Letters to the Editor

This letter is associated with the following article:
Does excess focus on a single DOJ lawyer obscure the broader responsibility for torture and other war crimes?
  • the real question is not whether to fire Yoo, but: why was he hired?

    Granting Glenn's point about not scapegoating Yoo, I still want to press on the issue of whether Berkeley should dismiss him. To me, this question actually misses the point that the university hired him after his tenure in the executive branch and his service to the War on Terror. I think questions should be raised about what the justification was for this decision.

    But how likely can it possibly be he will be fired, when the basic outlines of what he wrote were already long known? The university was acting as an establishment refuge for a discreditable "thinker," and the disclosure of more details about his thinking wouldn't seem to give Berkeley any reason to withdraw its support.