John Yoo Says President Bush Can Legally Torture Children
Revolution #026, December 12, 2005, posted at revcom.us
John Yoo, author of the infamous legal memo justifying Presidential powers to torture US captives around the world, couldn't escape torture victims (World Can't Wait activists) when he appeared in Chicago on Dec. 1. in a debate with Doug Cassel, long time human rights legal scholar and professor at Notre Dame.
Audio here of the following exchange:
Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty
Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
Here is a longer excerpt of these remarks in context (5 meg. with six minutes of question and answer).
Press release by Revolution correspondent Philip Watts who recorded these remarks