Is that a typo for “broad”, I hope? Or some kind of Freudian commentary?

Bob in HI

Yoo claims that “customary international law” does not bind the president. In Yoo’s fantasy world, no law binds the president, so why bother singling out one source of it? Further, such law becomes “customary international law” only after it has already become universally respected and followed by the world’s principal states. If something is customary international law, rather than a claimant for that status, it is binding on the US as a matter of its own practice. The US has internalized its norms and behavior expectations and accepted the liability of sanctions for not following it, and other states act reasonably when they rely on the expectation that the US will follow that law.

Yoo’s opinion, again conflates, misdefines and misuses accepted legal definitions and practices in order to produce his desired result. The essence of bad lawyering and disrespect for the law, a position that depends for its success on its acceptance by the executive whose power he describes and on never being tested in public or by domestic or international courts.

Ironically, one purpose of Yoo’s opinion is to promote the CheneyBush goal of ridding the world of restrictive international laws and alliances whose very purpose is to restrict the freedom of states to go to war, and to promote less destructive means of securing a share of the world’s resources, including peace. Cheney seems to take literally the ironic motto adopted by the Strategic Air Command, the force designed to deliver a nuclear holocaust anywhere in the world — “Peace is Our Profession”.

It takes some backbone to stand up to these criminals in this administration, and certainly few have but I am proud that the JAGs have had their share of good men and women who stood up for the rule of law, even in the face of Undue Command Influence and the politicization of what should be by law a non-political process.

I question whether this theory would ultimately prevail in either the U.S. courts or in any international forum.

though the supreme court might be in the president’s pocket, there is NO WAY an “international court” could possibly be bound by yoo’s RIDICULOUS “interpretation and there is NO question soldiers acting on those orders WOULD be convicted if their only defense was “the president ordered me to do it”

no question about the outcome of that defense

Boxturtle (Won’t support “unitary executive” unless I’M the executive)