Friday

quo erat demonstratum

No Misconduct Found in Interrogation Memos

1 comment:

Pedantic Contrarian said...

Unbelievable. "Poor judgment" is a nice, lawyerly way to put it. They fucked up.

I may not be an attorney yet - or even started studying the law, for that matter - but I've yet to find a convincing argument about how Yoo and "the Bush Six" aren't responsible for their decisions, especially considering overwhelming evidence of misguided professional advice in memos and interviews, as well as more tangible things like several enlisted troops along with a few officers pleading guilty to a slew of cruelty, maltreatment and assault charges under orders of crackpot politics and "poor judgment".

Maybe Yoo was too wrapped up with the hypotheticals of Boalt to know better. But, and call me crazy, how is an attorney whose advice results in real decisions with real consequences not infinitely culpable, especially when violating the Geneva convention or committing war crimes?

Judge Jeffrey White put it best back in June: "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the
foreseeable consequences of their conduct."

They gave really terrible advice, that yielded really terrible results, and deserved real punishment, but instead received "poor judgment".

Simply unreal.