John Yoo reacts to Obama's Orders

Former justice department official John Yoo just published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Obama's orders involving the closure of Guantanamo and the restriction of CIA interrogations. This article will inspire howls of rage among left-wingers, since they view Yoo as the evil torture lawyer who facilitated the evil Bush administration's torture policies -- what they tend to refer to with ridiculous hyperbole as the "torture regime."

Yoo makes some good points, the most important of which is that

Obama is returning America to the failed law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11, 2001.

Unfortunately, I think he's correct about that. Yoo goes on to argue in favor of pretty much every Bush administration policy regarding detainees and interrogation. I disagree with him on a number of matters. For example, I think his argument goes way too far in maintaining that we won't be able to get any good intelligence without coercive techniques.  But I think it's admirable that he has the courage to continue to defend unpopular positions. 

So far I've seen only one major left-wing site reacting to the op-ed, Think Progress. I skim it occasionally, and it's not exactly a bastion of rational thought. Their post entitled, "Torture Lover John Yoo Excoriates Obama For Banning Torture," does little more than personally attack Yoo for supposedly loving torture -- completely ignoring the fact that people like Yoo don't believe many of the techniques in question even constitute torture. But there was one notable statement.

numerous intelligence experts and real interrogators agree that, far from being “the most effective intelligence tool,” torture simply doesn’t work.

This factually untrue assertion that "torture simply doesn't work," sometimes backed by a simlar appeal to authority logical fallacy, is repeated over and over, especially on the left. That's one reason I have posted several articles on torture and will be posting more.