The Yoo Torture Memo Deliberately Breaks Military Law: Rumsfeld Kabuki, Anyone?

Photo via boodoo.

Having read through and digested the Yoo memorandum that was recently declassified, the most striking feature of it -- beyond its utter twisting of the law in a "might equals right" stomach churning justification tango -- is that it reads like a document written in an after-the-fact criminal defense posture. Especially Part IV of the memorandum which spends pages outlining potential defenses and the mindset needed therefor should anyone be accused of committing war crimes or criminal acts.

That this flies in the face of the UCMJ and the Field Manual appears to have no meaning to Mr. Yoo. That it downgrades the precepts behind all the human rights law advances that the United States used to champion for the betterment of people in more repressive societies is just a minor inconvenience for Mr. Yoo and his "superiors." That we will be generations in the repairing of this, if ever? Not even mentioned.

Whither Donald Rumsfeld in this public discussion? And, for that matter, Dick Cheney, in all of this minion kabuki? Which makes this passage from the Vanity Fair piece on the torture policy drafting all the more infuriating: