Good Riddance to All That: Justice Stevens’s Pearl Harbor Pardon
Aptly named, ColdFury's take on Stevens:
April 11th, 2010 By Noel Backtalk
A RUST SPOT ON THE CONSTITUTION RETIRES
Thus ends Stevens’s long career of twisting the Constitution to accomplish liberal political goals that the people would never choose themselves. Although the timing is of course calculated to ensure further damage to the Constitution, his retirement is years overdue, in a career that highlights the danger of giving liberals leadership roles in a conservative party. Just another failed politician who could only succeed by putting on a robe, inflicting his blighted politics on the rest of us, and calling it “law”.
Two posts from our Archives, Fall, 2007:
Killing Yamamoto (Pt. 1)
THE ONLY DAMNED DECENT THING HE EVER DID.
And now he’s ashamed of it. Figures.
Jeffrey Rosen on Justice Stevens:
Stevens enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 6, 1941, hours before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He later won a bronze star for his service as a cryptographer, after he helped break the code that informed American officials that Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese Navy and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was about to travel to the front. Based on the code-breaking of Stevens and others, U.S. pilots, on Roosevelt’s orders, shot down Yamamoto’s plane in April 1943.
SoPres. Roosevhitler violated Yamamoto’s Privacy Rights by eavesdropping with illegal wiretaps? Impeach NOW! It’s Not Too Late!!!
Stevens told me he was troubled by the fact that Yamamoto, a highly intelligent officer who had lived in the United States and become friends with American officers, was shot down with so little apparent deliberation or humanitarian consideration.
Actually, there was quite a lot of deliberation as to whether this was proper. And the correct call was made. Stevens should know this.As for “humanitarian considerations”, those were also made–on behalf of our troops, who were also “human”. Yamamoto was not allowed to kill any more of them–that’s very “humanitarian” in my book. Telling, isn’t it, that the presumption for ‘humanitarian consideration’ automatically accrues to the guilty…and never to his victims?
The experience, he said, raised questions in his mind about the fairness of the death penalty. “I was on the desk, on watch, when I got word that they had shot down Yamamoto in the Solomon Islands, and I remember thinking: This is a particular individual they went out to intercept,” he said. “There is a very different notion when you’re thinking about killing an individual, as opposed to killing a soldier in the line of fire.” Stevens said that, partly as a result of his World War II experience, he has tried on the court to narrow the category of offenders who are eligible for the death penalty and to ensure that it is imposed fairly and accurately. He has been the most outspoken critic of the death penalty on the current court.
Except the death penalty for babies.
Prof. Volokh has already done the heavy lifting here:
“Indeed, if Yamamoto’s killing were analogous to the death penalty, then the death penalty should be acclaimed as a high moral imperative: Rather than wondering whether the death penalty saves innocent lives, we’d be nearly sure of it. Rather than wondering whether there are less lethal alternatives that would protect society, we’d know that other alternatives would be vastly less reliable and more dangerous. Rather than wondering whether the target is innocent, we’d be sure that killing him is entirely morally proper. I generally support the death penalty, but I do see strong arguments against it — arguments that flow precisely from the fact that the death penalty is extraordinarily unlike the targeted killing of Yamamoto.”
In criminal-law and death-penalty cases, Stevens has voted against the government and in favor of the individual more frequently than any other sitting justice.
If by “individuals”, you mean “vicious killers”.
…He is the court’s most outspoken defender of the need for judicial oversight of executive power.
We need more executive oversight of raw judicial power.
And in recent years, he has written majority opinions in two of the most important cases ruling against the Bush administration’s treatment of suspected enemy combatants in the war on terror — an issue the court will revisit this term, which begins Oct. 1, when it hears appeals by Guantánamo detainees challenging their lack of access to federal courts.
And they were sloppily-reasoned opinions. But they advanced the chic cause of the Terrorist’s Bill of Rights, and that’s what counts.
Stevens, however, is an improbable liberal icon. “I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all,” he told me during a recent interview in his chambers, laughing and shaking his head. “I think as part of my general politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.”
He’s rightfully ashamed of being a flaming liberal. Good.
…But he noted that the real-world effect of the defeat [on Partial-Birth abortions] was minimal because of the widespread availability of alternative abortion procedures. “The statute is a silly statute,” he said. “It’s a silly statute.” He added, “It’s just a distressing exhibition by Congress, but what we decided isn’t all that important.”
Babies don’t think it’s silly. 100 out of 100 babies polled approve.
I asked whether Stevens thought the right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade would survive in his lifetime. “Well, it’s up to Justice Kennedy,”
Why? Why is it up to one judge? We’re Americans. We’re capable of ruling ourselves. Sure–we’re not all suave, sophisticated gentlemen like yer pal Admiral Yamamoto there, but we can handle this Consent of the Governed-thing. You’ve helped enough, sir. Really. We’ll take it from here, thanks.
As a law clerk, Stevens reviewed cases involving liberty and security after World War II. The experience, he told me, shaped his views about the importance of judicial oversight of the president’s aggressive actions in terrorism cases after 9/11. Stevens worked with Rutledge on a dissent from a 1948 opinion upholding the right of the attorney general to deport German nationals considered to be Nazis without any review by federal courts. Rutledge objected to the idea that federal courts couldn’t issue writs of habeas corpus because the Germans were held on Ellis Island rather than falling within the jurisdiction of a federal district court. Stevens cited Rutledge’s dissent when he wrote a landmark majority opinion in the 2004 Rasul case, which allowed foreign nationals held at Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. (A portrait of Rutledge hangs in Stevens’s chambers.)
Stevens was also influenced by Rutledge’s dissenting opinion in the Yamashita case in 1946, in which the court upheld the power of a military commission to try and to execute a Japanese general in the Philippines in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
I don’t believe a damned word any liberal says about the Geneva Conventions. They’ve stood the Conventions entirely on their heads, extending their benefits to those who never signed them and don’t abide by them, while endlessly crucifying and second-, third- and fourth-guessing those who try, however imperfectly, to honor the spirit of the laws of war. And Justice Stevens has been one of the worst.
Emphasizing the dangers of denying anyone within American jurisdiction a fair trial, Stevens once again cited Rutledge’s dissent in his own opinion in the Hamdan case in 2006, which struck down President Bush’s military commissions because they were not specifically authorized by Congress. (Congress authorized them later that year.)
So this is the work of a lifetime.
Justice Stevens is the only judge old enough to have sided not only with the Imperial Japanese and German Nazis, but American abortionists and now Islamist terrorists–not to mention your work-a-day thugs and killers. Ya’ know, I’m starting to sense a pattern here; I don’t know what kind of strange bug crawled into his skull to nest as a young man…but is there any killer of innocent Americans that Justice Stevens has not befriended?
Stevens regards each new session of the Court as a free-floating Constitutional Convention, where only he and his friends are allowed to speak or vote. The Constitution has an amendment process, but, alas, that is too lengthy for them and its outcome too uncertain. For example, even though capital punishment is mentioned several times in the Constitution, they work tirelessly to make it unused, and therefore “unusual”, as in ‘cruel and unusual’.
Stop it. Get your hands off of our Constitution, sir. Every time you short-circuit it, you are stealing the birthright of self-government from your fellow Americans. You are stealing their Consent.
Go away, damned dinosaurs. Retire, Jurassic Jurists. Begone, Tyrannosaurus Train-wrecks, Brontosauruses of the Bar and Triceratops of Trial Lawyers, and let the People rule again. We did it once upon a time and we can do it again.
p.s.: And if you’re really that ashamed of the Bronze Star you got for killing Yamamoto, you can throw it over the White House fence; I hear it’s all the rage with the younger dinosaurs.
(Tip o’ the Pterodactyl-wing: Ace) ………
Killing Yamamoto (Pt. 2)
AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED, YOU CAN DIG HIM UP AND KILL HIM AGAIN
“…And so many of the blessings and advantages we have, so many of the reasons why our civilization, our culture, has flourished aren’t understood; they’re not appreciated. And if you don’t have any appreciation of what people went through to get, to achieve, to build what you are benefiting from, then these things don’t mean very much to you. You just think, well, that’s the way it is. That’s our birthright. That just happened. [But] it didn’t just happen. And at what price? What grief? What disappointment? What suffering went on? I mean this: I think that to be ignorant or indifferent to history isn’t just to be uneducated or stupid. It’s to be rude, ungrateful. And ingratitude is an ugly failing in human beings.”–Historian David McCullough
As the architect of Pearl Harbor, you know who Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was. And you know who Associate Justice John Paul “I Have Not Yet Begun Not To Fight!” Stevens is.
But have you ever heard the name of Rex Barber? Or Raymond K. Hine? No?
Well, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to “Get Yamamoto!”, Secretary Knox relayed the order Admiral Chester Nimitz. Adm. Nimitz then ran it past his boss, Admiral “Bull” Halsey. Eventually, it filtered down to officers like Marine Lt. Col. Luther S. Moore, Marine Major John Condon and Major John W. Mitchell.
And finally FDR’s order came down to Mitchell’s junior officers, Capt. Thomas G. Lanphier, Jr., 1st Lt. Rex T. Barber, Lt. Besby F. Holmes…and Lt. Raymond K. Hine.
Wikipedia:
Eighteen P-38s were tasked for the mission. One flight of four was designated as the “killer” flight while the remainder, which included two spares, would climb to 18,000 feet to act as “top cover” for the expected reaction by Japanese fighters based at Kahili. …
The specially-fitted P-38s took off from Guadalcanal’s Fighter Two airstrip beginning at 07:25. The date, April 18, had the significance of being the one-year anniversary of the Doolittle Raid as well as being Easter Sunday. Two of the Lightnings assigned to the killer flight dropped out of the mission at the start, one with a tire flattened during takeoff and the second when its drop tanks would not feed fuel to the engines.
These pilots then flew 435 miles while maintaining radio silence, flying 50 ft. above the waves to avoid detection. Try it sometime.
Mitchell’s flight of four led the squadron “on the deck” with the killer flight, consisting of Capt. Thomas G. Lanphier, Jr., 1st Lt. Rex T. Barber, and the spares, Lt. Besby F. Holmes and Lt. Raymond K. Hine, immediately behind, fighting off drowsiness, navigating by flight plan and dead reckoning. This proved to be the longest fighter-intercept mission of the war and was so skillfully executed by Major Mitchell that his force arrived at the intercept point one minute early, at 09:34, just as Yamamoto’s aircraft descended into view in a light haze. Mitchell ordered his planes to drop tanks, turned to the right to parallel the bombers, and began a full power climb.
Lt. Holmes was unable to drop his tanks and turned back to sea, followed by his wingman, Lt. Hine. Mitchell radioed Lanphier and Barber to engage, and they turned to climb toward the eight aircraft. The closest escort fighters dropped their own tanks and began to dive toward the pair of P-38s. Lanphier, in a sound tactical move, immediately turned head-on and climbed towards the escorts while Barber chased the diving bomber transports. Barber banked steeply to turn in behind the bombers and momentarily lost sight of them, but when he regained contact he was immediately behind one and began firing into its right engine, rear fuselage, and empennage. Barber hit its left engine, it began to trail heavy black smoke, and the Betty rolled violently to the left, Barber narrowly avoiding a collision. Looking back he saw a column of black smoke and assumed it had crashed into the jungle. Barber headed towards the coast at treetop level, searching for the second bomber, not knowing which bomber carried Yamamoto.
Lt. Barber spotted the second bomber low over the water off Moila Point just as Holmes (whose wing tanks had finally come off) and Hine attacked it. Holmes damaged the right engine of the Betty, which began emitting a white vapor trail, then he and Hine flew over the damaged bomber, carrying Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki and part of Yamamoto’s staff. Barber next attacked the stricken bomber, pieces of it damaging his own aircraft, and it crash-landed in the water. Ugaki survived the crash as did two others, and all were later rescued. Barber, Holmes and Hine were attacked by Zeroes, Barber’s P-38 receiving 140 hits, and Holmes and Barber each claiming a Zero shot down during this meleé. The top cover briefly engaged reacting Zeroes without making any kills, and Major Mitchell observed the column of smoke from Yamamoto’s crashed bomber. Lt. Hine’s P-38 had disappeared by this point, presumably crashed in to the water. Running close to their point-of-no-return fuel levels, the P-38s broke off contact and returned to base, with Lt. Holmes so short of fuel that he was forced to land in the Russell Islands. Lt. Hine’s Lightning was the only one missing and was never found. He is listed on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery along with these awards: the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.
Controversy arose when Capt. Lanphier immediately claimed that he had been the one to get Yamamoto, although history clearly favors Lt. Rex Barber’s claim.
Lanphier even broke radio silence on his way back to base, saying “I got Yamamoto!”, even though that could have alerted the Japanese that we had broken their code. Further, some pilot or pilots told the press that we had been following Yamamoto “for days”, again risking the vital secret.
Reportedly, Halsey had Medals of Honor in his desk for Maj. Mitchell and his four attack pilots, but angrily downgraded them to Navy Crosses when he learned of the security breach.
Regardless of these controversies, all of these men served their country with bravery and struck a strong blow for victory, demoralizing the enemy and depriving them of a valuable commander. ……
John Paul Stevens was safely piloting a desk in Washington when the news of the raid came in. And by his own admission, his first impulse was to worry if it was fair…to Yamamoto! The genteel, Harvard-educated son-of-a-bitch who bombed Pearl Harbor!
While Lt. Raymond K. Hine was still floating around in the South Pacific surf, Stevens was worried that we had “rushed to war” with Yamamoto without extending him the proper “humanitarian considerations”. Screw that. And that’s the same courtesy he extended to killers over their victims in death penalty cases. Screw that, too.
Aside from his apparent shame over his role in killing Yamamoto, one of the most troubling implications of Stevens’ recent statements is the dangerous tendency to approach war as a law-enforcement problem.
He claims Yamamoto was shot down with ’so little apparent deliberation’. From what I can gather, the operation was examined and approved at the highest levels. Even so, leisurely deliberation and Socratic debate are luxuries for lawyers in peacetime, not for soldiers in the heat of battle, nor a military in the throes of a campaign. At best, it bespeaks a profound unseriousness about achieving victory, as if those pilots could have subpeonaed Yamamoto or served him a warrant instead.
Don’t laugh–because the implication for a bin Laden is exactly that.
The Left has relentlessly mocked the president (instead of the enemy–imagine!) for the failure to get bin Laden (I think he’s dead, myself). But if bin Laden were captured, the Left would seemlessly shift gears and start advocating for Usama’s “rights”, just as Stevens is advocating for Yamamoto’s.
We would immediately hear charges of illegal “extraordinary rendition!”. Extraordinary rendition was fine for Elian Gonzales, you see…but not for terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
If bin Laden had only bombed Pearl Harbor instead of Manhattan, and finally got his day in court, he’d have one sure vote for acquittal on the United States Supreme Court.
And there’s your new ‘day of infamy’.
coldfury.com |
