A Little Yoo Wop

Something this big needs some music.

It's not every day, we finally get documents released, that detail the war criminality of the Bush Grindhouse, and one of their star players, John "Torture Sounds Good To Me" Yoo.

Just in case, you're still playing the video over-and-over, in slow-motion, trying to find the snipers that Hillary Clinton had to avoid in Bosnia, or, you're scouring through the IMBD site, looking for Hillary Clinton in the credits of any one of the hundreds of Rocky films, blockbuster news dropped yesterday;

The March 2003 Yoo Memo Emerges! (not an April Fool's Joke): The Torture Memo to Top All Torture Memos

Subhead: The Big Kahuna: The Torture Memo that Makes the August 2002 Memo Look Like Objective and Thoughtful Legal Analysis

"On Friday, March 13, 2003, Jay Bybee resigned from his Office as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The very next day -- a Saturday, mind you -- John Yoo, merely a Deputy AAG in the Office, issued his notorious memo to the Pentagon, on behalf of OLC, which effectively gave the Pentagon the green light to disregard statutory limits on torture, cruelty and maltreatment in the treatment of detainees. This is the version of the 2002 Torture memo, which was addressed only to the CIA and the torture statute, as applied to the numerous statutes restricting the conduct of the armed forces. None of those statues, you see, limits the conduct of war if the President says so. It is, in effect, the blueprint that led to Abu Ghraib and the other abuses within the armed forces in 2003 and early 2004 ..."

Yoo's memo was, The Green Light, as Phillippe Sands writes in Vanity Fair;

"We talked about the methods of interrogation. “In terms of their effects,” she said, “I suspect that the individual techniques are less important than the fact that they were used over an extended period of time, and that several appear to be used together: in other words, the cumulative effect.” Detainee 063 was subjected to systematic sleep deprivation. He was shackled and cuffed; at times, head restraints were used. He was compelled to listen to threats to his family. The interrogation leveraged his sensitivities as a Muslim: he was shown pictures of scantily clad models, was touched by a female interrogator, was made to stand naked, and was forcibly shaved. He was denied the right to pray. A psychiatrist who witnessed the interrogation of Detainee 063 reported the use of dogs, intended to intimidate “by getting the dogs close to him and then having the dogs bark or act aggressively on command.” The temperature was changed, and 063 was subjected to extreme cold. Intravenous tubes were forced into his body, to provide nourishment when he would not eat or drink."

If you want to prime your scorecards, you can start adding the names of, well, The Commander Guy, and his distrustful sidekick, Vice President Darth Vader, and his home boy, David Addington.

There's lots more that the "War Criminal" placard should hang on, and there'll be a YooMemoPalooza of links below.

But we gotta get to the music, the fanfare for this occasion

And we turn to the legendary Sam Cooke, to provide us the tune.

You know it, so sing, or hum along ...

Yoo Tortured Me

Dammit, Yoo tortured me
I know Yoo tortured me
Dammit You tortured me
Dishonest John Yoo, dishonest John Yoo
Dishonest John Yoo, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Yoo beat me
I know Yoo, Yoo, Yoo beat me
Dammit Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, beat me
Dishonest John Yoo

At first I thought it was interrogation
But Yoo, it's lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To query Yoo and break Yoo alone
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Yoo beat me
I know Yoo, Yoo, Yoo beat me
Dammit Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, beat me
Dishonest John Yoo

Whoa-oh-oh, whenever I'm with Yoo
I know, I know, I know when I'm near Yoo
Mmm hmm, mmm hmm, dishonest John Yoo, dishonest John Yoo
Whoa-oh-oh, I know-oh-oh-oh

At first I thought it was interrogation
But Yoo, it's lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To query Yoo and break Yoo alone
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

I know, I know, I know, Yoo tortured me
I know Yoo tortured me
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, Yoo Yoo Yoo Yoo tortured me
Dishonest John Yoo

Bonus YooMemoPalooza Links

Sam Cooke - You Send Me 1958

Glenn Greenwald: John Yoo's war crimes

emptywheel/Firedoglake: Acting Counsels and Torture

Jack Balkin/Balkinization : The Legality of Evil: The Torture Memos and the Living Constitution

Christy Hardin Smith: Yoo Torture Memo: I’ll Take Addington At Cheney’s Behest For $1,000, Alex…

Space Cowboy/Shakesville: Bush: Legacy of S&M

emptywheel/Firedoglake: The “John Yoo, Let’s Pretend We’re Lawyers” Game

Paul Kiel/TPM: The Timeline Behind Yoo's Memo