation has nothing to do with the other.
Speaking as a guy who has had motor oil on just about everything (Harley-Davidson Regular Heavy [105 weight on the Saybolt Universal Seconds scale, 60 weight SAE, aka 'stove oil'] with 10,000 miles on it is chewy and has a nice metallic bite to it), that is a very apt analogy.
And a guy as bright as John Yoo had to known that. But he had a job to do — to defend the indefensible.
And to his never ending shame he did it.
Oh, and by the way, there are apparently more Yoo opinion memos, some perhaps even worse, still to come.
The more the merrier.
Yoo and the others were told that they needed to come up with legal-sounding opinions to cover the higher-ups' asses and justify abrogation of the Constitution, most likely by Cheney, to be signed off on by his trained Chimp, and did it. They all need to be in prison.
No comments:
Post a Comment