"Mr. Gonzales Has Been Egregiously Complicit In War Crimes. The entire
world knows that Mr. Gonzales' 2002 legal memorandum paved the way for the
perpetration of heinous war crimes...
the Pentagon now admits that there have been 127 recent homicides of war
prisoners, of whom at least 40 were tortured to death."
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Why The USA Must Reject Bush's Evil "Marquis de Sade" Nominee For Attorney
General
Posted November 21, 2004
thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Evan Peterson
Alberto Gonzales Wrote "Torture Memo" That Laid Groundwork For Abu
Ghraib
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking
at the root." -Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
There was a bipartisan consensus on last Sunday's televised political
talk-shows that the US Senate will confirm, with relative ease, Mr. Bush's
appointment of Alberto R. Gonzales as the next Attorney General ("AG"). However, if our
Senators retain any respect for universal human rights and the rule of
constitutional and international law, they will vigorously oppose Mr. Gonzales'
appointment as our new AG. [1] [2] Furthermore, it's imperative that our
Senators, both left and right, defeat this unwise appointment for the following five
reasons.
1. Mr. Gonzales Knew, Or Should Have Known, That He Was Dispensing
Disastrously False Legal Advice. While functioning as Mr. Bush's White House Counsel,
Mr. Gonzales wrote his infamous "torture memo" in August of 2002, entitled
"Standards Of conduct For Interrogations Under 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A." In that
legally-meritless 50-page opinion, Mr. Gonzales:
(A) falsely argued that the US government's interrogators would be legally
justified in torturing -- even unto death -- war prisoners who were captured in
the USA's so-called "war on terror"; and
(B) falsely advised President Bush that his subfunction as commander-in-chief
somehow magically empowered him with the authority to (i) override the US
Constitution and the federal War Crimes Act, (ii) ignore the Geneva Conventions
and the United Nations Convention On Torture, (iii) flout international
human-rights law, and (iv) therefore authorize those acts of torture. "Taking his
cue from the Nazis' 'führer principle,' Gonzales posits that Bush, by virtue of
his 'commander-in-chief authority,' can authorize torture. But American law
doesn't include any such concept." [3]
2. Mr. Gonzales Has Been Egregiously Complicit In War Crimes. The entire
world knows that Mr. Gonzales' 2002 legal memorandum paved the way for the
perpetration of heinous war crimes, like the illegal torture of war prisoners inside
the US military prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Even worse,
the Pentagon now admits that there have been 127 recent homicides of war
prisoners, of whom at least 40 were tortured to death. [4] And according to the
highly-respected International Committee of the Red Cross, almost all of the
Iraqi prisoners who managed to survive their torture inside Abu Ghraib prison
were sreleased because they proved to be innocent civilian noncombatants. [5]
Hence, it's certainly possible that Mr. Gonzales could be indicted for his
complicity in war crimes under Nüremberg Principle VII, among others. [6] [7]
3. Mr. Gonzales Has An Ominous History Of Unethical Practice. Americans
should consider themselves to have been doubly forewarned by Mr. Gonzales' record
as both a lawyer and a jurist in Texas. Before he became Mr. Bush's White
House Counsel, Mr. Gonzales: (A) represented CEO Ken Lay's fraudulent-predator
corporation, Enron; and (B) then earned a reputation from the bench for unsound
legal rulings which contravened the rule of law and underscored his lack of
common sense, as well as for sleazy acts of corruption which violated legal
ethics and basic morality. [8]
4. Consenting To His Appointment Would Discredit The US Senate. If the
Senate foolishly rubber-stamps Mr. Gonzales' appointment as AG, the Senators then
will have proven that they're so ethically irresponsible as to be undeserving
of re-election. Moreover, they will have heaped insult upon injury by sending
this morally-depraved message to the world: "The United States Senate not only
has condoned Mr. Gonzales' outrageously-unjust 'torture memo' misconduct, but
also has chosen to reward it by elevating this monstrous shyster into the
nation's top law-enforcement position!"
5. We Must Avoid Unnecessarily Exacerbating Global Tensions And Fears.
Of course, the Senate's craven capitulation to an utterly-indefensible
appointment would further alienate the international community and inflame Islamic
anti-Americanism. Finally, Mr. Bush's successful appointment of Mr. Gonzales
would buttress a widely-held dystopic theory about the USA, the main thesis of
which is: (A) that Americans are collectively suffering from a 9/11-induced
mass psychosis; (B) which caused them to re-elect their thinly-veiled neofascist
dictator, "Reichsführer Bush"; and (C) whose regime has been incrementally
luring them down the antidemocratic rabbit-hole, from whence the USA will emerge
as the world's most dangerous rogue state -- the "American Fourth Reich." [9]
Overarching Conclusions: Don't be fooled by the fact that Mr. Gonzales
neither has a wicked scar under one monocle-bedecked eye, nor foams at the mouth
psychotically, nor clicks his boot-heels fascistically. Thus far, he's slipped
under the vetting radar-screen only because he embodies the banality of evil.
Nevertheless, it's all-too-clear that he's unfit to become our nation's top
law-enforcement officer because: (1) he's really nothing more than Mr. Bush's
bumbling personal consiglieré, which is to state that he's a toadying yes-man;
and (2) his professional history is that of a pettifogging shyster who
obviously lacks the requisite intellectual integrity, law-abiding temperament, and
ethical judgment. Hence, he must be rejected, as in: "Fool me once, shame on
Messrs. Gonzales and Bush; fool me twice, shame on every Senator and the entire
USA!"
The Bottom Line: Mr. Bush is somewhat analogous to Michael Corleone -- the
potentially-honest son who allowed himself to become a bloodthirsty Mafia
godfather in Mario Puzo's crime-family novels -- because he's attempt to consolidate
his stranglehold upon American justice by elevating his loyal-but-sadistic
scofflaw consiglieré into the AG's office, instead of appointing an honest
attorney who has a history of upholding the rule of law; therefore, it is the duty
of every American to insist that our US Senators vigorously oppose Alberto R.
Gonzales until they've prevented this disgustingly-evil, Marquis-de-Sade-like
man from eclipsing John Ashcroft as an even worse AG! [10]
ENDNOTES
[1] Read "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" now, at:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
[2] Read "Principles Of The Nüremberg Tribunal, 1950" -- and please pay
special attention to Nüremberg Principle VII, which addresses complicity in war
crimes -- at:
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm
[3] Read Ted Rall's 11-18-04 CD essay, "Monster Of A Lawyer: Nominee For
Attorney General Even Worse than Ashcroft," at:
http://www.commondreams.org
/views04/1118-28.htm
[4] Read Michael Ratner's 11-18-04 CD essay, "The Road To Abu Ghraib: Paved
With The Legal Opinion Of Alberto R. Gonzales," at: http://www.commondreams.org
/views04/1118-32.htm
[5] Read Evan Augustine Peterson III's 8-10-04 Eklektikos essay, "The
American Torture Doctors," at: http://www.geocities.com
/thechristiandigest/19.html
[6] Read Grant McCool's 1-28-03 GPF article, "US Lawyers Warn Bush On War
Crimes," at:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues
/iraq/attack/law/2003/0128uslawyers.htm
[7] Read Colin Hallinan's 11-4-04 GPF/FPIF article, "J'accuse: War Crimes &
Iraq," at:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/
issues/iraq/attack/law/2004/1104torture.htm
[8] Watch Mark Fiore's insightful 11-17-04 animation about Alberto Gonzales, " Attorney Extraordinare," at:
http://www.markfiore.com
/animation/alberto.html
[9] For one example of the innumerable essays about America's swift descent
into a neofascist dystopia, see the 8-10-04 TTS essay, "FEMA and Rex 84 Program," which contends through illustrative photos that the Bushites have prepared
concentration camps across the USA for their coming purge of America's
antifascist dissenters, at: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/
article.asp?ID=2344
[10] Finally, consider this retrospective admonition by Lutheran pastor Dr.
Martin Niemöller, a pacifist who survived incarceration in a Nazi concentration
camp from 1937 through 1945, and upon his release was responsible for
drafting the "Declaration of Guilt" by the German Churches for not opposing Hitler
more strenuously: "In Germany, first they came for the Communists;
I wasn't Communist, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Trade Unionists;
I wasn't a Trade Unionist, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Jews;
but I was a Christian, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Catholics; but I was a Protestant, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me;
and there was no one left to speak up."
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©2004EAPIII
Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.,
is the Executive Director of the
American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
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