So Alberto Gonzales has
seen the light:
Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales is promising senators that he will abide by treaties prohibiting the torture of prisoners, despite deriding the restraints as relics in 2002. His confirmation hearing Thursday offered Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee a fresh chance to criticize Gonzales and the advice he gave Bush. Among the most contentious matters is a memo Gonzales wrote in January 2002 in which he argued that the fight against terrorism "renders obsolete" the Geneva Conventions' prohibitions against torture.
In testimony prepared for his hearing, Gonzales said Bush has made clear that the government will defend Americans from terrorists "in a manner consistent with our nation's values and applicable law, including our treaty obligations." Gonzales added "I pledge that, if I am confirmed as attorney general, I will abide by those commitments."
Well that's great counselor. Why did it take you 3 years to see the light? No doubt Gonzales and his defenders will argue that the exigencies of the War on Terror excuse his errors. Indeed, Judge Richard Posner seems to argue that perhaps it was NOT error. But I remind these persons of the wise words of one of our greatest Justices, Louis Brandeis:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent . . . The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 479 (Brandeis dissenting (1928).
Since BushCo is made up of men of zeal without understanding, and whose intentions are in some doubt, now more than ever a knavish weasel like Gonzales is unfit to be Attorney General.
Doubt me? Lets take a look at the statements he endorsed in the past 3 years, shall we?
On the flip
Update [2005-1-5 23:4:28 by Armando]: And in a related story:
U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt. Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibit sending him back.
That would be a violation of the UN Convention on Torture, if anybody is interested.
1/25/02 memo written by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales said "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war" and "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
Gonzales intervened directly with Justice Department lawyers in 2002 to obtain a legal ruling on the extent of the president's authority to permit extreme interrogation practices in the name of national security.
The August 2002 Justice Department memo "was vetted by a larger number of officials, including...the White House counsel's office." The memo "was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and [Cheney counsel] David Addington." The memo included the opinion that laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants." Further, the memo puts forth the opinion that the pain caused by an interrogation must include "injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions--in order to constitute torture." The methods outlined in the memo "provoked concerns within the CIA about possible violation of the federal torture law [and] also raised concerns at the FBI, where some agents knew of the techniques being used" overseas on high-level al Qaeda officials.
Sources: 8/02 Memo, New York Times and Center for American Progress.
The 8/02 Memo endorsed by Gonzales, makes many extraordinary claims. In addition to endorsing the view that the Geneva Conventions did not apply if the President declared it so, other claims stand out and need to be remembered. First, some background regarding the UN Convention Against Torture or CAT, of which the United States is a signatory, and under which the United States enacted law, torture is prohited against ANY individual, not just prisoners of war. See p. 15 of 8/02 Memo. This is significant as the Right Blogosphere makes a point of parsing the Geneva Conventions to argue that "unlawful combatants" are not covered by its terms. This is incorrect and more importantly, irrelevant, as the CAT and U.S. law extend the prohibition of torture to any individual, regardless of military status.
To overcome this pesky problem, Gonzales requested and endorsed a memo opining that the President's war powers trumped any Treaties AND federal laws, all the while violating established protocols and hiding his work from the Attorney General. Let's review the extraordinary passage:
Congress can no more regulate the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield.
Understand the import of these words. According to a memo endorsed by Gonzales, No Treaty, Law, Congress or Court can restrict a President from ordering anything he desires regarding the conduct of War. By this reading there are no Geneva Conventions, there are no Laws, there are no nothings that restrict a President's power. Why do I say this? Two words - Jose Padilla. You see, the War on Terror has been declared to encompass every spot on the Earth. Thus, the President's War Powers, by this theory, can be invoked to do anything, anywhere, for any reason he states, because his exercise of that Power is absolute and beyond review! You can be walking in Chicago, as was Padilla, a citizen of the United States, believing the Bill of Rights protected you from government abuse only to find yourself declared an enemy combatant and stripped of any and all rights, with no lawyer, no Court, no nothin' to complain to. This is the memo Gonzales requested and endorsed. This is the view this man held until just today apparently. This is the man who would be Attorney General, the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the Nation. If this were not actually happening, you could not make this stuff up.
The confirmation of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General must be opposed.