I've been drafting this for about a week. It's frustrating that there are severe space limits for publishable pieces when there is so much to say about this issue. I've used "Republican senators" in this draft, while prior drafts read "the US Senate." Only time will tell which version I get to use. Feedback appreciated.
AZ Senators' Votes Condone Torture
The last six weeks have brought us some of the oddest disconnects in recent historical memory. The most lavish inaugural celebrations ever thrown took place against a backdrop of spiraling federal deficits, war, and over fourteen hundred dead American soldiers, whose coffins American citizens are not allowed to see. The President's inaugural address did not even mention Iraq (imagine Harry Truman ignoring World War II in his 1945 address), but the omission received less airtime than Spongebob's purported sexual preference. Each of these examples suggests a fundamental chasm between the Bush Administration and its puppeteers and things that matter to people in America and the world. While annoying, even insulting, this chasm has not been personally frightening, until now. The greatest sign yet that something is rotten in America is also an odd disconnect, but goes beyond annoying. This one is horrifying. Yesterday, just as the world applauded Iraqis for bravely if symbolically choosing law and life over violence and death, Republican Senators, including ours from Arizona, voted to embrace violence and lawlessness by promoting the man who defends torture. Say it aloud: The Federal Government of the United States of America now embraces torture. You have brought shame to Arizona, Mr. Kyl. I'm shocked and appalled, Mr. McCain. I hoped you had seen enough torture during you captivity in Vietnam and expected better from you.
The choice facing the Senate in the confirmation of Alberto Gonzalez as the next Attorney General was a very simple choice, really: do we promote the man who advocated torture if it serves U.S. interests, or do we stand up for human rights and international law by voting no? This is not calculus--it is simple arithmetic. A vote to confirm was a vote condoning his record, his statements, and his public obfuscations before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yet Republican Senators--plus one Democrat, Ken Salazar of Colorado--failed this simple test. Due to their failure, the man who is now our Attorney General believes he and the President can choose when international laws and treaties do and do not apply. There is perhaps no assertion more damaging to the cause of peace and democracy than this. Republicans caused inestimable harm to the already shaky credibility of the United States in the international community by approving these policies through their vote to confirm.
In the morass of Memos and legal opinions surrounding this issue, one of the more frightening aspects of Gonzalez's view has received little attention. In a memo discussing the consequences of the President's decision that the Geneva treaty on the treatment of Prisoners of War does not apply to captives in the war on terror, Gonzalez lists this item under "Positive:" "[The decision] substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the war crimes act." It is difficult to paraphrase this statement without sounding shrill, but also difficult to misinterpret his claim: in other words, the memo argues, you and other US officials can't be prosecuted for war crimes in the US because you will have determined that the laws governing treatment of prisoners do not apply. How convenient. But Germany apparently didn't get the Memo. Alberto Gonzalez is now named in a lawsuit before a German court accusing him and other US officials of war crimes. Say it aloud: the man who is now our Attorney General may be adjudged a war criminal by international courts using treaties and standards to which the US has subscribed for over fifty years.
Shame on you, Senators. You had a clear, unambiguous opportunity to stand on principle and uphold the most fundamental ideals of American democracy and even of your own party: the rule of law and the value of every individual's human rights. Faced with a simple choice--do the right thing or play party politics--you failed. Arizona will not forget.