Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

A Spanish court is investigating American officials, such as UC-Berkeley law professor John Yoo. The case is absurd. What Yoo and other governmental attorneys did is render a professional judgment that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to certain classes of individual. The premise of the case is that only one legal judgment is possible on that question. There is never only one legal judgment that is possible, as anyone who reads judicial opinions knows. If the Spanish authorities think the judgment is ill-grounded, they should specify where and why. Instead, they want to punish those with whom they disagree. The Spanish authorities are dangerous Bush-hating (or America-hating) zealots.