Why The USA Must Reject Bush's Evil "Marquis de Sade" Nominee For Attorney General: Alberto Gonzales, who Wrote "Torture Memo" That Laid Groundwork For Abu Ghraib
by Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D
"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' 'fuhrer 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 Nuremberg 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, "Reichsfuhrer 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 consigliere', 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 attempting to consolidate his stranglehold upon American justice by elevating his loyal-but-sadistic scofflaw consigliere' 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 Nuremberg Tribunal, 1950" -- and please pay special attention to Nuremberg 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."
Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive Director of the American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
©2004EAPIII
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