Saturday, May 22, 2004
Professor Yoo denounced by students
Nearly 200 students and alumni from the UC-Berkley Boalt School of Law denounced Prof. John Yoo who co-wrote a legal memo in 2002 that laid out reasons the United States did not have to comply with the Geneva Convention and other international treaties governing the treatment of prisoners. Yoo was a top government lawyer at the time.
The students and alumni signed a petition asking Yoo to repudiate the memo, declare his opposition to torture and to call on the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva Convention. Failing that, he should resign.
Newsweek has extensive coverage of the memo and related items from 2002.
The thing that has never made sense to me about the Yoo memo and others is that the Taliban were the defacto government of Afghanistan. Just because they didn't wear western style military uniforms or adhere to western style military doctrine made them no less the sovereign government's military. Yet Yoo and others argued that the Taliban, along with Al Queda, simply didn't meet the definitions of the Geneva Convention. That's an absurd assertion in my view.
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The students and alumni signed a petition asking Yoo to repudiate the memo, declare his opposition to torture and to call on the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva Convention. Failing that, he should resign.
Newsweek has extensive coverage of the memo and related items from 2002.
The thing that has never made sense to me about the Yoo memo and others is that the Taliban were the defacto government of Afghanistan. Just because they didn't wear western style military uniforms or adhere to western style military doctrine made them no less the sovereign government's military. Yet Yoo and others argued that the Taliban, along with Al Queda, simply didn't meet the definitions of the Geneva Convention. That's an absurd assertion in my view.
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