Cries of Outrage Over Memos on Torture

Re “Scholar Calmly Takes Heat for His Memos on Torture,” May 16: I do not understand the outrage directed toward John Yoo. Last I knew, we still enjoyed freedom of speech in this country. Yoo, as a constitutional scholar, has the right, and to a certain degree an obligation, to offer his interpretation of the Constitution and other U.S. laws.

The real issue at hand is not the interpretation he offered but the fact that our government decided to accept his opinion and make torture an acceptable practice in U.S. policy. The outrage many people are feeling, myself included, should be directed toward the Bush administration for adopting a policy that condones torture. The practice of torture is immoral, whether it can be justified under law or not, and definitely should not be condoned by our government.

Eric J. Norman

West Hollywood

*

For years now, I have been deeply troubled by my country’s current policies, which suggest faith in the proposition that the ends justify the means, despite millenniums of philosophic thought to the contrary. What is the worth of an honorable goal obtained by dishonorable methods? The question seems to be as timely now as it apparently was to the ancient Greeks.

Scholars such as Yoo who feel that the world has somehow fundamentally changed after 9/11 now propose a new concept: “The means justify the means.” Do such thinkers suggest that honorable discussion can make despicable methods honorable?

I am not a Wall Street pundit, but I thankfully never bought into the idea that the market had somehow fundamentally changed because of “the new technology.” I am not a legal scholar, but I would respectfully suggest to Professor Yoo and to all the other “new legal thinkers” that morality has not fundamentally changed since 9/11; they should frame their thoughts and legal constructs accordingly.

Bob Lynch

Pasadena

*

It is even more morally troubling to learn from your story that Yoo is a “mild-mannered professor,” “accessible and friendly,” “a nice guy” with “a good sense of humor.” For he is also an ideological extremist, a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, recipient of an award from the right-wing Federalist Society and a scholar whose publications are so radically at odds with academic and judicial consensus that his academic colleagues commonly label him a “revisionist.”

His memos justifying torture are of a piece with his entire ideological profile. That they were produced by a mild-mannered nice guy serves to remind us of Hannah Arendt’s warning about the banality of evil.

Robert Benson

Professor of Law

Loyola Law School

Los Angeles