The Latest OLC Memo from John Yoo...
On April 1, 2002, John Yoo wrote in an official OLC opinion memo:
The powers of the U.S. President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces are those that have traditionally been exercised, in common international law, by previous Commanders-in-Chief of other countries. The President of the United States's powers cannot, by logic, be less than those of, say, the Commander-in-Chief of the navy of the Cretan Imperial Thalassocracy of the second millennium BC.
It is well established in the historical record that the then-Commander-in-Chief, Minos, (a) used genetic engineering to breed a human-animal hybrid, the man-bull called the Minotaur; (b) imprisoned detainees who were not lawful combattants in a maze underneath the Palace at Knossos; and (c) had the Minotaur chase, gore, kill, and eat detainees.
I will not opine on whether it is wise or moral for the President of the United States to breed human-animal hybrid monsters, imprison detainees in an underground maze, and have them gored to death. It may be, it may not be. I am just an expert legal technocrat. And it is indisputably true that the plain words of the Constitution give the President the power to order that such deeds be done, and that it is unlawful for any member of the military to (a) refuse to breed monstrous human-animal hybrids, (b) contruct a maze, or (c) unleash the minotaur if the President or a friend of the President's like Richard Cheney orders that it be done.
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