Lawyerly quotes of the day

Two of my favorite recent quotes from lawyers are contained in this short collection by Roger Alford at Opinio Juris. The first was by Marty Lederman:

The strongest response that can be made to those who challenge violations of the laws of war by the Bush Administration is that these same voices were silent when the laws of war were being violated by NATO during the Kosovo war. You could call this argument “A pox on both your houses.”

and the second from Harold Koh:

I recently was talking with a Senator who said to me, “Professor, we didn’t ask the terrorists to sign the Geneva Conventions. How can you expect us to abide by commitments that they don’t adhere to?” To which I replied, “Yes, and we didn’t ask the whales to sign the Whaling Convention either. We sign these treaties to protect us from ourselves, not from them.”