Friday April 10th, WORLD CAN'T WAIT and
friends protested the continued employment of War Criminal John Choon Yoo by
the dean of Berkeley Law, Christopher Edley.Â
The venue for this action was Chevron Auditorium at International House, where U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer presented a lecture on international law, followed by a conversation with Dean Edley. In addition to the above tableau, an estimated 400 attendees were presented with literature urging the dean to take a stand against torture, indefinite detention and other crimes against humanity by dismissing professor John Yoo for commission of gross violations of the law.
Professor Yoo's infamous "torture memos"Â ignored various laws and legal precedents and presented a justification for torture and illegal detention. They stated that in time of war the president as commander-in-chief could ignore international and domestic laws against torture. Yoo created an unprecedented "definition" of torture out of whole cloth that was then used by the Bush regime to torture and kill detainees in the so-called "war on terror."
John Yoo is morally and legally guilty of all the crimes committed as a result of his legal memos. If the dean continues to protect John Yoo he is not protecting academic freedom, free speech, due process or other ideals, but he is protecting a war criminal. He is sanctioning the crimes of Yoo and others in the Bush regime and sending a clear message to the world that war crimes and other crimes against humanity are okay as long as they are done in the interests of U.S. imperialism. Is this the message that the community wants to come out of Berkeley?Â
