Editorials

Larry Bensky was kind enough to forward to us an article by Dan Eggen, from Sunday’s Washington Post. The headline is “Permissible Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail.” 

He suggested that we should reprint the whole piece, which we’re not legally entitled to do. But we can direct your attention to the story on the paper’s web site. It’s an excellent parsing of a truly appalling document, a memo on the legal boundaries governing interrogation by members of the U.S. military forces which was written by John C. Yoo, then a U.S. Justice Department lawyer, and now a faculty member at the local law school formerly known as Boalt Hall, which is part of the University of California.  

His memo functions as a justification for a variety of forms of physical torture. The article reports that the memo claims that “federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief.” 

It was taken as the law of the land for eight months, until it was overruled by Jack Goldsmith, Yoo’s boss at the Office of Legal Counsel, who was later quoted as calling some of his memos “deeply flawed: sloppily reasoned, overbroad, and incautious in asserting extraordinary constitutional authorities on behalf of the President.” Well, yes, that’s obvious, even to non-lawyers. 

We asked Larry, KPFA’s longtime national repor-ter, to write a commentary for the Planet on the topic. “What is there to say? It speaks for itself, alas,” he replied. 

That’s true, as far as it goes, and everyone should certainly read the Post piece or even, if you have the stomach for it, the whole memo. 

Brad DeLong, ace blogger and Econ Prof, is one of the few UC faculty members whose moral compass seems to be relatively intact. He’s been hosting online discussions of how Yoo might be sent packing. 

His own first take on the topic: “I should write to Professor William Drummond, Chair of the Berkeley Division of the University of California Senate, stating that in my opinion it is time for him to convene a committee to examine whether John Yoo’s appointment to the University of California faculty should be revoked for moral turpitude.” But that’s followed by a lengthy exchange about the propriety of such an action. 

Yes, yes, we know the whole academic freedom routine. We’re reluctant to suggest that Yoo be fired just because some would describe his work product as sadomasochistic with fascist tendencies.  

But here’s another question: Who hired this jerk to work at the Law School? It’s the “sloppily reasoned” part that should have kept him from getting the job in the first place. Yoo’s “faculty profile” says he’s been at U.C. since 1993. Why? 

If the Planet had a huge investigative staff, that might make an interesting inquiry. But we have our hands full reporting on U.C.’s sweetheart deals with major petroleum companies, and the hiring halls of academia are traditionally shrouded in mystery and cloaked in enigma.  

This is a job for an insider. We know that a number of past and current law school faculty members read the Planet, because they’ve told us that they do, and we know that they’re just as disgusted as we are by Yoo’s presence among them.  

We’re also aware that a few doughty souls at UCB have staged demonstrations and teach-ins against Yoo for years. We’ve encountered several law students who seem to have ethics and energy.  

Forget about moral turpitude. Some of these people should inquire delicately but forcefully why their school has a faculty member whose work is notoriously shoddy. 

Of course, Yoo’s not the only UC faculty member who does some mediocre work from time to time. This could be a slippery slope—it might make some of his colleagues very nervous. 

Even though the subject matter is deadly serious, some observers have half-jokingly suggested taking direct action to shame Yoo. Two respectable Berkeley matrons were overheard fantasizing about donning burqas and smacking him with pies in front of his classes.  

On Brad DeLong’s blog, one Kate G. says that it’s not a question of academic freedom exactly, and proposes a more Draconian alternative: “Yoo’s briefs on torture, especially the infamous observation that the president could, if he choose, legally ‘crush the testicles’ of an innocent child if he thought that would advance an American agenda, is more like a form of reckless endangerment of the country and of its citizens and their morality. But I’d settle for a controlling legal and political authority crushing Mr. Yoo’s testicles and then asking to have their case heard by a higher court. I don’t think he has to be fired from Berkeley to make the point.”  

Bloggers are chewing over these alternatives as we speak, and perhaps someone over at the law school might actually do something. The latest dialogue on the topic as of this writing, from posters to Brad DeLong’s site: 

“I think a complaint should be filed but it’s largely symbolic. I do not believe that the University should be pressured into firing Yoo, though I am personally appalled by his directives to the government. Tenure protects academics’ rights to hold and voice unpopular opinions. I am not interested in silencing those I disagree with, but rather in engaging in public debate with them. Anything else smacks of liberal facism.” 

And the response to this post, from someone signing on as A. Citizen: 

“‘Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.’—Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I am no liberal, sir, and it is an attitude such as you voice here which has brought our nation to the precipice. Let me be clear. Your failure to speak out, to take action, against Yoo and his vile ilk makes you no better than they.”  

History, if not God, will judge who’s right. Meanwhile, it’s up to the faculty and students of the law school of the University of California at Berkeley to figure out, at least, who saddled their institution with this infamous character in the first place.