Legal Scholars Criticize Memos on Torture (very poor professional quality)

[Robbien]

By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: June 25, 2004

Legal scholars asked to assess the recently released Justice Department memorandums concerning torture all but unanimously agreed that the quality of the legal work in them is poor.

. . .

Harold Hongju Koh, dean of the Yale Law School, called the memorandums "embarrassing" and "abominable."

Martin Flaherty, an expert in international human rights law at Fordham University, said, "The scholarship is very clever and original but also extreme, one-sided and poorly supported by the legal authority relied on."

Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said: "It's egregiously bad. It's very low level, it's very weak, embarrassingly weak, just short of reckless."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics/25LEGA.html?ex=1088740800&en=36f8da75c87adf4e&ei=5062&par

[The Magistrate]

1. They Are Quite Right To Do So, Ma'am

These papers are embarrassingly bad. The stretching of "Commander in Chief" authority far past any reasonable view, and the reliance on subjective states of mind to immunize against clear criminality, are basic, basic errors.

[Robbien]

3. Those papers appear to place Bush's authority a couple levels above God's

Of course the statement in the article says it better than I do:

"If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture," Dean Koh said, "he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution."

[The Magistrate]

7. Indeed, Ma'am

Providing the reptile says he is at war, and the voice in his head he calls the diety tells him to do it....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[The Magistrate]

2. Here Is An Excellent Article On The Matter

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17230

"I knew not Sin nefore I knew the Law."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[KoKo]

10. Yes, it's an excellent article. Very detailed. The last part of the

article has some interesting comments about two Iraqi Generals who were tortured to death. This is clear cut violation of any kind of Military rules of engagement in how officers of opposing armies should be treated. And, in this case we invaded their country so it wasn't a declared war which makes it worse.

The chain of command that's been uncovered so far is interesting, too.

More damning evidence against Karpinski who has been on the cables trying to shift blame away from her own actions.

[The Magistrate]

12. Indeed, My Friend

Doubtless tortured to death for information they did not have, concerning non-existant weapons programs. That is one of the weaknesses of the technique: no torturer has ever been willing to believe the object of his attentions really does not know the answer to The Question....

The principle of command respomsibility established by the Hague Tribunal for Yugoslavia makes it quite clear those at the top of the chain are properly held responsible for such actions by their underlings.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[gratuitous]

4. Oooh, hit 'em where it hurts!

Call them "biased," and it's a badge of honor. Call their work substandard, and you'll hear the howls from here to Bangor!

I wish the media would catch on to the fact that these legal memoranda didn't just spontaneously appear or were the result of some guys sitting around a year before the invasion -- they were ordered by the White House!

[orthogonal]

5. But Jay Bybee's a judge now!

How can those memos be bad, if Jay Bybee, the author, was subsequently made a Federal Judge for life????

Something doesn't make sense.

Oh, right, it's the Bush Mis-Administration.

[joeybee12]

6. He was opposed by ONLY 17 Democrats---where the f**k

were the rest?????????

[LizW]

9. Remember that the memo was withheld until after Bybee's confirmation

Many Dems now say they would have voted against him if they had known his part in the torture scandal.

[Bandit]

11. A very good question~~~Where were the rest?

We have been asking that question for over three years now and still no answers. Pink Tutu wearing Democrats are the majority I'm afraid.

[geek tragedy]

8. Would have gotten a C- in law school

Didn't even mention the most important case dealing with presidential power during times of war. Maybe that's because that case went against the president.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Who ARE these people advising the pResident?

From the article:

Dean Koh said the August 2002 memorandum's analysis of what constitutes torture was "utterly unjustifiable."

"They took the narrowest definition," he said. "It would be as if I said that murder constitutes only serial killing."

[damnraddem]

14. And what makes it 'short' of reckless?

It seems rather reckless to me. And we've seen the horrible results that followed from it.

[Miss Authoritiva]

15. Really? Who conducted the survey? Where are the data?

"It is unsurprising that law professors, who are generally liberal, should differ with the conclusions reached in the memos, which take a broad view of presidential power. But their attack on the professional quality of the memos was unusually sharp."


So not only are law professors generally liberal -- in that they're against both torture and broad views of presidential power -- but they also get really cranky about shoddy legal scholarship. The bastards!