I think it is nothing short of disgusting that the Wall Street Journal saw fit to publish John Yoo’s editorial today in defense of torturing people. When will this country stop humiliating itself? The only place where John Yoo should be defending torture is in a court of law. Period. That is his right. He has no right to be published in one of our nation’s most prestigious and internationally-read newspapers. His argument is an appalling affront to human decency and does nothing but pile manure on our reputation for supporting human rights.
John Yoo should not be invited to speak anywhere and he should not be published. Let him spend his own money to get his loathsome ideas propagated. The man is a stain. Anyone that takes his ideas seriously is morally decrepit and should be shunned by polite society. John Yoo belongs in prison. Our national honor demands that he go to prison.
He belongs in prison. So let’s put him there.
But his “viewpoints” are particularly newsworthy and so I understand why he is given airtime.
Let him. He’s likely to incriminate himself and others, or at least highlight the change in policy that is happening.
I’m not much on censorship, even when it is from the like of Yoo.
How is declining to publish someone now considered ‘censorship’? I didn’t say the government should prohibit the publication of his ideas, I said no one should make the decision to publish his ideas as if they were valid or acceptable.
If I had the choice of publishing him right now or not, it would be a very short decision.
The light of day is something his ideas can’t stand.
Let the sun shine in!
There is no end game if you use the strategies he suggests, just ask Israel. His system would generate endless mortal enemies, a side-effect only a fool like him would suggest is ample reward for the addition info one might gather.. For every bit of info you torture out of someone, there will be 10 you’ll have to torture for next year, and the next and the next.
He’s obviously not a great systems guy (his model lacks much regard for the system’s behavior over time or on the broader context of our foreign policy goals and ambitions) and his myopic approach to legal issues has allowed him to make decisions so far removed from their true context that they hold no practicable value.
He should stay in Boalt Hall where academic thinking is rewarded/ing and a being interesting but wrong is plenty good enough for a career.
I particularly like his derisive tone in this line:
You can tell he is derisive because he chose to talk about ‘leaders’ to emphasize his opinion rather than just the facts of the quotes.
Feel free to write your own letter to the editor or oped piece. Others no doubt will.
Let him continue to incriminate himself.
I’m just uncomfortable when groups, not just the government, collectively organize to muffle a voice they don’t like. IMO a healthy democracy frowns on the majority squashing dissenting ideas, especially when those ideas will likely fail on their own anyway.
See Nazis marching in IL. They got far more publicity from attempts to stop them than they ever would have gotten from just letting them have their stupid goose step.
I’d have a much harder time of it Yoo was not newsworthy right now as the changes to terror policy are sorted out. By standard rules of the press, his piece had a news peg
still apples and oranges.
The ACLU protected the right of Nazis to march. They didn’t protect their right to be published in the Wall Street Journal.
Not saying he has a right to be published in the WSJ.
But boycotts and bannings directed at the WSJ for choosing to publish a timely and newsworthy piece is unwise and I think bad for a democracy. I think it is also unproductive for the progressive/fair/sound minded cause. It can make guys like Yoo seem sympathetic and the left look like bullies
Don’t tell John Yoo I’m a terrorist!
Seriously though, there’s only one thing to do with Yoo and the rest: Prosecute them.
All those along the food chain, including the media, who helped to create and environment where torture became an acceptable American activity will spare no expense or effort to keep the Overton Window shifted in their direction.
It’s also likely Mr. Obama will declare terrorists to be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
I predict John Yoo will never travel outside the US for the fear being sent to the Hague as a war criminal. The Geneva Convention is also for the protection of American soldiers when captured by an enemy. Yoo fails to make that point in this argument. It is apparent Yoo is making a last ditch attempt to make a legitimate legal argument that “torture” of a person is legal.
He fails to state why he is the only person, in the Justice Dept. since the inception of the Geneva Convention, to believe that torture is legal.
“The president will soon realize that governing involves hard choices.”
Yep…and you advised GWB to choose Evil. Go to Hell.
He also repeats the canard that the Army Field Manual prohibits good cop/ bad cop routines. It explicitly allows such routines, under the name “Mutt and Jeff”…maybe Yoo envisions the “bad cop” wielding a pair of pliers.
Since Yoo is now shifting from advising his client on matters of law, to lying and expressing his support for torture and other violations of the law and human decency as a private citizen, is there any better chance of getting him thrown out of Boalt Hall?
At least we can have the Peace and Conflict Studies Department keep an eye on him while he’s at Boalt.
Who in hell are you, Yoo.
He`d be the first to cry foul, if, when dragged in front of a War Crimes trial, legal rules didn`t apply.
Seeing as his actions are not quite the norm, then maybe he should be considered a special case, & new rules could be formulated for his special kind. Make it legal & all that, but without resorting to anything that he advocates. (the lackadaisical tone is similar to making torture legal)
Yoo are a hypocrite of the highest order, yes Yoo are.
His trial could be referred to in the years to come, as
The YooMan Tribunal
While Pun is the lowest form of humor (and therefore most appropriate for low life forms), you’ve raised it to new plights, kudos.
So great is his fear of terrah and so small is his regard for basic human rights that he is willing to justify and throw all safeguards out the window. And then he indicates that President Obama’s decision was made without due input from relevant agencies, the very same ones that have been integral to torture for all these years. It’s almost laughable.
I’ve been experimenting with using Facebook for organizing, so I thought, maybe I can start a group there for denouncing Yoo. So I searched to see if there already was one, and found a page for John Yoo "public figure." It has 5 fans.
while the group "Waterboard Yoo" has 85 members.
They also published Rush today, so the Journal is just batting 1000.
Not surprised with Yoo’s platform. There’s a lot of people inside the Beltway, like Brookings types, that are pro-torture. The only way to stop this travesty from returning is to prosecute. But we won’t. In 2017, Jeb Bush will bring back “enhanced interrogation.” That’s my bold prediction.
Aw, they’re just trying to help out a good pal in hard times.
I guess I can see both sides of this argument.
John Yoo’s ideas cannot withstand the light of day, and therefore should be exposed to it without reservation. That is a valid, rational reaction.
John Yoo’s ideas should not be allowed to cast their putrid shadow on the light of day. That is an emotional reaction. No less valid for its lack of rationality.
John Yoo ought to be forced back to and kept in the stinking scum-filled underside of the slimy rock the Bush regime pulled him from in the first place. That’s an emotional reaction too, and very satisfying.