Judge rules terrorist can sue over torture memos

Jose Padilla at the time of his sentencing. (Photo source unknown)

Now, I'm unequivocally against torture, but even I think something's off here.

A convicted terrorist can sue a former Bush administration lawyer for drafting the legal theories that led to his alleged torture, ruled a federal judge who said he was trying to balance a clash between war and the defense of personal freedoms.

The order by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco is the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially liable for the abuse of detainees, AP reported Saturday.

The lawyer who wrote the memos? What about the Bush administration? What about Bush himself?

White refused to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against former senior Justice Department official John Yoo on Friday. Yoo wrote memos on interrogation, detention and presidential powers for the department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003.

Oh, I remember this guy. He was arrested after the Sep 11 attacks on charges linked to a dirty bomb and was held forever without a trial. He's from Chicago.

Padilla, 38, is serving a 17-year sentence on terror charges. He claims he was tortured while being held nearly four years as a suspected terrorist.

"The treatment we allege does violate the Constitution and John Yoo should have known that," wrote White, Bush appointee. "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct."

And Yoo wrote those memos on his own inspiration...it had nothing to do with a job he was hired to do...

White ruled that Yoo, now a University of California at Berkeley law professor, went beyond the normal role of an attorney when he helped write the Bush administration's detention and torture policies, then drafted legal opinions to justify those policies.

Opinions--therein lies the key, if you ask me, though I'm no legal expert. I'm starting to understand this ruling. Yet, if he was hired to provide those opinions to back the government's use of torture, wouldn't the government be accountable as well?

Yoo's recently released 2001 memo advised that the military could use "any means necessary" to hold terror suspects. A 2002 memo to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised that treatment of suspected terrorists was torture only if it caused pain levels equivalent to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."

Holy crap. That's not torture; that's murder. One does not require a Harvard degree in law or medicine to know that. Now I'm really starting to understand this ruling.

Yoo also said the president might have the constitutional power to allow torturing enemy combatants.

Regardless of my personal beliefs on the matter, I can't help but wonder what is the military supposed to do after a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil to obtain what it expects to be crucial information from a hostile enemy that tortures women and children? What if there's no time to sugarcoat things?

"This lawsuit poses the question addressed by our founding fathers about how to strike the proper balance of fighting a war against terror, at home and abroad, and fighting a war using tactics of terror," White wrote in his 42-page decision.

No one can win or lose this debate. It's one of those that could go on forever because, in the end, like so many other ongoing controversial debates, it's a matter of opinion...in my opinion.

The Justice Department is representing Yoo and has argued for dismissing the lawsuit. The department has not said if it will appeal White's ruling.

Padilla is an American citizen who was arrested in Chicago in 2002 and accused of conspiring with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb." He was held in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., for three years and eight months as an enemy combatant. Padilla's lawsuit alleges Yoo personally approved his time and treatment in the brig.

What about those who carried out that "treatment"? Couldn't Padilla sue them, too?

His lawsuit alleges he was illegally detained and was subjected to sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, painful stress positions, and extended periods of bright lights and total darkness. Padilla also alleges he endured threats that he would be killed, that his family would be harmed, and that he would be transferred to another country to be tortured.

Torturers at other countries must be laughing at this list of torture techniques, given the atrocities committed elsewhere.

He eventually was charged in an unrelated conspiracy to funnel money and supplies to Islamic extremist groups--no dirty bomb! Padilla was convicted in 2007 in Miami federal court, and is appealing.

Sources: The Associated Press
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