Letter to Chancellor Birgeneau About John Yoo

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20090215_birgeneau_yoo.pdf (104 KB)

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20090215_birgeneau_yoo.pdf (104 KB)

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almost 3 years ago Discordian Player responded:

Very brave and very well stated. Thank you for writing that letter.

almost 3 years ago Julia Lynch responded:

Brad, I am prouder than ever to have been trained by you, and hope one day also to regain my pride in having been trained at Berkeley. Thanks for writing this.

almost 3 years ago John Smith responded:

It's nice to see liberal lawyers spewing venom and calling a Legal Opinion with a conclusion ideologically opposed to their political views as "professional misconduct." Lady Liberty is supposed to be blind. I only hope that you never are appointed or elected to office. It is clear that you cannot judge arguments or objective opinions on their merits when they reach conclusions you do not like. It is fools like you who point and shout "Justice and Freedom this way" while committing Genocide.

almost 3 years ago kit troyer responded:

re: John Smith's post

Dear Mr. Smith --

if anyone has come close to genocide-type misconduct, it's Yoo, not the author of the plea for his firing.

if you want to see details of "enhanced interrogation" in action -- and details of its total, operational ineffectiveness of, by the way -- then check out the piece in this week's New Yorker regarding enemy combatant al-Marri. five years & running w/o a trial or access to defense attorneys, nor even any prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, other than a single sworn affidavit by federal agent w/ threadbare conclusory language regarding his dangerousness.

and who on Earth cares whether you "hope Mr. Delong never gets elected to office?" that would be up to the voters in the district, wouldn't it?

anyway, Delong is merely trying to make a dent in the total lack of official u.s. accountability, thus far, for torture, enhanced interrogation, extraordinary rendition, and indefinite incarceration w/o charges, let alone trials. He ought to be applauded for that.

All these things have been done in the name of the U.S. It is our right as citizens to ask about them, write about them, speak about them, and seek remedies for them. Maybe fully 100 percent of these people at Guantanamo and in military brigs and in the so-called 'black sites' abroad are indeed guilty and dangerous. But, a) we'll never know, because their cases have not seen the light of day; and b) if there are any who are innocent, we have some very very serious explaining to do. I guarantee you would want answers if a foreign government came and took a member of your family and locked them up for 5+ years on foreign soil w/o explaining what the charges were. In that scenario, you might have a little more sympathy for the points which Delong is making, and you would be less glib about signs 'pointing the way to Genocide.'

Best wishes,
Kit Troyer

almost 3 years ago Tybalt responded:

Mr. Smith's comments are perhaps misguided by a misunderstanding of law. Legal opinions do not have an "ideology" in the political sense. John Yoo's OLC opinions here are an analysis of whether certain interrogation conduct is permitted by the laws of the United States. This is not a political question. Whether such conduct should be permitted is indeed a political question - whether it is permitted in law, is not.

Unfortunately, as every legal commentator to my knowledge (of whatever political persuasion) has agreed, they failed to meet the minimum standards of accuracy. They are simply incompetent - inaccurate, in fact, in a way that can only be explained by either gross misconduct as a lawyer (either by gross negligence or outright lying). They omit consideration of all of the key sources of law that would help formulate an answer to the questions asked. That, again, is not a matter of ideology - whether one is liberal, conservative or otherwise the law is the law.

over 2 years ago Graham Freeman responded:

Any pointers to the text of this letter? I'd like to read it, but the way it's posted on this site requires Flash, which I don't use due to well-founded security and privacy concerns.

almost 2 years ago duiattorney responded:

http://www.noacarcel.com

almost 2 years ago duiattorney responded:

http://www.vannuyspersonalinjurylawyer.info/

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Letter to Chancellor Birgeneau About John Yoo