Yoo's Bad Lawyering, Not Investigations, Threatens CIA

Bush administration lawyer John Yoo's latest screed in thePhiladelphia Inquirer relies on false arguments and conservative intelligence folklore to blast John Durham's inquiry into CIA's torture program.  Yoo bemoans the "decimation" of US intelligence capabilities and the "persecution" of CIA, but predictably takes no responsibility for how his own egregiously sloppy legal advice exposes to legal jeopardy the military and intelligence personnel whom he unctuously praises.

Apparently, Yoo's reading of history is about as good as his lawyering, which has taken lumps from nearly every quarter.

Yoo summons up that old chestnut "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail," uttered by Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, and then adds his own rejoinder.  

"Unfortunately," writes Yoo, attempting to duct tape some historical legitimacy to his assertion, "we do not live in a world of gentlemen."

Yoo is putting forth a false choice.  Yoo would have readers believe that amidst the vast machinery of US intelligence and defense, there was only one alternative to the program of torture and extrajudicial detention he helped justify: doing nothing.

Yoo's argument rests on the assumption that Al Qaeda is an implacable global menace of unfathomable depth and lethality, which could only be confronted by turning US intelligence to 'the dark side.'

It turns out that Al Qaeda is not the indestructible juggernaut it was once thought to be, and while still potentially lethal, it has crumbled partly under Western pressure, but mostly because of its own internal problems.  The Guardian reported last week that according to terrorism experts, Al Qaeda has been whittled down to a few hundred members by a coordinated campaign of electronic surveillance and drone strikes, as well as by a tired message that has lost its steam across the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, torture and detention appear to have played a negligible role in pushing back Al Qaeda--even former CIA Director Michael Hayden has said that the program has achieved only "modest success" in cracking the the secrets of Al Qaeda leadership and organization.

The record shows now that torture and detention never stopped any Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, and did little to stop a campaign of Al Qaeda attacks on US allies, including the United Kingdom and Spain.  If anything, the program Yoo persists in championing has been a propaganda victory for Al Qaeda and its like-minded sympathizers around the world.  Yoo also does not address how the program he helped engineer has destroyed US credibility and leadership in human rights and democracy promotion activities on the world stage.

Yoo's latest Inquirer op-ed also resorts to old conservative folklore, which argues that frivolous legal restrictions on US intelligence activities enacted in the seventies in the wake of Watergate and congressional inquiries into CIA, FBI, and military intelligence excesses have reduced the effectiveness of US intelligence.

One problem with this old canard is that it posits that US intelligence actually was more effective back in the days of yore, before formal congressional oversight and proscription of spying on Americans and assassinations.  The fact-based historical record, of course, tells a different story: intelligence fiascos and failures have always been with us, even when FBI had a carte blanche to conduct hamfisted covert 'dirty tricks' campaigns against Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, and even as CIA botched assassination plots, staged third world coup d'etats, and dropped acid (the psychedelic kind) on unsuspecting Americans.

The other problem with Yoo's recitation of this old conservative warhorse is that oversight and regulation of intelligence hasn't really curbed intelligence excesses. The Iran-Contra scandal, for example, took place against the backdrop of congressional oversight and a regime of legal restrictions.  It's also hard to link some of the most embarrassing intelligence failures of the past couple decades--for example, the inadvertent bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the surprise of 9/11, non-existend Iraqi WMDs, and sloppy terrorist renditions--to intelligence weaknesses induced by cumbersome laws and oversight.

By citing this single-factor explanation of US intelligence woes, Yoo weaves his own misdeeds into the conservative 'stab in the back' narrative, but overlooks the obvious cultural and institutional problems that afflict CIA and other US intelligence agencies.

But if Yoo really, really feels bad about the "persecution" of CIA, he should put his money where his mouth is.

Instead of using his Philidelphia Inquirer soapbox to defend his own indefensible legal justifications of a morally indefensible torture program, maybe Yoo could just offer to take the investigative heat for the brave men and women of CIA.

If an inquiry into CIA personnel will lead to, as Yoo puts it, "another surprise attack or major intelligence failure," wouldn't it be better for the security of the Republic if the policy makers who authored the subject of inquiry stepped forward, you know, for the good of the country?

John Yoo could stop, or at least mitigate, the persecution by taking courageous action.  Whining from an op-ed soapbox is insincere in comparison.

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Cross-posted from Examiner.com

 

 

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Comments

[S1m0n]

If the methods were legal, as Yoo claimed at the time, they don't need any excuse from him today. Yet here he is writing one.

Does Yoo no longer believe his earlier argument? If not, what does he now believe, and what changed? If he he still thinks his earlier argument was sound, what is the point of his present op-ed?

[batguano]

Without accountability we can never heal as a nation. Our National Honor was trampled and spat upon by the likes of the detestable John Yoo, Addington, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and the rest, especially those behind the scenes providing cover for Bush crimes. For this odious Yoo creature to continue to blame others after demeaning us as a nation with his depraved writings is the height of arrogance. Lest we forget, his legal opinions include the writing that it would be perfectly fine to crush the testicles of a mans young son to get the father to talk. This is the kind of low-life un-American opinions that characterize the Bush regime from top to bottom. That he still retains his job as law professor at Berkeley, and can still find a stage for his contemptible blathering is astonishing. His legal opinions are so far out of sight of basic human decency and responsibility that he should not be a voice that teaches our citizens anything. He has done our nation grievous harm and he should be standing in the dock at The Hague, later to be hung for complicity in crimes against humanity. But that is just my opinion.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/02/yoo/index.html

[bayside]

Let them yell..Globe says bush is suicidal and paranoid ..They dont want the real truth to come out what they did to us and others for money, but it will ..This can never happen again..

[Johnniedog]

I am sick to Death of hearing that the people that performed the Torture, on other Human Beings, are not to blame, simply because they were following orders. This is simply nonsense!! The people of the CIA and the FBI are well aware of the laws, both National and international, concerning Torture. They knew they were breaking the Laws and the genova convention when they were torturing. They also knew they were torturing, not just questioning their captives.

All of them, from the top to the Bottom, should be prosecuted­....period­.

[skullman]

We didn't accept the "I was just following orders" excuse from the Nazis. We must not accept it from our own people. The world is watching.

[Rog49Thomas]

If all that stops one from torturing is the existence of a law

If a permission slip from some lawyer is all that one needs to torture

That speaks volumes about the ability to reason and one's moral character

[studioh!]

This one guy is responsible for the worst things that came out of Bush's brain and many other outlets.
It's time to HANG HIM where he belongs, maybe from a meathook in Guantanamo?

[lipai]

No, it was his boss, David Addington, and his boss, Dick Cheney, and his cronies, Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzalez. it's not just John Yoo. They are all equally guilty.

[studioh!]

Yoo is the one that put pen to paper and signed his name. It's a forgone conclusion thay Cheny et al were totally behind everything - but don't forget, he got his start in nixonland
and seems to be coated with the famous reagan teflon coating.

[Ventoi]

My second dream this morning was of a man in a bare room...
with a blindfold around his eyes...

(Breaking Benjamin...If you find your family...don't you cry)

I broke him lose...
after imagining a flame of fire going through the door at the team of gangsters coming to torture him more...

then I ran...with him...

through the trees...

I don't believe in torture...

you are either good enough to stay...

or you should go.

People who are fearful...or not GOOD enough to be 'in the know'...are those who torture those who ARE.*

(we think and therefore we are)

[Ventoi]

Saying nothing...turning the blind eye.

It buys them 'a house out in Hackensack'

but then there is no time to ever live in it.

[lungfish]

Yoo, Gonzales and the rest are pathetic. They, like the rest of the GOP Administration and Party, admit nothing, concede nothing, take responsibility for nothing... yet there would not have been any of this without them....
Yoo has blood on his hands. Innocent blood. He is a coward of the first order.

[altohone]

We will see torture become policy again if we don't prosecute those who authorized and executed the policy.

It's been said, but can't be said often enough.

[TheApeMan]

I just saw on MSNBC that 7 former CIA Heads sent Obama a letter telling him to stop Holder's Investigation...
ugh

[CRUMBOWSKI]

Every Man and Woman that works for CIA..DHS..or the NSA...should be OUTED..so they get stared at in the grocery store...so that they are KNOWN..to be the PIGS that they are...

NOTHING...­"BRAVE"...­about sitting in a windowless room PRETENDING that you're NOT violating FISA because your 'JUST ANALYZING THE DATA" gathered by LOCAL POLICE..using the defacto LEGALIZATION of 'Profiling"...No! That's NOT 'OKAY'..and yet..that's the WORKING DEFINITION of..."FUSION CENTERS"..a "Woo-ian" concept specifically designed to get around FISA and PROFILING...turning COPS into "ASSETS"...and the 'Intelligence Community" KNOWS this's illegal..b­ut...they'­re BRAVE enough to rationalize the guilty knowledge with the 'Argument'..'TO PROTECT AMERICA'S FREEDOMS..­'.....Uhhh­..by IGNORING THEM??? Hmmm..Odd 'Logic'...

And 'INFRAGARD'...small business SNITCH program....ALSO a FISA end run...and DIABOLICAL in its vicious nature..

Then of course..The.."WATCH LIST"....Yeah..its "Brave" alright to SECRETLY place peoples names on a "LIST" with NO DUE PROCESS..so these "Brave" Cubical Dwellers will NEVER have to FACE those they've ACCUSED..

Oh..and of course.."ENHANCED INTEROGATION"...or the VERY..:"BRAVE" practice of BURNING EVIDENCE of ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES...of LYING to Congress...

It goes ON and On ad nauseum...But "BRAVE"?...No! But..COWAR­DLY?..Yes!­..CRAVEN?.­.SNEAKY? CORRUPT? AUTHORITAR­IAN?....Ab­solutely!

So Too the APPEASERS..the COLLABERAT­ORS.....Co­wards All!

[RufusFender]

You want Yoo to admit liability and take the heat for the CIA? Yoo is a lawyer -- lawyers never admit liability.

[anachoret]

The way that the failed Bushies continue to support tragic decisions is really disconcerting, since their Party seems to continue to move ever farther into the world of fantasy and the fanatical.

What Yoo , or any of these dead-enders, says should make it clear to the current administration and anyone else, that without investigations and prosecutions we WILL be going right back into this abyss as soon as their party is given another opportunity.

Every time one of them speaks, it becomes clear that this nightmare will recur. That they want it to, and will work with all they have to make it recur.

If our intelligence branches don't make it clear that THEY don't accept, or perhaps even desire, a return to this legal abyss, and we, the people, don't have any assurance that it can be prevented... How are we to trust them? No matter how many times we are assured that this is just a few bad apples, or that they are mostly great and honorable people, it couldn't stop this, and the honorable people don't seem to have the ability or tools to fix what is broken. How can the people trust that this massive power hasn't become rotten and corrupted to it's core?

[EbonBear]

The USA prosecuted Nazi judges who justified the Nuremburg laws. The opinions of a lawyer do not change the law, especially when they are so clearly so far from the accepted spirit and letter of the law. If a lawyer, to provide a legal figleaf to his client, writes an opinion saying "murder is entirely legal", that does not make it so and no judge in his right mind would accept it as a defence.

Yoo's conduct is a disgrace to the legal profession, to centuries of legal practice and principle, to national and international law and to every norm and standard of civilised society. Yoo should be prosecuted, tried and imprisoned. Failing that, I'll settle for his permanent disbarment.

[coachc]

Yoo, Addington, Libby, Wolfowitz ... the entire pseudo intellectual, neocon cabal ... need to be held accountable for their incompetence and constitutional violations.

Isn't it ironic that the same neocons now 'defending' the CIA are the ones who blamed them for 9-11 and WMD intelligence failures. To add insult to injury, their 'il'legal opinions, ideological blundering and meddling in intelligence affairs have put the CIA in the position of being targeted.
If I were in the intelligence business, I'd be pleased to have these two faced clowns out of my area of operations!

[EbonBear]

Yoo, Addington, Libby and Wolfowitz are just somewhere to start. EVERYONE, up and down the chain, who tortured, ordered it or signed off on it, should be prosecuted. From the highest administration official who ordered it (I suspect Cheney), down through those who signed off on it and provided the legal figleaf, right the way down to the torturers themselves. Prosecute the whole lot of them.

[coachc]

Precisely.

[captainkirk]

but that would be so much like a country that believed in the rule of law. where would that be?