Letters to the Editor
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Elephantman reveals his own moral blind spot.
After all, it can't be about whether the USA continues to torture detainees. It can't be about whether the USA continues to 'disappear' people it suspect might think ill of us. It can't be about whether the USA continues to meake new enemies throughout the world and foments the breeding of terrorists with its amoral actions.
No, it can only be about which team wins the 08 General Election.
Talk about FU'ed priorities!
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thanks @ bluefellow & bamage
so Yoo was already on the faculty, but on leave, when he wrote the torture memos. Funny, he's such a babyface, I would have believed he was fresh out of law school.
but if he's been consistent with such beyond-the-pale interpretations throughout his career--if never on such a concretely grave subject--one still has to wonder why the university would be interested in him in 1993. Maybe being "controversial" helps, no matter where on the ideological spectrum one chooses to take controversial stances. 1993--height of the culture wars, concerns about ideological "balance" at an ostensibly "liberal" university --has anything changed?
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Just how close are we to no longer being the “Land of the Free?
“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one
generation away from extinction. It is not ours by
inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by
each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who
have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again."
--Ronald Reagan
As an American aren’t you ashamed that cries for justice are emanating not from the halls of Congress or from our hallowed institutions of higher learning, but from the blogoshere and from foreign countries who apparently regard our founding values with higher appreciation.
This cancer of thought initiated by John Yoo, libeled and defamed the American people's good name, flaunting international law while torturing and slaughtering millions of innocents worldwide. Something as completely reprehensible and repugnant as this thought, this concept that threatens to destroy us from the inside out, must be removed surgically from our national discourse. That includes everything and everyone who enabled, supported, or who justified its very existence.
John Yoo should not be a scapegoat, he must be part and parcel of a larger move to cleanse and forever end this war on terror from its transformation to the war of terror.
Ultimately, U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions should dictate what transpires in this matter, and should that not happen, I don’t doubt there will be many of us who will have tremendous struggles with the realization of what we have finally become. For those of you who thought the 2000 and 2004 elections were the most important of your lifetime, think again.
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Academic Freedom, Moral Turpitude and Tenure
It probably reads like this as this stuff is usually boilerplate:
Termination for cause of a continuous appointment . . . may be made only for the gravest reasons: obvious abuses of academic freedom, consistent failure or inability to discharge responsibilities, turpitude (i.e., felony conviction or obvious and repeated misconduct in his or her performance of academic duties), or active and voluntary participation in any activity deliberately and specifically designed to bring discredit to the college...
Apparently they don't believe that Yoo actively and voluntarily participated in an activity deliberately and specifically designed to bring discredit to the university.
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The Eichmann analogy
Adolph Eichmann's sole defense during his trial for genocide and war crimes in Israel was that he wasn't the one who planned and designed the "Final Solution", but was only an administrator who was following and obeying orders from above. The truth of course was that Eichmann was an enabler, and without enablers, genocide, torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot be carried out by a government wishing to engage in them. John Yoo certainly shouldn't be singled out, because there's plenty of blame to go around in the Bush/Cheney administration, but as the architect of the legal shield for torture regime )and other war crimes), he wasn't some minor minnow-therefore the Eichmann analogy.
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AAUP - 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/1940statement.htm
Termination for cause of a continuous appointment, or the dismissal for cause of a teacher previous to the expiration of a term appointment, should, if possible, be considered by both a faculty committee and the governing board of the institution. In all cases where the facts are in dispute, the accused teacher should be informed before the hearing in writing of the charges and should have the opportunity to be heard in his or her own defense by all bodies that pass judgment upon the case. The teacher should be permitted to be accompanied by an advisor of his or her own choosing who may act as counsel. There should be a full stenographic record of the hearing available to the parties concerned. In the hearing of charges of incompetence the testimony should include that of teachers and other scholars, either from the teacher’s own or from other institutions. Teachers on continuous appointment who are dismissed for reasons not involving moral turpitude should receive their salaries for at least a year from the date of notification of dismissal whether or not they are continued in their duties at the institution.[9]
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Yoo Teaches Con Law For Kryzakez
"Academic Freedom" isn't at issue -- since any opinions or views Yoo espoused in the classroom or publicly are not in controversy. Even setting aside considerations of criminality and morality, Yoo's memos demonstrate a total lack of understanding of how the Constitution and other federal, State and international law applies to government actors. He is, in a word, incompetent.
In the alternative, You knowingly counseled the government that it was immune from committing illegal acts in order to provide the specious "my attorney said it was legal" defense. In that case, he is both complicit and incompetent.
In any case, he is not qualified.
BDL
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Legal scholars must do their job
and educate the public that our Constitution mandates that international treaties that the US government has ratified become the supreme law of the land right here in the USA. Any war crimes that US citizens commit must be prosecuted in the US as well, not just in international courts. The legal shield that John Yoo has created in order to protect people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld from future war crime charges is unconstitutional, invalid, null and void. This must be explained to the public.