July 13, 2009
Thomas M. Mengler, Dean and Ryan Chair in Law
University of St. Thomas, School of Law
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403
Dear Dean Mengler,
Thank you for your June 22, 2009 studied response to a copy of the article that I had sent to the Star Tribune. My letter was sent in response to a Bill Moyers Journal PBS program on May 29, 2009.
I regret that you apparently missed the point of my letter to the editor. I commented on the apparent failure of St. Thomas Law School to fulfill its Mission Statement: The University of St. Thomas School of Law, as a Catholic law school, is dedicated to integrating faith and reason in the search for truth through a focus on morality and social justice.
On page 36 of the January 9, 2002, Yoo/Delahunty memo, they cite "In Brown v United States", 12 U.S. (8 Crunch) 110 (1814), wherein Chief Justice Marshall again stated that customary international law "is a guide which the sovereign follows or abandons at his will. The rule, like other precepts of morality, of humanity, and even of wisdom, is addressed, to the judgment of the sovereign; and although it cannot be disregarded by him without obloquy, yet it may be disregarded." Yoo and Delahunty seem to grant the "sovereign" (president) the right to disregard the "precept of morality".
I profess no legal skills but do claim an intense devotion to my values that have been shaped over many years by Catholic tradition including 16 years of parochial schools. I was taught we are all "Children of God" and that every life is precious and entitled to humane treatment. I find it strange and perhaps hypocritical for an institution founded to teach "a focus on morality and justice" to hire a professor who would recommend exempting any individual from these God-endowed rights. Torture does not honor those rights to humans as determined by any society, but especially ours that claims a Judeo-Christian tradition and a university that proclaims it.
I believe your argument about dates to be specious and irrelevant. By your own statement, Delahunty "...took the position that the Geneva Conventions do not apply as a matter of law to Al Qaeda,.." The later "torture memos" that delineated the specific methods of torture sanctioned by James Bybee, John A. Rizzo and others obviously expand on what John Yoo and Robert Delahunty had already granted: enemy combatants were apparently not human and therefore did not deserve to be accorded the rights outlined in the Geneva Conventions. Clearly Professor Delahunty did not consider it vital to acknowledge that torture is immoral and a violation of social justice regardless of political or citizen status.
As a graduate of St. Thomas, I am disappointed that you would continue Professor Delahunty's term of employment and laud him for having worked in those "institutions with distinction." The quality of his opinions given during his work for the Bush administration is obviously debatable, regardless of whether or not he has served St. Thomas with distinction.
Finally, being proud of my German ancestry, I have for years been aware of the shame that nation and my relatives have endured because their ancestors' silence during the Nazi years. It is clear from the judgment rendered at the Nuremberg Trials that conscience still takes precedence over "following orders." To be faithful to that cause, and to avoid suffering the same shame, I continue to speak out against any institution or nation that remains silent when its core moral values are ignored.
At least, Dean Mengler, I would hope you would concede the mistake made when Dr. Delahunty was hired and persuade him to publicly apologize (as Robert McNamara did - too many years too late) and recognize his failure to promote conscience over the letter of the law.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Heberle, 1959, 1962
St. Anthony, MN 55418
Reading Heberle's letter, it struck me how law professor Robert Delahunty's basic mistake in beginning the "golden shield" legal framework which enabled the Bush-Cheney Administration to reinstitute illegal torture was the same one that's all too common in war situations: his dehumanization of "enemy combatants". As an aside, Pulitzer-prize winning writer Chris Hedges has written repeatedly (in his book War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning and elsewhere) about the fact that war atrocities almost always have their roots in the dehumanization of the enemy. Not since General Smedley Butler's light went on in the early 1930s and he wrote "War Is a Racket" has someone explained so fully how wars start and always end in dehumanizing crimes that victimize everyone. Hedges is scheduled to speak at the PIGSTOCK 7th Annual Peace Gathering sponsored by Chapter 115 of the Vets for Peace this Saturday, July 18th, in Hager City, Wisconsin (directions here). Tickets are still available at: http://pigstockwi.com/buy-tick... Let's tell the law school deans and professors they are most welcome and would certainly learn something if they'd come!
