Two authors of Bush-era torture memos under pressure

WASHINGTON - Two legal officials of Bush administration, who wrote torture memos, are under pressure to be impeached or disbarred following release of those memos on Friday. The Los Angeles County Democratic Party adopted a resolution on Saturday to urge the US House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against Judge Jay Bybee, charging him with facilitating the authorization of torture when employed by the US Department of Justice of Bush administration. According to the resolution, former assistant attorney-general and current Federal Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Jay Bybee signed the Bybee Memo, or Torture Memo, on August 1, 2002. The memo advised the CIA that cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment was at times allowable under US law. Bybee also authored, co-authored and signed other memos on extraordinary rendition and enhanced interrogation, the resolution said. Copies of this signed resolution will be sent to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the US Senate Majority Leader. They will also be sent to every member of the California delegation to the US Senate and House of Representatives. Judge Jay Bybees action in facilitating torture by the US government is an absolute outrage, said Eric Bauman, Chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. It goes against the fundamental principles of our Constitution and core American values. Another torture memo writer, John Yoo, who is currently a visiting law professor at the Chapman University School of Law in southern California, also ran into trouble when about 70 professors and other opponents gathered at the Chapman University on Saturday to demand that he be disbarred and fired. Yoo, then UC Berkeley law professor worked as a deputy in Bybees office, said in a memo on March 14, 2003, that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits the federal government from employing cruel and unusual punishments does not extend to alien enemy combatants held abroad. The memo goes on to explain that federal criminal statutes regarding assault and other crimes against the body dont apply to authorised military interrogations overseas. The memo also says the Geneva Conventions dont apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Protesters said that Yoo, as a professor of law, should have known that those techniques of interrogation suggested by him violate the US law, but he did it to give former President George W Bush a reason to authorize CIA to use torture in interrogation. Doreen Marshall, a spokesperson of the group Stop Torture Coalition that organised the protest, said in an interview that the group will continue fighting until Yoo is disbarred. He should be fired and stay out of the Chapman University and other universities, she said. President Barack Obama signed an executive order to ban the use of torture on January 21, one day after he was sworn in as U.S. President.

ePaper - Nawaiwaqt