John Yoo Photo courtesy of newsplex.com
John Yoo, the author of the controversial so-called torture memos, made a few speeches in Charlottesville Friday.
His first stop was at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Protesters spoke out before he even got to the podium. Officials from the center said the response was unlike anything they’ve ever seen there before.
Protesters shouted out over the crowd, and several in the crowd shouted back. “You are violating our rights to listen to this man,” one said.
Eventually, Yoo took the stage to talk about his new book, Crisis and Command, a history of executive power from George Washington to George W. Bush.
Yoo took the entire ordeal in stride. “I would like to, I think, thank you for the invitation to speak here,” Yoo said. Yoo continued to talk in between outbursts from protesters, including several who were escorted out by police.
“One thing I very much believe actually is that if you serve in the government, you have a responsibility to explain why we made the decisions that we did, but if you prevent me from giving the answers, you’re never going to hear them,” Yoo said.
Comments
As a young boy I grew up in Scotland during the 2nd world war.I went to class with Jewish children whose parents disappeared into Nazi concentration camps. Lawyers like Mr Yoo in Third Reich presented plausible arguments based on the Nazi interpretations of German law. Many were tried at Nuremberg and found guilty. Unfortunately in America expediency prevailed over justice. Mr Yoo should have been prosecuted and disbarred,allowing him a forum at UVA was a discredit to the institution
This is just some pandering to the extreme right wing, so that donations keep coming in, right?
Kinda like that kook over in the College who teaches that global warming is a myth?
By all means, let me know when the geology department presents a creationist sponsored lecture showing that the world is really just 6,000 years old!
(Really, it’s true—the dinosaurs lived in the townhouse development down the block from your great great grandparents!!)
Because John Yoo has no more credibility than those kooks.
John Yoo was instrumental in allowing the United States of America, under the Bush Administration, to commit war crimes, as defined by both the U.S. Army Field Manual and the Geneva Conventions. He properly belongs in prison and most certainly not at Mr. Jefferson’s university.
“Torture defender”...oh come on.
I read with interest the article about John Yoo’s speech and the attempts to sabotage his presentation. It was very instructive but not unexpected to read that the same hypocrites who would defend the rights of terrorists (are we still allowed to use that term?)to be tried in federal courts would silence the voice of someone with views contrary to their own.
If nothing else is it not the duty of a University student to examine points of view contrary to his own? Is that not part of the learning process? I would like to think that those protestors were not enrolled at UVa, but, sadly, suspect that not to be the case. This is not one of the University’s prouder moments.
I am very disappointed to learn that U.Va. extended an invitation to John Yoo. Mr. Benyon is right that the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers should have faced sanctions for their facilitation of lawlessness (on several fronts) and torture. There is a difference between giving a forum to a wide variety of viewpoints and giving it to someone who has betrayed his ethics as a lawyer and his responsibilities as a person.
I think torturing terrorists is perfectly fine if it allows us to save even one innocent American life. I am shocked that so many people want to protect terrorists when they are trying to murder us.
Miller Center folks may not have seen such disruption before, but I was part of one as an undergrad. It was shortly after the Chicago police, working with the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation burst into a house and murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, local NAACP and Black Panther members. US Solicitor General Erwin Griswold was the speaker. There were disruptions from the audience and some students marched across the stage with a mattress with Fred Hampton’s name written in red paint. Too bad Mr. Griswold was the next available target coming to the grounds from the govt., because he advanced many good causes in his career.
In Mr. Yoo’s case, he should he disbarred at the minimum and properly in prison. Should U.Va. sponsor controversial speakers? Sure. Should they expect them to have to contend with students who protest their appearance outside the bounds of normal politeness? Yep. Torture isn’t polite.
Ahhh, a comment section. Let the overheated rhetoric from the lunatic fringe commence…
I strongly object to your magazine’s characterization of law professor and former Justice Department official John Yoo as a “torture defender.” I expect that kind of biased rhetoric from some kind of socialist “workers of the world unite” publication, or from al-Jazeera, not from an official publication of UVA. Professor Yoo was a guest and visitor to our supposedly “open” university, and you owe him and the entire UVA community an immediate apology. Unlike so many others with 20-20 hindsight, or those who would coddle terrorists and place Americans in harms’ way, Prof. Yoo did his duty to advise the White House and defend America in the face of the vicious attacks of 9-11 (remember those!!!). It is wrong and unbecoming of this great university to blithely refer to him as a “torture defender,” as if he was Torquemada or Hitler.
By ‘torture’ do you mean ‘waterboarding?’ If so, then it should be noted that waterboarding is routinely done to many members of the Armed Forces for training purposes. Are they also being “tortured?”
It is “wrong and unbecoming of this great university to blithely refer to him as a ‘torture defender,’? and this “biased rhetoric” is expected from only “some kind of socialist publication”?
Maybe a wee bit overblown?
Such strident rhetoric and exaggerated stance undermine your argument, as they themselves are “unbecoming”. Individual writers/editors choose a headline, and it runs. I don’t think we need to take it to the Rector and Visitors. There is no conspiracy to avoid using the ridiculous term “enhanced interrogation” (which is so silly it always appears in quotation marks). No one owes anyone an apology (except maybe Woo).
Guess I’m a “torture defender” defender.
Mark and Bianca… “Torture Defender” was a poor choice of words and inciteful in its intent; and it wasn’t particularly creative as you simply piggybacked on the ill-described “torture memos”. The principle of free speech says UVA should give him a podium. One doesn’t have to agree with him… don’t even have to attend the lecture (which most of you didn’t). In the end, he did his job… which was to interpret the law in favor of his employer; just like lawyers everywhere do on a daily basis. Remember, ethics is no more within the purview or a lawyer than it is a journalist.
In addition to the posted objections regarding editorializing, allow me to object simply to the frequent use of the word “torture” in today’s political debate. If you do not like “enhanced interrogation” find some other politically-loaded phrase. However to use “torture” tragically diminishes the horrors inflicted upon a range of victims over the centuries who have endured true, severe physical and psychological damage. I find it impossible to put the our current prisoners’ treatment in the same category regardless of claims that have been made by Gitmo prisoners or their political allies. Actual victims from past history deserve more reverence than to dilute their suffering in order for you to make current political points.
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