Torturer General

[RickSp]

Will Americans all become torturers?

Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by Gonzales himself, a practice that was once a clear and abhorrent violation of the law has become in effect the law of the land. ... In the end, as General Joseph P. Hoar pointed out this week, the administration's decision on the Geneva conventions "puts all American servicemen and women at risk that are serving in combat regions." For Hoar - a retired commander of American forces in the Middle East and one of a dozen prominent retired generals and admirals to oppose Gonzales - torture has a way of undermining the forces using it, as it did with the French Army in Algeria. The general's concerns are understandable. The war in Iraq and the war on terrorism are ultimately political in character. Victory depends in the end not on technology or on overwhelming force but on political persuasion. By using torture, the country relinquishes the very ideological advantage - the promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights - that the president has so persistently claimed is America's most powerful weapon in defeating Islamic extremism. One does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture. By using torture, we Americans transform ourselves into the very caricature our enemies have sought to make of us. True, that miserable man who pulled out his hair as he lay on the floor at Guantanamo may eventually tell his interrogators what he knows, or what they want to hear. But for America, torture is self-defeating; for a strong country it is in the end a strategy of weakness. After Gonzales is confirmed, the road back - to justice, order and propriety - will be very long. Torture will belong to us all.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Boy was I mad, when they cut from Ted Kennedy grilling Gonzo, to take us to hear some damn priest pray in a government building as a preemptive strike on other civil liberties The Fake Election Ceremony. I have 2 questions of my own
1st Why Did they have to have a 2 CRITICAL events on the same day? And what was the criteria that determined The AG hearings and the Election Shenanigans had to be completed in a day and absurdly, on the same day?

Here is an EXCELLENT ARTICLE with 10 Questions for Alberto Gonzolez: All fully Documented and sourced. I only chose 2 or 3 for brevity.

1.Are there any circumstances under which you believe the President of the United States could legally authorize torture? Alberto Gonzales approved a now-infamous memo which contended the president "wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department." Despite the fact that the United States ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture - which states "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture" - the memo stated the president had the authority "to approve almost any physical or psychological action during interrogation, up to and including torture." Once the memo was made public, Gonzales backtracked, saying the memo contained "unnecessary, over-broad discussions" about "abstract legal theories." He also said the policy was "under review, and may be replaced, if appropriate, with more concrete guidance addressing only those issues necessary for the legal analysis of actual practices." The Justice Department recently released a new memo redefining the U.S. stance on torture. The new policy, however, does not address the question of whether the president is entitled to disregard laws and treaties. Sources: Torture memo | UN Convention Against Torture | Abstract legal theory | New policy silent on presidential powers

4. Do you still believe that the state of Texas does not have to abide by the Vienna Convention? In 1997, Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo for then-Gov. Bush which said the state of Texas need not comply with the Vienna Convention. The Vienna Convention, ratified by the Senate in 1969, was "designed to ensure that foreign nationals accused of a crime are given access to legal counsel by a representative from their home country." Gonzales sent a letter to the U.S. State Department in which he argued that the treaty didn't apply to the State of Texas, as Texas was not a signatory to the Vienna Convention. Two days later, Texas executed Mexican citizen Irineo Tristan Montoya, despite Mexico's protestations that Texas had violated Tristan's rights under the Vienna Convention by failing to inform the Mexican consulate at the time of his arrest. Source: Gonzales advice to Gov. Bush re: the Vienna Convention

These are only 2 questions that demand answers. These are not the most important, necessarily, just a good place to start. I did not hear the Vienna Convention question asked, anybody? It seems a position of this degree of power should not be filled with the first ass kissing chollo to come along.

Have you noticed how lovingly Bush gazes at him?
I wonder if they service each other with the full "Gitmo"

[RickSp]

A good article. Thanks.

It is grotesquely ironic that George Herbert Walker Bush signed the UN Convention Against Torture and now his son, George Walker Bush, authorized the use of torture and nominated Gonzales, who has opined that torture is legal. Sad times for America and the world.

[Lou Minotti]

I've heard Gonzo is a member of La Raza. Anyone heard anything about this?

[RickSp]

A Google search shows a lot of right wing pages claiming that he is. La Raza happens to be a very large group, so it wouldn't surprise me if he is a member, nor that some members of LaRaza have said some wild things. (Calling all LaRaza members racist based on statements by members may be like calling all Republicans Klansman by quoting David Dukes.)

The right wingers are also all worked up because Gonzales is less than a rabid right-to-lifer.

[Lou Minotti]

I guess I don't know enough about La Raza to say I hate them or anything but the name itself is pretty strange. "The Race"? But hey, they have the right to espouse their views. But how does this sit with conservatives: the AG, a member of a group that wishes to reclaim the Southwest for "The Race"? These necons don't make any sense.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Surely they have a back-up, plan B. They should have learned after Kerik the Gangland Security Chief scandal.
You really gotta be a loser before they notice you.

[gr8fuldaniel]

On Immigration:

Link Senate Confirmation Hearing - January 6 Gonzales: There is no requirement, of course, upon state and locals to enforce federal immigration laws. It is purely voluntary. In fact, of course, some states have prohibitions [against?]. They couldn't, even if they wanted to. [They couldn't what?] In some cases, the department, as I understand it, has entered into with state and local departments in terms of memorandums of understandings in order to enforce this [?]. I certainly am sensitive to the notion that some local law enforcement people don't want to exercise this authority. Well, we're not saying that they have to. If they want to they can assist in fighting the war on terror, that's what this opinion allows us to do. Personally I would worry about a policy that permits someone, a local law enforcement official, to use this authority somehow as a club to harass uhh they might be unlawful aliens but otherwise lawful citizens. That would be troubling. That would be troubling to the President.

Oh Brother, can everyone use that as a defense, in a court of law? If someone is an illegal alien isnt everything they do illegal. Like, it doesnt matter what a tresspasser does in your house.

[RickSp]

A veteran's view of the Torturer in Chief

As a veteran of the Iraq War, I believe it is inconceivable that a nation rooted in democratic ideals would consider placing Gonzales as the head of the agency responsible for enforcing human and civil rights. He has made it clear that he has no desire to enforce such rights or be a beacon of hope to the oppressed -- or even to citizens of his own country.

From Alberto to the Insurgency

[PatrickHenry]

Ray McGovern had this to say:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010805D.shtml

A friend of mine, Army Sergeant Sam Provance, was stationed at Abu Ghraib in 2003. He is a decorated Army careerist, anything but a troublemaker. But he does have a conscience. Not unlike the vast majority of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Sam was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Sam's case, the wrong place was that terrible prison; the wrong time was the night shift. Sam was not an military policeman or interrogator, but he was close enough to hear the screams of those being abused - close enough to see the Iraqi boy who had been tortured before his father's eyes. The purpose, of course, was to "set the conditions for successful interrogation," to use the euphemism coined by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller who, after commanding the prison at Guantánamo, "migrated," together with the abusive interrogation techniques used there, to Abu Ghraib. The boy's father, you see, was an Iraqi general, who might know something and, if so, might spill the beans if the right "conditions" were set. Most Chilling Sam told me that what he found most "chilling" was how: * The prisoners had been demonized as "the enemy," and rendered subhuman. * The interrogators made so light of what they were doing. * The interrogators had absolute power - the kind, Sam pointed out, that corrupts absolutely. * Sam's fellow soldiers waved off his objections. * Back in Germany, his superiors also waved Sam off, relegating him to an undefined position in the supply room. * They removed his clearances and did all they could to make him a pariah among his comrades. Since when has it become a blemish on an U.S. Army career to refuse to condone torture? How is it that someone with the courage to say "That's just plain wrong" ends up ostracized in his community? Has objecting to torture become unpatriotic? Why is it that Army Specialist Joseph Darby, who also complained through channels about the torture at Abu Ghraib, has received numerous death threats for "ratting out" his fellow soldiers, and now has to live in protective custody? And why do so many Americans apparently believe torture is all right?

An honorable soldier viewed as a fink because he found torture unacceptable on moral grounds. This is not the high point of the American experience.

[rvojdidit]

Talk about soft ball questions! I don't think there's any doubt that Gonzalez will be confirmed. Democrats don't want to be known as the party that voted down the first Hispanic AG!

[Lou Minotti]

I would rather be known a democrat the voted against a Hispanic AG than a mindless necon supporting a torture master. But I'm a Libertarian so I ignore the nonsense on the left AND the right.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Looks like Gonzales could be disbarred.
Check it out:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington CREW’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan stated, “The marked contrast between the version of events Mr. Gonzales provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the version told by the three other individuals involved – the prosecutor, the defense lawyer and the judge – is enough to require the State Bar of Texas to investigate this matter.” Sloan continued, “Violations of the bar rules can lead to disbarment. The Senate should delay voting on Mr. Gonzales’s nomination until this matter is cleared up or face the prospect of having an Attorney General who has lost his bar license.”

[gr8fuldaniel]

The same story in NEWSWEEK

Bush's summons to serve as a juror in the drunken-driving case was, in retrospect, a fateful moment in his political career: by getting excused from jury duty he was able to avoid questions that would have required him to disclose his own 1976 arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in Kennebunkport, Maine—an incident that didn't become public until the closing days of the 2000 campaign. (Bush, who had publicly declared his willingness to serve, had left blank on his jury questionnaire whether he had ever been "accused" in a criminal case.)

Send your Senator an email tonight, they vote to confirm tomorrow.

We dont want this kind of government.
Check out Ted Ralls column:

The Normalization of Horror NEW YORK--A new documentary, "Hitler's Hit Parade," runs 76 minutes without narration. Comprised entirely of archival footage, the film prompts its reviewers to remark upon Hannah Arendt's famous observation about the banality of evil. German troops subjugated Europe and shoved millions of people into ovens; German civilians went to the movies, attended concerts, and gossiped about their neighbors. People lived mundane, normal lives while their government carried out unspeakable monstrosities. Sound familiar?

[RickSp]

Once again the new Torturer General has said that the Treaty on Torture doesn't apply to us.

But he said the Convention Against Torture treaty, as ratified by the Senate, doesn't prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" tactics on non-U.S. citizens who are captured abroad, in Iraq or elsewhere.

Torture treaty doesn't bar `cruel, inhuman' tactics, Gonzales says

He is equally contemptuous of the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, particularly the Eighth Amendment prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments."

Nothing less than war crimes trials are appropriate for the monsters in the Bush cabal.

[RickSp]

Just so we don't lose track of what "cruel, inhuman or degrading" means:

AUSTRALIAN Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib was allegedly tied to the ground while a prostitute menstruated on him after he failed to co-operate with interrogators. Habib's lawyer, Steven Hopper, yesterday said interrogators told the Sydney man they had killed his family, and superimposed animals' heads on photographs of his wife and children.

Woman 'used' in torture of Habib

Is this what America under the reign of King George stands for?