War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror

John Yoo has become the boogeyman for liberal angst over President Bush's policies in the War on Terror. Gitmo, electronic eavesdropping, torture/interrogations and habeas corpus issues have all sat at the top of the list of grievances by anti-war types without any real discussion over what their alternatives would be. Yoo presents a cogent, balanced argument for why these policies were put into place using strict legal reasoning. He defines torture within the context of the war on terror based upon our country's longstanding case law (Eisentrager, for example) rather than some emotive, normative argument as his detractors have resorted to. Like it or not, the Bush Admin's legal rationale for pursuing these policies is sound, as evinced by the Obama/Holder continuance therein. A recommended read for all interested in an insider account of Justice's OLC and the Bush Admin's war against terrorism.

Anyone who really wants to understand how the legal decisions in the War on Terror were made, rather than depend on the red state-blue state polemical attacks, should read John Yoo's book. That he perceived his first duty to be to protect the nation and to protect those in our military and intelligence services, who are on the front lines, rather than to protect political correctness or the Bush administration, is to his credit. He, too, is a soldier defending us, but in his case, moral rather than physical courage was called for. This Marine veteran says thank you to him. Robert A. Hall Author of "The Good Bits."

WAR BY OTHER MEANS: AN INSIDER'S ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ON TERROR is not your ordinary survey of 9/11: comes from one of the members of a skeletal staff at the Office of Legal Council who stayed behind while Washington, D.C. evacuated in the aftermath of events, and thus offers the observations of one who had a ringside seat to the politics behind the response to al Qaeda. It was John Yoo's analysis which led to some of Bush's most controversial approaches and politics, from Guantanamo Bay to military trials and the Patriot Act: WAR BY OTHER MEANS surveys not only events and personalities, but the even more important legal foundations of these decisions, offering an unprecedented view of events key to any thorough understanding. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

"War by Other Means" is a must-read for anyone who wants to be a well-informed critic, supporter, or observer of the Bush Administration's response to 9/11. And it's all the more compelling because it's written by John Yoo, the man who authored much of the legal analysis behind the Administration's war on terror, while serving as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003. "War by Other Means" examines all aspects of the war on terror, including the NSA wiretapping controversy, the Patriot Act, the legal status of enemy combatants, coercive interrogation of detainees, key Supreme Court decisions, the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, military commissions, and the cases of specific terrorist suspects, such as Jose Padilla. Throughout the book, Yoo's central theses are that 1) during wartime, the boundaries of the separation of powers shift, giving the President, as commander-in-chief, broader authority; and 2) in Yoo's words, "it would be a mistake to believe that the Constitution's framework for criminal justice should apply to war." Yoo explains that "[Criminal justice] involves the fundamental relationship between the people and its government, and so ought to be regulated by clear, strict rules defining the power given by the principal to its agent. [War], however, involves a foreign enemy who is not part of the American political community, and so should not benefit from the regular peacetime rules that define it." I highly recommend "War by Other Means." You may not agree with Yoo's theses, but his arguments are sure to be thought-provoking, and you'll come away with an in-depth understanding of the legal case for expanded presidential power in wartime.

John Yoo succeeds in explaining the legal and policy justifications for the major issues attendant to the war on terror. In careful prose, interspersed with copious legal case law, background and practical analysis, Yoo establishes in eight weighty but readable chapters the legal underpinnings for such hot button issues as the non-application of the Geneva Conventions, the Patriot Act, NSA and the recent allegations about wiretapping, the media myths about Guantanamo, interrogation and the need for military commissions. His unemotional treatment of these issues is far preferable than having these crucial issues politicized by media writers like Andrew Sullivan, politicos like Ted Kennedy, and the emotional silliness of Keith Olbermann. These are issues too important to be left to the sophomores.