by John Yoo
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Product Description
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has come under fire for its methods of combating terrorism. Waging war against al Qaeda has proven to be a legal quagmire, with critics claiming that the administration's response in Afghanistan and Iraq is unconstitutional. The war on terror—and, in a larger sense, the administration's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto accords—has many wondering whether the constitutional framework for making foreign affairs decisions has been discarded by the present administration.
John Yoo, formerly a lawyer in the Department of Justice, here makes the case for a completely new approach to understanding what the Constitution says about foreign affairs, particularly the powers of war and peace. Looking to American history, Yoo points out that from Truman and Korea to Clinton's intervention in Kosovo, American presidents have had to act decisively on the world stage without a declaration of war. They are able to do so, Yoo argues, because the Constitution grants the president, Congress, and the courts very different powers, requiring them to negotiate the country's foreign policy. Yoo roots his controversial analysis in a brilliant reconstruction of the original understanding of the foreign affairs power and supplements it with arguments based on constitutional text, structure, and history.
Accessibly blending historical arguments with current policy debates, The Powers of War and Peace will no doubt be hotly debated. And while the questions it addresses are as old and fundamental as the Constitution itself, America's response to the September 11 attacks has renewed them with even greater force and urgency.
“Can the president of the United States do whatever he likes in wartime without oversight from Congress or the courts? This year, the issue came to a head as the Bush administration struggled to maintain its aggressive approach to the detention and interrogation of suspected enemy combatants in the war on terrorism. But this was also the year that the administration’s claims about presidential supremacy received their most sustained intellectual defense [in] The Powers of War and Peace.”—Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times
“Yoo’s theory promotes frank discussion of the national interest and makes it harder for politicians to parade policy conflicts as constitutional crises. Most important, Yoo’s approach offers a way to renew our political system’s democratic vigor.”—David B. Rivkin Jr. and Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky, National Review
(20051211)
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Justification for tyranny but a solution for terrorism is needed, 2008-12-12
Lawyer John Yoo worked with the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 to provide legal justification for a variety of illegal and unconstitutional tactics to be used by the administration to fight terrorism. For example, Yoo claimed presidents have unilateral authority to initiate wars without Congressional approval. Clearly this violates the Constitution. This power was explicity given to Congress. And this book tries to justify a variety of acts of tyranny, large and small, by a president beset with a problem he couldn't cope with.
9/11 overwhelmed the Bush administration. But I do not fault President Bush too much -- realize that such an attack would overwhelm ANY president of either party. Generally, serious terrorism can easily knock over any democratically elected government like a tsunami, and the United States is no exception. Democracies under attack by serious terrorist conspiracies typically revert to an authoritarian structure to fight the attack, and government usually wins its war, but during these times citizens suffer. This happened in the Philippines under Marcos and in Chile under Pinochet. That the Bush administration resorted to extra-legal tactics to try to protect people is understandable but problematic because it undermines freedom and the rule of law. But I think partisans on the left are as clueless as those on the right about what to do.
How can we cope with mysterious thugs hiding in caves seeking weapons of mass destruction? For me, that's the underlying problem. Solve terrorism; and you'll solve the problem of illegal activity by government and make everybody safer.
How is terrorism prevented?
Check out my book: "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism". It's on Amazon & Kindle. It's a terrorism prevention strategy which is non-partisan, rational, tough, non-religious, non-technical, brief, written by a citizen for citizens. It prevents terrorism, even smuggled nuclear bombs. But it isn't easy. One expert found it "bracing". Parts are controversial. If America followed my strategy, government wouldn't have to commit tyranny to fight terrorism, and presidents wouldn't have to summon second rate lawyers to justify illegal activity.
Examine America: the political process is broken. Washington is corrupt. Congress is gridlocked by pointless partisan squabbling. There's a dangerous concentration of power in the executive branch in one person -- the president -- and the system of checks and balances has come undone. The federal system is out of whack -- ideally state governments should regulate their own economies, but Washington has usurped this power through numerous rulings, often encouraged by the Supreme Court. And this body of unelected justices has, in many respects, assumed a quasi-legislative role never intended by the Constitution's Framers, because it can strike down any law it deems unconstitutional. Washington is like a giant crashed computer, unresponsive to keystrokes, unable to cope with serious issues such as Social Security underfunding, the specter of terrorism, financial meltdowns, global warming, corruption, lobbying running rampant, and so on.
Americans should read "The American Lie" by Benjamin Ginsberg; "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution" by Kevin R. C. Gutzman; my book; "Up To Our Eyeballs" by several authors; "Our Undemocratic Constitution" by Sanford Levinson; "How America Got It Right" by Bevin Alexander (a tough critique of American foreign policy despite the positive sounding title). These are non-partisan looks at a nation in deep denial. What's needed is serious, structural reform.
I think the problems are so dangerous that a Second Constitutional Convention is required to fix them. So I have summoned this body, using my authority as a private citizen, to convene in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, beginning July 4th, 2009, to craft a new document based on the existing one but which: (1) prevents crime, tyranny, and foreign terrorism (2) restores citizenship as an active relationship between individual and government with specific responsibilities and privileges (3) restores the federal structure where state governments have the most authority to regulate their respective economies (4) fixes the architecture of government to permit intelligent and long-range foreign policy (5) identifies movement in public (to thwart terrorism) while preserving privacy (6) de-politicizes the Supreme Court (7) limits factionalism (8) restores checks and balances between the branches of government.
I challenge readers to read my book or the others mentioned and ignore John Yoo's.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Horrible read don't waste your time!!, 2008-06-16
This book proves to be unconstitutional, I cannot believe John Yoo teaches at UC Berkeley, I would be ashamed to call myself a professor and a patriot writing a book like this.
1 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
 Reasoned, 2007-05-13
John Yoo's book makes cogent arguments based upon a careful legal analysis and established constitutional principles. A fine contribution to the debate of our times.
13 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
Terrifying Justice Department Double Think, 2006-10-06
Mr Yoo moves on from his earlier arguments that torture falls at a point slightly short of physical death, organ failure or loss of limb. Mr Yoo makes some interesting if devastating points with his new theories. The President's war powers, he argues, allow him to do, basically, whatever he wants. The President may, if he chooses, crush the genitals of children, maim, torture or kill civilians. In this respect one might remember that Bush ordered an air strike on the house occupied by the infant grandchildren of Saddam Hussein AFTER the end of the Iraq war and even though the house was surrounded by US troops. The President is limited, according to Mr Yoo, only by how he CHOOSES to interpret International Treaties and as he has the power to repudiate such treaties or ignore them entirely (as in the International Human Rights for the Child Treaty, the Geneva Convention or the Treaty of Vienna,) then, this means that presidential power is absolute EVEN if despotic criminal or tyrannical. Mr Yoo appears now to say that the President and his henchmen, cronies and agencies MAY indeed use indiscriminant torture. Mr Yoo however does not adequately explain how the President can thus overturn congressional treaty ratification. As what constitutes a 'time of war' is also up to the President and does not rely on any 'legal' declaration of war (which is a matter of international law to which the US is thus not subject,) then the US may have, effectively, a Despot Emperor for President. Does the 'War on Drugs' thus give the President the same wartime powers as he asserts for his 'War on Terror' - an undeclared war on no particular nation state? Is the US thus always in a state of war? This is interesting, not just semantically, as the District and Supreme Courts appear to agree with Mr Yoo's interpretation, blocking cases connected with this on grounds of national security whilst Congress does not appear to care. Perhaps Clinton should have used Mr Yoo's arguments in the Monical Lewinsky scandal and impeachment hearings. War powers might have thus allowed him to do whatever he wanted with his cigar and to lie about it in the national interest. The problem with Mr Yoo's argument is that Checks and Balances thus no longer appear to exist. Interestingly if one applies Mr Yoo's arguments to their logical end he becomes an eloquent advocate for terrorism or for the Holocaust where the ends justify the use of any means, however horrible. Of course, either this is pretty much nonsense and makes toilet paper of the Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, democracy and human rights OR the truth is more terrifying and the US is now a Stalinist or Nazi state. I suspect Mr Yoo could be subject to arrest as a war criminal should he ever leave the United States and visit a civilised country???
16 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
Yoo has no clue!, 2006-06-22
The 2 biggest mistakes made by government in my lifetime are Congress giving away war powers in 1965 and 2002. The constitution holds that declaring war is the responsibility of the Congress. If the Executive has grounds for war let him/her present them and Ccongress vote. Twice I have seen Congress abdicate this important power with disasterous results. This is just one of many examples why Yoo has no clue.
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