Wednesday, December 29, 2004

The case against Alberto Gonzales

Commentary by Pat Murphy


By PAT MURPHY

Pat Murphy

Congress was panicked into two major mistakes after 9/11—approving President Bush's attack on Iraq without questioning his postwar plans and the hurried passage of the Patriot Act without line-by-line scrutiny of powers that restrict civil liberties.

Now senators are preparing for another blunder—confirming White House lawyer Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general to succeed John Ashcroft.

Serving as attorney general would be an intermediate stop en route to Gonzales' eventual nomination to the Supreme Court during the second Bush term.

Whether as attorney general or Supreme Court justice, Gonzales would be an insult to jurisprudence and the rule of law.

His career has been as an obedient partisan servant to George Bush's political needs, not an astute legal scholar or independent-minded guardian of law. He's the political equivalent of the slick corporate legal hack that advises CEOs on how to ignore laws and stay out of jail.

As Bush's in-house lawyer since he was Texas governor, then briefly as a Texas supreme court justice, Gonzales okays Bush decisions, including those as president that have drawn increasing bipartisan criticism and concern.

Gonzales' most alarming decision tailored to Bush's needs was the infamous memo declaring that Geneva Protocols on War don't apply to detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan because al-Qaeda isn't a nation, so international law on treatment of prisoners is "obsolete."

But Gonzales conveniently ignored the June 8, 1977 Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law that added protocols to the original 1949 Geneva documents.

Part 1, Article 1, paragraph 2 reads:

"In cases not covered by this Protocol or by other international agreements, civilians and combatants remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from the dictates of public conscience."

So, detainees indeed are entitled to "the principles of humanity."

In the aftermath of Gonzales' memo, a wave of torture was unleashed on detainees held by American forces, torture most recently documented by FBI agents who witnessed and complained about the ugly physical and psychological abuses.

Picture Gonzales as the nation's chief lawyer, enforcing the Patriot Act and deciding which civil liberties to ignore as "obsolete."

(Cleared by Gonzales, Bernard Kerik was on his way to becoming Homeland Security director despite shady connections and widely known adulterous affairs. Kerik withdrew after press revelations.)

If the senate is blind to Gonzales' threat to constitutional rights, former top military lawyers aren't.

Led by retired Navy Adm. and judge advocate general John Hutson, a group of retired military attorneys who say Gonzalez ignored legal cautions will rigorously oppose Gonzales' confirmation on grounds he lacks sound legal judgment.

That is the least of Gonzales' failings.




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