A Legacy of Legitimizing Torture
The resignation of the torturer in chief was noted by his patron, the president, as an unfortunate day for American democracy. “It’s sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons,” President Bush lamented on Monday.
What good name? After all, Bush picked Gonzales to be the nation’s highest law enforcement official only after Gonzales had proved his mettle for the job as White House counsel. His legal advice to the president was that torture is a legitimate option, because Bush’s self-defined “war on terror” wiped out all prior legal restraint and in particular “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners.”
Gonzales’ infamous memo to the president from Jan. 25, 2002, also rendered obsolete, among other constitutional safeguards, the division of powers that provides a congressional check on the executive branch. According to Gonzales’ professional judgment, the president was no longer bound to observe the 1996 War Crimes Act, which allows criminal prosecution of Americans for violating the Geneva Conventions and for “outrages upon personal dignity.” According to that law, both the president and his attorney general potentially would be subject to severe penalties, including death, for the systematic torture they authorized.
No wonder Bush needed to appoint Gonzales as attorney general, lest some enterprising Justice Department lawyer dare expose the criminality emanating from the White House. Not a fanciful concern, given that we have since learned that the previous attorney general, John Ashcroft, had serious reservations about breaking the laws protecting fundamental human rights. Indeed, the most clarifying moment of Gonzales’ government service was his nighttime visit to Ashcroft’s hospital bed, where the then-White House counsel failed to deceive an ailing Ashcroft into authorizing an extension of government surveillance. Ashcroft refused and was protected from further harassment only by the intervention of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The problem presented by Ashcroft’s display of legal integrity was eliminated when Bush gave his job to Gonzales.
While the media are once again buying the White House backroom spin that the president’s error in the Gonzales scandal is one of misplaced loyalty to a friend who didn’t perform up to expectations, the truth is that Bush promoted Gonzales because of his assaults on the Constitution and not in ignorance of that sorry record. As the president put it in “reluctantly” accepting the resignation of “a man of integrity, decency and principle”: “As Attorney General and before that, as White House Counsel, Al Gonzales has played a role in shaping our policies in the war on terror. … The PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act and other important laws bear his imprint.”
Frighteningly accurate testimony: that the Gonzales legacy will live on long after his government tenure. One aspect of that dreadful legacy, not often remarked upon, is that Gonzales shaped Bush’s selections of lifetime appointees to the judiciary that will preside for decades to come. As Bush observed: “As Attorney General, he played an important role in helping to confirm two fine jurists in Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. He did an outstanding job as White House Counsel, identifying and recommending the best nominees to fill critically important federal court vacancies.”
One of those critical vacancies was filled on Gonzales’ recommendation by the appointment of then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee as a judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bybee distinguished himself in the eyes of Gonzales and the president by being the author of the 50-page “Bybee memo” of Aug. 1, 2002, which held that torturing al-Qaida captives “may be justified” and that international laws against torture “may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations” conducted under President Bush. But Bybee went further than merely sweeping aside the restraints of international law, concluding, “Finally, even if an interrogation method might violate Sect. 2340A [of the U.S. Torture Convention passed in 1994] necessity or self-defense could provide justification that would eliminate any criminal liability.”
The Bybee memo protected Gonzales and Bush from being branded with the “torturer” label by arguing that torture “covers only extreme acts … where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure.” Oh? Maybe my opening sentence for this column was too harsh. Surely Gonzales, and the president who still adores him, intended all along to draw the line at organ failure.
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.
© 2007 TruthDig.com
While impeachment is a worthy project, it is an unlikely one. Ultimately,
Dubya, Deadeye Dick, Fredo, Rumdummy, Colin, Condi, and the whole cast of
characters need to be extradited to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
First the US has to recognize the international tribunal.
Why do you think Bush & Co. opted out before 9/11? Makes one wonder.
Why do you think our armed forces and mercenaries were exempted from local government justice in every venue around the world? Our argument with the government in Venezuela escalated after Chavez refused to sign the agreement forced on countries around the world.
The US population needs to be reminded of the precedents set for the ethical conduct of nations AND THE CITIZENS AND ARMED FORCES of those nations by the Nuremburg trials post WWII. One of the precedents was a negation of the following defense for one’s crimes against humanity - “I only did it because I was ordered to!”
Every last one of us who have been complicit in approving the actions of our government could be standing before the tribunal as well.
Interesting point about Bush’s early declaration that the US would not recognize the International Criminal Court, as if he knew very soon we would be going to war. That was definitely one of my (many) “This is going to get ugly!” moments after Bush stole the election. The other moment I recall vividly was reading a NYT article outlining George HW Bush’s deep involvement in the Carlyle Group, seventy percent of their holdings being defense companies, speculating that if we go to war, it’s a conflict of interest because “W” will profit via inheritance from his father. At that point, very early on, I knew we would go to war. I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised by 9/11.
The next nonloyalbushie AG will have to suspend all things Gonzo immediately, then launch investigations in every direction - especially into the records of the loyalbushie USAGs who weren’t traitorously axed. How many innocents are rotting away thanks to Cheneybush’s efforts to destroy our justice system?
A resignation is too little, I am afraid, to save the toppling scales of justice. Only an impeachment will provide the cauterizing effect of triggering wholesale housecleaning and spawning numerous investigations into violations of constitutional law. Sheer is correct in saying that Gonzales’ awful legacy will outlive him for decades. Maybe longer, as he has effectively put constitutional government on its deathbed.
Alberto Gonzales has a good name only in comparison to Bu$h the inferior, Shotgun Dick, Hitler, Stalin and Satan.
His sole good point is that his lies are transparent.
Great article thank you! however the last line about organ failure I’m not sure. Would bushes brain be considered an organ?
Why didn`t Gonzales get his medal of freedom when Bush said goodby to such an incredible public servant? Well, maybe he will get the Nobel Peace prize for compassion.
“While impeachment is a worthy project, it is an unlikely one. Ultimately,
Dubya, Deadeye Dick, Fredo, Rumdummy, Colin, Condi, and the whole cast of
characters need to be extradited to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes
and crimes against humanity”
The political class will not impeach Bush-Cheney because they would have to impeach themselves as well; although horrified by the exactitude of the PNAC blueprint for perpetual domination of political affairs by the US, the entirety of American government is & has been committed to the basic project since WWII. All the Democratic candidates talk about “restoring America’s moral authority” in the world — for what purpose, except to dominate by a combination of illusion & intimidation?
The American government can’t renounce the desires of its ruling class, which is to dominate the globe; and only with the overthrow of that class will the people of the US be able to create a government which does not need troops across the globe.
“Why didn`t Gonzales get his medal of freedom when Bush said goodby to such an incredible public servant? Well, maybe he will get the Nobel Peace prize for compassion.”
Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize, so anything’s possible.
I am sick of the use of the word torture when regarding the US treatment of islamic prisoners. So we make them get naked and climb on top of each other. Homosexual men in America have been doing that in the bath houses for fun! Women’s panties on their heads? US congressmen would probably pay for that.
Would you rather be tortured by the US government or islamist extremists? Sure you could use the word rough treatment but that is much different from torture as most reasonable people would agree. But who ever said people with an agenda are reasonable.
>>I am sick of the use of the word torture when regarding the US treatment of islamic prisoners. …Sure you could use the word rough treatment but that is much different from torture…
Shackled to the ground–often naked– for long periods, head plunged into the toilet, dowsed with water and left to stand in the cold, smeared with the menstrual blood of female prison guards, subjected to the infamous waterboarding, harassed by dogs, thrown for protracted periods into isolation (demonstrated by researchers to produce psychosis within 48 hours … although it leaves no marks on the body, the psyche is scarred)… These acts constitute torture. Not “rough treatment.” Torture.
real world asks: Would I rather be tortured by the US government or islamist extremists?
This question expresses the doctrine of American exceptionalism: no matter what we do, no matter how heinous our actions, we’re still better, more moral than THEY are (…and that goes for whichever THEY is currently under discussion).
We claim to be carrying the torch of democracy to other countries. The flame of democracy is extinguished by torture. When we torture, we are no better than THEY are.
We lower ourselves to THEIR standards.
Whenever we torture them we violate the human rights of all and, therefore, even of ourselves.
We become our own enemy.
Sometimes I think the Mericun people jus don’t preciate how complicated things are. Torture boy kept Al Qaida from raping our pets and blowing up our toxic waste dumps.