torture is wrong

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Justice-Department-protect-by-Stephen-Soldz-100224-5.html

The circle is now closed and smoothed:

• White House desires torture
• CIA demands legal cover
• OLC asked to provide legal rationale
• CIA and White House tell what they want OLC memos to say; CIA provides the so-called "evidence" of safety of torture techniques
• OLC writes the memos, following instructions
• Obama White House then says no one can be prosecuted because they followed the memos
• Memo authors are immune because there was no standard saying that incompetent work on demand designed to legalize hitherto illegal activities is unethical
• Thus, patently illegal activities are able to carried out with no legal culpability for anyone 

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/02/25/the-mock-burial-in-the-opr-report/ 

http://www.slate.com/id/2243737/

Torture Bored - How we've erased the legal lines around torture and replaced them with nothing.

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate

http://www.slate.com/id/2245531/

David Margolis is wrong - Justice Department's ethics investigation shouldn't leave John Yoo and Jay Bybee home free.

Davis Luban at Slate

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/when_you_are_done_reading_this.php

The OPR report: this era's 'Hiroshima

James Fallows at The Atlantic

http://harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006587

Quid Pro Quo

Scott Horton at Harpers

http://harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006582

Unredacting the OPR Report

Scott Horton at Harpers

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/22/opr/index.html

The flailing falsehoods of America's war criminals

Glenn Greenwald for Salon

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/02/yoo-bybee-and-hall-of-mirrors-of-legal.html

Yoo, Bybee, and the Hall of Mirrors of Legal Argument

Jack Balkin at Balkinization  

Margolis overruled the conclusions of the OPR Report ,which recommended that John Yoo and Jay Bybee be referred to the bar for disciplinary proceedings. Margolis said that John Yoo and Jay Bybee were not guilty of professional misconduct. It is clear from reading this exchange that John Yoo believes that the president has a legal exception for mass murder. Does the president have a legal exception for genocide? Slavery?  Does anything constitute legal misconduct in Mr. Margolis’s view? For elucidation on this question read Jack Balkin. - Bonnie

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/022010b.html

Jason Leopold at Consortium News:

“The OPR report included an exchange between an OPR investigator and Yoo regarding what he referred to as the "bad things opinion," what Yoo felt the President could do in wartime.

"What about ordering a village of [resistance] to be massacred?" an OPR investigator asked Yoo. "Is that a power that the president could legally-"

"Yeah," Yoo said.

"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the questioner replied.

"Sure," Yoo said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/21/petraeus-takes-on-cheneyi_n_470608.html

Appearing on Meet the Press, the general made a compelling case against torturing terrorist detainees, saying he found it far more pragmatic and beneficial to stick to methods authorized by the army field manual.

"I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we've perhaps taken expedient measures, they've turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on, in the 101st airborne division, we just said, we decided to obey the Geneva Conventions...

"In the cases where that is not true [where torture takes place or international human rights groups aren't granted access to detention sites] we end up paying a price for it, ultimately," he added. "Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are non biodegradable. They don't go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick.... Beyond that, frankly, we have found that the use of interrogation methods in the army field manual that was given the force of law by Congress, that that works." 

Here it is : http://www.scribd.com/doc/27133902/OPR-Report-On-Torture-Memos

From Margolis’s cover letter;

OPR concluded that former Office of Legal COusnel (OLC) attorneys John Yoo AND Jay Bybee engaged in professional misconduct by failing to provide "thorough, candid, and objective" analysis in memoranda regarding the interrogation of detained terrorist suspects. Consistent with OPR's usual procedures, OPR indicated its intent to refer its finding of misconduct to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where Bybee and Yoo are members.

[snip]

For the reasons stated below, I do not adopt OPR's findings of misconduct. This decision should not be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those memoranda. However, OPR's own analytical framework defines "professional misconduct" such that a finding of misconduct depends on application of a known, unambiguous obligation or standard to the attorney's conduct. I am unpersuaded that OPR has identified such a standard. For this reason and based on the additional analysis set forth below, I cannot adopt OPR's findings of misconduct, and I will not authorize OPR to refer its findings to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where Yoo and Bybee are licensed.

OPR concluded that former Office of Legal COusnel (OLC) attorneys John Yoo AND Jay Bybee engaged in professional misconduct by failing to provide "thorough, candid, and objective" analysis in memoranda regarding the interrogation of detained terrorist suspects. Consistent with OPR's usual procedures, OPR indicated its intent to refer its finding of misconduct to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where Bybee and Yoo are members.

[snip]

For the reasons stated below, I do not adopt OPR's findings of misconduct. This decision should not be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those memoranda. However, OPR's own analytical framework defines "professional misconduct" such that a finding of misconduct depends on application of a known, unambiguous obligation or standard to the attorney's conduct. I am unpersuaded that OPR has identified such a standard. For this reason and based on the additional analysis set forth below, I cannot adopt OPR's findings of misconduct, and I will not authorize OPR to refer its findings to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where Yoo and Bybee are licensed.