Democracy Now
Alberto Gonzales: "He Has Endangered Our Soldiers
Sat Jan 22, 2005 04:20
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Retired US General on Alberto Gonzales: "He Has Endangered Our Soldiers
As the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings on White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general, we speak with retired Brigadier General James Cullen - one of 12 retired Admirals and Generals who are calling on the Judiciary Committee to scrutinize Gonzales' role in setting the stage for U.S. torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. [includes rush transcript] The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin hearings tomorrow on the confirmation of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general of the United States.
Central to the hearings will be Gonzales" role in paving the legal groundwork that led to the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. In a highly controversial January 2002 memo, Gonzales wrote that the war on terror "renders obsolete [the Geneva Convention's] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
In August 2002, a Justice Department memo sought by Gonzales contended the president has "commander-in-chief authority" to order torture and proposed potential legal defenses for U.S. officials who may be accused of torture. The memo also argued that physical abuse of prisoners was torture only if it was "of an intensity akin to...serious physical injury such as death or organ failure," and mental abuse was torture only if it caused "lasting psychological harm."
The confirmation hearings have become even more controversial in the wake of a new Justice Department memo released just last Thursday revising the August 2002 memo to significantly broaden the definition of torture for which individuals could be prosecuted.
The hearings may also become more contentious because the White House has refused to provide copies of the memos to the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois told the Associated Press "We go into the hearing with some knowledge of what has occurred...but without the hard evidence that will either exonerate or implicate Judge Gonzales in this policy."
On Monday, a dozen retired generals and admirals, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili released a letter to the Judiciary Committee noting that Gonzales" recommendations "fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world."
* Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret), among 12 retired Admirals and Generals who yesterday released a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging Members to closely examine Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales role in setting U.S. policy on torture. Mr. Gonzales confirmation hearings begin January 6, 2005. Cullen last served as the Chief Judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He currently practices law in New York City.
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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/152208
===============================================
Published January 22, 2005
Gonzales as attorney general frightening
Those of us less than enthusiastic about President Bush's re-election took what little solace we could in the resignation of John Ashcroft as attorney general. He had come to symbolize the utter disregard of civil rights that characterizes this administration and his departure was greeted with a certain amount of jubilation in my sewing circle. Whomever we got in his stead, we thought, would be an improvement. So whom did we get?
Adolf Eichmann Lite.
Now don't go flying off the handle. I didn't call Alberto Gonzales, Bush's AG appointee, a Nazi, nor do I think he is one. I don't go around calling people Nazis much; it's a heavy term.
Still, judging from the Senate hearings on Gonzales' confirmation, his patterns of thinking remind one of Eichmann.
Eichmann, for those of you too young to remember, was the mid-level Nazi bureaucrat charged with organizing and administering the "Final Solution" — the systematic annihilation of Europe's Jews. It was he who made the trains into the death camps run on time.
He escaped capture at the end of the war and was found by Israeli agents 15 years later in Argentina. They kidnapped him and brought him back to Israel where he was tried as a war criminal and executed.
His defense was that he was only following orders. He bore no animosity toward Jews, he told the court. As a loyal officer in Adolf Hitler's army, it was his duty to ship them to their deaths.
Which brings us back to Gonzales. He is President Bush's former White House counsel and his name has been linked to the infamous "torture memo" produced at the request of the CIA.
The spy agency was trying to wring information out of captured al-Qaida operatives and wanted to know how far it could go in the wringing.
Far, as it turned out. After a series of meetings, often chaired by Gonzales, a memo was produced saying that torture was OK so long as you didn't carry it to the point of "organ failure." Bush has since disavowed that memo.
In fact, nearly everyone has. Asked what his response to it was at the time, he told the Senate:
"I don't recall today whether or not I was in agreement with all of the analysis."
He doesn't recall.
And as to the memo's authorship, he didn't have a clue, but he knew that it wasn't him. It was not his job as the president's lawyer, he said, to decide what was and wasn't legal interrogation technique.
He ended his testimony with a ringing declaration of principle: "Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration. I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions."
Better late than never. He's almost sure to be confirmed as attorney general, which is frightening but not surprising.
Frightening, because he seems a man who brings nothing of his own conscience to his job as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. He will follow the orders given him.
Not surprising, because the revelations of our mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo produced so little outrage in this country. Torturing prisoners? So what. It's a war.
Yet there's not a friend of the United States on the planet who did not shake his or her head in dismay at the pictures of those prisoners being treated like animals and worse by American troops.
Is this what the Shining City on the Hill, the "last best hope of mankind," has come to?
Contact Donald Kaul, retired as Washington columnist for the Des Moines Register, at donald.kaul2@verizon.net .
http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0122-Gonzalesas-283913.html
As the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings on White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general, we speak with retired Brigadier General James Cullen - one of 12 retired Admirals and Generals who are calling on the Judiciary Committee to scrutinize Gonzales' role in setting the stage for U.S. torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. [includes rush transcript] The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin hearings tomorrow on the confirmation of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general of the United States.
Central to the hearings will be Gonzales" role in paving the legal groundwork that led to the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. In a highly controversial January 2002 memo, Gonzales wrote that the war on terror "renders obsolete [the Geneva Convention's] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
In August 2002, a Justice Department memo sought by Gonzales contended the president has "commander-in-chief authority" to order torture and proposed potential legal defenses for U.S. officials who may be accused of torture. The memo also argued that physical abuse of prisoners was torture only if it was "of an intensity akin to...serious physical injury such as death or organ failure," and mental abuse was torture only if it caused "lasting psychological harm."
The confirmation hearings have become even more controversial in the wake of a new Justice Department memo released just last Thursday revising the August 2002 memo to significantly broaden the definition of torture for which individuals could be prosecuted.
The hearings may also become more contentious because the White House has refused to provide copies of the memos to the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois told the Associated Press "We go into the hearing with some knowledge of what has occurred...but without the hard evidence that will either exonerate or implicate Judge Gonzales in this policy."
On Monday, a dozen retired generals and admirals, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili released a letter to the Judiciary Committee noting that Gonzales" recommendations "fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world."
* Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret), among 12 retired Admirals and Generals who yesterday released a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging Members to closely examine Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales role in setting U.S. policy on torture. Mr. Gonzales confirmation hearings begin January 6, 2005. Cullen last served as the Chief Judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He currently practices law in New York City.
Listen to Segment |
Watch 128k stream
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2005/jan/video/dnB20050105a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=16:06.00
Watch 256k stream
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2005/jan/video/dnB20050105a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=16:06.00
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/152208
===============================================
Published January 22, 2005
Gonzales as attorney general frightening
Those of us less than enthusiastic about President Bush's re-election took what little solace we could in the resignation of John Ashcroft as attorney general. He had come to symbolize the utter disregard of civil rights that characterizes this administration and his departure was greeted with a certain amount of jubilation in my sewing circle. Whomever we got in his stead, we thought, would be an improvement. So whom did we get?
Adolf Eichmann Lite.
Now don't go flying off the handle. I didn't call Alberto Gonzales, Bush's AG appointee, a Nazi, nor do I think he is one. I don't go around calling people Nazis much; it's a heavy term.
Still, judging from the Senate hearings on Gonzales' confirmation, his patterns of thinking remind one of Eichmann.
Eichmann, for those of you too young to remember, was the mid-level Nazi bureaucrat charged with organizing and administering the "Final Solution" — the systematic annihilation of Europe's Jews. It was he who made the trains into the death camps run on time.
He escaped capture at the end of the war and was found by Israeli agents 15 years later in Argentina. They kidnapped him and brought him back to Israel where he was tried as a war criminal and executed.
His defense was that he was only following orders. He bore no animosity toward Jews, he told the court. As a loyal officer in Adolf Hitler's army, it was his duty to ship them to their deaths.
Which brings us back to Gonzales. He is President Bush's former White House counsel and his name has been linked to the infamous "torture memo" produced at the request of the CIA.
The spy agency was trying to wring information out of captured al-Qaida operatives and wanted to know how far it could go in the wringing.
Far, as it turned out. After a series of meetings, often chaired by Gonzales, a memo was produced saying that torture was OK so long as you didn't carry it to the point of "organ failure." Bush has since disavowed that memo.
In fact, nearly everyone has. Asked what his response to it was at the time, he told the Senate:
"I don't recall today whether or not I was in agreement with all of the analysis."
He doesn't recall.
And as to the memo's authorship, he didn't have a clue, but he knew that it wasn't him. It was not his job as the president's lawyer, he said, to decide what was and wasn't legal interrogation technique.
He ended his testimony with a ringing declaration of principle: "Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration. I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions."
Better late than never. He's almost sure to be confirmed as attorney general, which is frightening but not surprising.
Frightening, because he seems a man who brings nothing of his own conscience to his job as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. He will follow the orders given him.
Not surprising, because the revelations of our mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo produced so little outrage in this country. Torturing prisoners? So what. It's a war.
Yet there's not a friend of the United States on the planet who did not shake his or her head in dismay at the pictures of those prisoners being treated like animals and worse by American troops.
Is this what the Shining City on the Hill, the "last best hope of mankind," has come to?
Contact Donald Kaul, retired as Washington columnist for the Des Moines Register, at donald.kaul2@verizon.net .
http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0122-Gonzalesas-283913.html
- An Open Letter to Alberto R. Gonzales — Church Folks for a Better America, Sat Jan 22 04:28
- Alberto Gonzales: Bush's 'Nazi Lawyer' — Edward Spannaus, Sat Jan 22 04:37
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