<p>[School</a> of Law - Boalt Hall: The Torture Memos and Academic Freedom](<a href=“http://www.law.berkeley.edu/news/2008/edley041008.html]School”>The Torture Memos and Academic Freedom - Berkeley Law)</p>
<p>It would be a sad day for Berkeley if they had fired John Yoo.
I’m glad difference of opinion will not be squelched.</p>
<p>What is shocking about this case is that it is even an issue. Only in the world of extreme liberalism would giving an honest legal opinion to a Republican administration be a basis for removal from employment at a university. Liberals are always trying to silence thoughts and opinions that differ from their skewed view of the world. But if anyone challenges their beliefs, they screem “freedom of speech” as their defense.</p>
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<p>Sorry, did you actually read the article? While I agree with you that there is no reason whatsoever to dismiss the professor (though I think his analyses were indeed gravely mistaken), I think maybe you’re exercising some selective judgment here - there are any number of professors at universities across the nation whose resignations or terminations are regularly called for due to their views. Here, we have Peter Singer; MIT has Noam Chomsky, and so forth. Outside forces calling for resignations due to extra-curricular views is nothing new, and it happens to professors across the political and moral spectrum. It is more reflective of your own biases that you blame the phenomenon upon this world’s “extreme liberalism” (a total joke, by the way, since not only is America one of the least liberal countries in the world, in the more liberal countries this kind of thing is basically not an issue).</p>
<p>Razorsharp - would your opinion be the same for a Nazi law professor justifying the murder of Jews? Being a participant in the justification - and thus, encouragement - of conduct which is arguably a violation of fundamental human rights is an area where there is a line, which if crossed, means that “academic freedom” is no longer an excuse, any more than “I was just following orders.” </p>
<p>There’s no reason why a discussion of whether John Yoo crossed that line is inappropriate. I hope we never get to the point where that question cannot be asked. It’s not the “liberals” - it’s you who are trying to silence discussion.</p>
<p>42, maybe you should start reading articles before you post about them.</p>
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No, I am pointing out the hypocrisy of liberals who dominate the academic world. You just can’t take the heat.</p>
<p>There is a big difference between giving a legal opinion and stating a political preference. There’s a big difference between doing something when you’re working for one employer but being punished for it by another employer. </p>
<p>What troubles me about the article is the underlying assumption that the legal opinion was wrong. Liberals assume the legal opinion was wrong because it is not consistent with their liberal view of the world. That isn’t how legal opinions work. Professor Yoo’s legal opinion should not be a basis for disciplinary action against him. A legal opinion is an interpretation of law not an expression of personal political preference. A lawyer can have a personal political preference that is directly contrary to his legal opinion. What is outrageous about this case is that liberals have not only assumed that Professor Yoo’s legal opinion is wrong they have also assumed that his legal opinion reflects his personal opinion. After making all these assumptions they conclude he should not be employed at the University because his “opinions” differ from their political opinions.</p>
<p>Compare this to what how liberals defend professors who give outrageous personal political opinions while in the scope of their employment with the University. Remember “little Eichmann’s”? Liberals love that guy because he is expressing an opinion consistent with their hatred of America.</p>
<p>Well, here’s some of Yoo’s statements. I wonder if it would be those who oppose or support him should be termed as extreme?</p>
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<p>This is beyond a poor legal opinion, but rather trying to imply during the time of war a President can act like an autocrat. He deserves to be in jail.</p>
<p>This wasn’t a near-miss, even. This was Boalt’s very liberal dean telling Yoo’s liberal (and conservative) critics that the school was going to do absolutely nothing in response to their demands – not only no discipline, but also no “potentially chilling inquiry” – and that they could go pound sand. All of which is 100% appropriate, especially given that Yoo had tenure at Boalt long before he took a leave of absence to join the Bush administration. I can’t imagine any dean of any major law school doing anything else, really.</p>
<p>That said, Yoo’s case is a little bit special. I can’t remember a situation where a prominent academic did work that is so widely condemned as shoddy and irresponsible, not only by liberals, but by many, many conservatives as well, including Yoo’s successors, who significantly revised his memorandum. Lawyers at that level in the government tend to be substantial people with substantial reputations to protect, and they are not supposed to be pushovers for their bosses/clients.</p>
<p>By the way, if you want to get upset about academic freedom, read Jane Kramer’s article in the current New Yorker about the fight over Nadia Abu el Haj’s tenure at Barnard. It makes Columbia seem like a less-than-pleasant place, and Lee Bollinger seem like a polished turd.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, if you spent less time expounding on your entirely self-generated and ludicrous projection of “what ‘liberals’ think” and paid some attention to what was actually being said by those “liberals” you’d have a prayer of actually learning something.
Unless that “opinion” is given to a person intent on breaking the law, with the understanding that the law will be broken if the advice is followed. Guess what happens then? You get disbarred and thrown in jail. If a lawyer gives advice to a homicidal client on how to commit a crime, knowing that the client will commit the crime, the lawyer is no longer a counsellor - he’s an accomplice. He’s crossed the line.</p>
<p>Sorry, there are limits to everything. I haven’t researched the Yoo memorandum personally, so I’m not going to make an argument on the merits. But from what has been reported, it definitely is in the area where the question of whether Yoo has crossed the line from lawyer to accomplice in criminal activity merits asking. It looks like the Boalt Dean did ask that question and answered it in the negative - meaning that this whole rant is not about what happened to Yoo, but about the fact that there was ever any discussion of any such action being taken.</p>
<p>Yes, Razorsharp, it is you who is trying to stifle discussion. (And spewing mindless invective in the process. Are you really so afraid of “liberals” that you are unable to address any politically relevant issue without ranting about "what liberals think? I’m a liberal, and I guarantee you that you have absolutely no idea how I think.)</p>
<p>kluge is good.</p>
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Sure I do. I read your words.</p>
<p>Liberals love the lecture with the appropriate level of condescension. For example:
Liberals love to presume criminality to those who have an opinion different from theirs. For example:
You presume that President Bush intended to break the law when in fact he was asking for a legal opinion.</p>
<p>Liberals can condemn an opinion that differs from their opinion without first knowing the basis for that opinion.
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<p>razorsharp is good…</p>
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<p>Everything in the first two sentences above is correct, and everything in the last two sentences is hilariously wrong. </p>
<p>Nobody has to “assume” Yoo’s opinion is wrong. At this point, everyone interested has read it, or substantial portions of it. I have yet to see anyone anywhere on the ideological spectrum say that it’s an impressive piece of work. The only debate seems to be about exactly how it’s wrong, and what it should have said instead. In this regard, it’s not unlike Roe v. Wade – scholars disagree whether its holding was right or wrong, but practically no one defends its actual reasoning. </p>
<p>Also, no one has to “assume” that Yoo’s personal political views are consistent with the opinion, because he says they are. He’s proud of them.</p>
<p>However, for the most part, liberals like Dean Edley have absolutely no interest in having Yoo fired because his political opinions differ from theirs. Other people may, but I would hardly call them liberals – that’s not anything like a liberal position.</p>
<p>And conservatives, like Lynn Cheney, have been ranting on about liberal professors like Harvard’s (formerly Berkeley’s) Stephen Greenblatt (who supposedly hates Shakespeare) and PBS presenters like Bill Moyers. Spare us the anti-liberal diatribes.</p>
<p>But not as good as kluge</p>
<p>Hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking…</p>
<p>After 9/11, the U.S. was starving for intelligence, fearful of another attack. </p>
<p>Which would you prefer: let thousands of Americans perish in a terrorist attack or let one individual get water up his nose?</p>
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I guess this falls into the "You can lead a horse to water" category. I don't have to "presume" that Bush intended to break the law to address the question. I only have to presume that I don't know for sure whether he did or not, and thus further inquiry is not unreasonable. If you really want to know "how liberals think", Razorsharp, here's a good example: I don't assume the answer before I address the question. Some questions I do dismiss pretty much out of hand, like "Was the US government behind 9/11?" That's the kind of extraordinary claim which in my mind requires extraordinary proof. The question of whether the Bush Administration was willing to violate international law - and basic human rights - if they thought they could get away with it is not one I would assume I know the answer to, either way. So a discussion of whether or not that was the case, and if Professor Yoo's involvement in that crossed the line between providing a legal opinion and being an accomplice in criminal conduct, is not something I would reject out of hand, any more than I would assume the answer to it.</p>
<p>And the reason I wouldn’t dismiss the idea out of hand is handily provided in UCBChemGrad’s post number 15: for a lot of people, the perceived ends justify the means - any means.</p>
<p>UCB: That’s a straw man. No one would fail to choose waterboarding one man over letting thousands of people ANYWHERE die in a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, unless you are Jack Bauer and have the benefit of omniscient screenwriters, you rarely get to make that choice with any degree of clarity. As a practical matter, you are either going to be waterboarding lots and lots of people with no particular specific intelligence objective, or you are going to be using different interrogation methods. </p>
<p>Constitutional and human rights law to the side, there is a strong utilitarian argument against torture. Most experienced interrogators seem to believe that the other, slower, more humane interrogation methods are much, much better at producing useful intelligence than torture. Furthermore, that’s ESPECIALLY true when you are dealing with a near blank slate. Torture may work when you need one piece of information right now, and you can evaluate its reliability instantly, but using torture compromises your ability to get any other useful information in the future. And using torture indiscriminately with no clearly defined objective not only fails to produce useful information from the tortured subjects, but compromises your ability to get cooperation and information from anyone. Can you point to one situation, historically, where systematic torture did anything but weaken the torturers?</p>
<p>Then you get into the law parts. United States citizens, civilian and military, are exposed in one way or another in every corner of the world. Terrorists may not play by the rules, but there are lots of hostile people out there who do, more or less. By publicly violating its treaty obligations, the United States may be risking harm to its citizens on a scale similar to, or beyond, a terrorist attack. And by publicly violating its own rule of law and human rights commitments, the United States may be seriously undermining its ideological message, on which, ultimately, a successful outcome of its military and strategic mission depends as much as it does on troops and material.</p>
<p>Of course, balancing the risks and benefits of breaking your own law is a judgment call. Who makes it? In the heat of battle, a battlefield commander, or even an individual soldier of course. But what happens in hand-to-hand combat isn’t national policy. Can the President disregard validly enacted legislation that was intended to apply to these very circumstances because he thinks it’s a bad idea? Maybe, in a 9/11 type of emergency, for some limited period of time. Can he do it permanently, without getting the laws revised, or even asking that the laws be revised? That’s the Yoo position, and I don’t think it is widely shared.</p>
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You are wong, wrong, wrong, on that one. </p>
<p>Here is what Sen. Leahy said:
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<p>As to the circumstances of the need for waterboarding:
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<p>[Statement</a> Of Sen. Leahy On The Nomination Of Michael B. Mukasey To Be Attorney General](<a href=“http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200711/110607a.html]Statement”>http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200711/110607a.html)</p>
<p>JHS, </p>
<p>I understand, and I don’t agree with the torture in an on-going basis. Politicians like to use 9/11 as a reason in shift of principles/practices…arguing that things changed.</p>
<p>Like you alluded, I think the President was under extraordinary pressure and may have sought/allowed certain tactics when America was at its weakest. Let’s be frank, the Bush Administration (or any administration for that matter) does not want to believe some shadowy figures living in caves on the other side of the world could mount such a spectacular attack. But they did, and the U.S. did not have the intelligence for its own protection. </p>
<p>I believe the president weighed risks of the decision…in his mind the opportunity to prevent a future attack outweighed the repurcussions of not following the Geneva convention.</p>
<p>Hopefully, the U.S. learned a big lesson in this ordeal of its need to support and greatly expand intelligence capability, so we don’t have to resort to these tactics in the future.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, you need to bone up on your reading comprehension.
Change “rarely” to “never” and you’ve got it. That’s why it’s not hard to state a hard and fast rule against torture: You always know it’s morally wrong, you always know it’s a violation of basic human rights, you always know it will place our own citizens at greater risk of being tortured, but you never know if it will actually deliver the promised “safety for thousands.” Never. This isn’t TV, it’s real life.</p>
<p>UCBCEG:
If you’re right, and if Yoo aided and abetted that decision, you’ve made the case for the opposition. The Geneva Convention is specifically applicable to times when the nation’s safety is at stake - in fact, that’s what it’s all about.</p>