Today, at the right-wing site Ricochet, John Yoo o ffers a defense of the Iraq War. Among Yoo's arguments is this:
In law, we often come upon a situation after an event -- a crime, an accident, etc. -- and we must decide what to do based on the knowledge we have now. Courts award damages based on the harm to the victim and the harm to society. Suppose you thought that the Iraq war was a mistake. If so, isn't the proper remedy to restore Saddam Hussein's family and the Baath Party to power in Iraq? If you are unwilling to consider that remedy, aren't you conceding that on balance, the benefits of the war outweigh the costs?When I read that, I was reminded of this, which strikes me as a roughly analogous situation:
Gerri Bostic lost all her material possessions [in 1985] when police dropped a bomb on her block, killing five children and six adult members of the militant group MOVE and incinerating 61 row homes....If I'm following John Yoo's logic correctly, he'd argue that if you think the bombing of Osage Avenue was a mistake, then you believe it would be acceptable for the MOVE group (or its ideological descendants, since all but one adult MOVE member died in the bombing) to be a 24-hour-a-day nuisance to Osage Avenue or wherever else its residents may have moved. By Yoo's logic, those are your only two choices: either you think the original situation was just swell, or you have to accept the government's remedy no matter how it was carried out.
Her West Philadelphia neighborhood - now nearly vacant and eerily quiet - never recovered from the city's horrific botched attempt to arrest the MOVE members on May 13, 1985....
The revolutionary back-to-nature group came to the city's Cobbs Creek section after a 1978 shootout with police at its previous home. One officer died in the firefight; nine MOVE members went to prison, and others moved to Osage Avenue.
They soon turned their middle-class row house into a fortified compound, with a bunker on the roof and wooden slats over the windows. Reeking garbage attracted vermin, and loudspeakers blared obscene daily rants against authorities for jailing their peers....
Police decided to move on MOVE in mid-May 1985, obtaining arrest and search warrants on the belief the group's house contained illegal weapons and explosives. Authorities evacuated the block on May 12, telling residents there would be a police action the next day.
When they were refused entry to serve the warrants on May 13, police began an hours-long siege using water cannons, tear gas and bullets. A state police helicopter flew overhead carrying Philadelphia officers and a canvas satchel loaded with explosives.
The bomb ignited a gasoline-fueled conflagration that killed the MOVE militants and children and obliterated two blocks of homes. Ramona Africa, then 29, and Birdie Africa, then 13, escaped with major burns.
Residents, who had been told to take just a change of clothes with them, came home to find ruins....
After 14 years of unending repairs, then-Mayor John Street decided in 2000 that the houses were beyond salvage....
Forgive me if I don't accept that logic.
