“As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales’s advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales’s legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law’s undoing.”
For those reasons (and many other reasons), the UNO College Democrats Blog and the following blogs have united to urge the senate to reject Alberto Gonzales.
I know I’m going to catch flak for this, but…
The Gitmo detainees are jailed for what? Being al Qaida operatives.
Does al Qaida belong to one, specific state? No.
Does the Geneva Convention apply to al Qaida operatives. No.
Reason: The Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war, and though this is called “The War on Terror,” it’s not a declared war, namely because al Qaida doesn’t belong to a specific nation/state. And it’s because of that that the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to al Qaida.
Besides, and I want you guys to watch this. This is a link to the execution video of Nick Berg. (Remember him?)
Now: WARNING! This is extremely graphic. Extreme discretion is advised. I am warning you!
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/berg_killing.wmv
The person responsible is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the head al Qaida representative in Iraq. (And every day, we’re getting closer to getting that son of a bitch.) Now, after seeing what these guys did to Nick Berg here, do you honestly think the Geneva Convention should apply to these savages?
Matthew, Gonzalez was involved in giving the green light to torture in Iraq. We are not talking about al Qaida. Iraq does qualify for the Geneva Conventions. “Iraq’s a nation. The United States is a nation. The Geneva Conventions applied. They have applied every single day from the outset.” Those are words uttered by Rumsfeld.
By giving the green light to torture, Gonzalez has actually put U.S. P.O.W. in more danger than they already are in.
As for al Qaida, your argument sounds like an argument from a little kid. You’re basically saying “because they doing it means we can do it too.” Two wrongs don’t make a right. So, you’re saying it’s OK to torture prisoners of war?
Making the argument that al Qaida doesn’t qualify for the Geneva Conventions is a cop-out. Republicans (or anybody for that matter) that makes that argument should be ashamed of themselves. I thought the U.S. was supposed to be the poster-child for human rights. I hate al Qaida as much as the next person but saying its OK to torture them because they don’t “belong to a specific nation/state” is ridiculous.
agreed chief
Here is a great article about torture in WWII and how it applies today. The question not being: “Is W and his administration the same as the Nazi’s?” but rather being, “Are they being different enough for to be the leaders of the freest nation on earth?”
A Nuremberg Lesson Torture Scandal Began Far Above ‘Rotten Apples’
………
by Scott Horton
January 22, 2005
“This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of
which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed … were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees.”
Most people who hear this quote today assume it was uttered by a senior
officer of the Bush administration. Instead, it comes from one of history’s
greatest mass murderers, Rudolf Hoess, the SS commandant at Auschwitz. Such a confusion demonstrates the depth of the United States’ moral dilemma in its treatment of detainees in the war on terror.
In past weeks, we have been treated to a show trial of sorts at Ft. Hood,
Texas, starring Cpl. Charles Graner and other low-ranking military figures.
The Graner court-martial and the upcoming trial of Pfc. Lynndie England are being hyped as proof of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s explanation for the Abu Ghraib prison tortures: A few “rotten apples” — not U.S. policy or those who created it — are to blame.
Graner entered a “Nuremberg defense” — arguing that he was acting on
orders of his superiors. This defense was rejected in Ft. Hood as it was in
Nuremberg 60 years ago, when Nazi war criminals were found guilty of crimes against humanity. A misled American public can choose to see in the Graner verdict the proof of the “rotten apples” theory and of the notion that Graner and the others acted on their own initiative. But what it should see is a larger Nuremberg lesson: Those who craft immoral policy deserve the harshest punishment.
Consider the memorandum written by Alberto Gonzales — then the president’s attorney, now his nominee for attorney general. He wrote that the Geneva Convention was “obsolete” when it came to the war on terror. Gonzales reasoned that our adversaries were not parties to the convention and that the Geneva concept was ill suited to anti-terrorist warfare. In 1941, General-Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, mustered identical arguments against recognizing the Geneva rights of Soviet soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Keitel even called Geneva “obsolete,” a remark noted by U.S. prosecutors at Nuremberg, who cited it as an aggravating circumstance in seeking, and obtaining, the death penalty.
Keitel was executed in 1946.
Keitel’s remarks were made in response to a valiant memorandum prepared by German military lawyers who argued that the interests of Germany’s soldiers, and the interests of morale and good order, would be served by adhering to the Geneva treaty. Secretary of State Colin Powell, echoing the opinions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. military lawyers, sent Gonzales a letter that hit the same notes.
Rumsfeld and the White House would have us believe that there is no
connection between policy documents exploring torture and evasion of the
Geneva Convention and the misconduct on the ground in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan — misconduct that has produced at least 30 deaths in detention associated with “extreme” interrogation techniques. But the Nuremberg tradition contradicts such a contention.
At Nuremberg, U.S. prosecutors held German officials accountable for the
consequences of their policy decisions without offering proof that these
decisions were implemented with the knowledge of the policymakers. The
existence of the policies and evidence that the conduct contemplated in them occurred was taken as proof enough.
There is no doubt that individuals like Graner and England should be held to account. But where is justice — and where are the principles the U.S.
proudly advanced at Nuremberg — if those in the administration and the
military who seem most culpable for the tragedy not only escape punishment but in some cases are slated for promotion?
Next week, the world will commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz. A
memorial prayer for the death camp victims will be read at the United
Nations. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer will attend to acknowledge that the depravities at Auschwitz were not the work of a few “rotten apples” but the responsibility of a nation. Such a courageous assumption of responsibility should provide a model for the United States, which can still act to salvage its tradition and its honor.
Scott Horton is a New York attorney and a lecturer in international
humanitarian law at Columbia University.
I would just like to point out that torture violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December of 1948. Violations include
Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2
1. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
2. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Lets not forget this important document.
Peace.
Similarly
at no point in the election were Bush’s aproval rating lower than during the news that things happening in Iraq’s Tortue Chambers rivaled the torture Saddam had inflicted, or that Senior American officials had known about it for going on 8 months without doing anything but launching “probes” which had yet to get testimony from anyone. If we had known then that Gonzales had written memos like he did (but we didn’t because we didn’t use the Freedom of Info Act until later) he would have been forced to resign.
High 70 to 80 percents of Americans were “disgusted” and “ashamed” because of those photos.
So lets make it clear: Bush’s core supporters may not think torture is a big deal, and Bush’s nominee for Attorney General certainly doesn’t, but the true Moral Majority of America does. Americans are against torture, and the fight not to nominate Gonzales is thus a patriotic one.
So, you guys are more concerned about us putting women’s underwear on our prisoners than those we’re fighting around the world viciously behead their prisoners, and then post the videos on the Internet.
Sums you guys up in an instant.
maybe if we werent there in the first place……
If we didn’t care about the beheadings we wouldn’t bother denouncing them, calling for safer troop deployments, asking for better equipment for them, and trying to get a pull out plan in the works (so we can get them the f–k out of there).
If we knew all the detainees had been guilty, I don’t care what happens to them.
But we don’t, in fact, we know that the majority of them ended up being released because they were completely innocent. At Abu Garaif alone we ended up realeasing 70% as “completely cleared beyond suspicion.” That included plenty that we tortured.
Now our compassion to innocent soldiers also happens to go out to innocent civilians who get tortured, even if they don’t speak english.
So there you go again more concerned with platitudes and sticking up for your Administration than you are about compassion, our world image, justice, or most importantly, reality. You keep interchanging Saddam for Osama, and now you’re interchanging all Iraqi’s for Terrorists.
Sums you guys up in an instant.
Matthew – two wrongs will never make a right. By playing their game of torture and illegal warfare will only lower us to their level. I don’t condone terrorist activities, but they are fighting the only way they can win. Why would you ever think they would meet us on a field of battle?
In the time of broadsides and vollies, our own heroes, Nathanael Greene, John Paul Jones and none other than George Washington would never have thought to meet the British on the ground of British choosing. It turns out that our officers would have been charged with war crimes for their actions. We broke the rules of war to over throw a tyrant, sadly the world thinks we have evolved into tyrants ourselves. Also at that time, our flag meant nothing, would it have been acceptable to torture us, does land make a person just human enough?
Enough of the history lesson, but just remember that hindsight is 20/20. To the future, maybe we could change our tactics. We don’t need the 3rd armored division or planes capable of carpet bombing St. Petersburg into submission. Maybe we should reorganize our army into smaller tactical units to take on these “Savages” as you so eloquently put it. You know we used to call a people that lived around here savages, they turned out to be some of best nations to ever walk on earth, but fuck them right? I will leave you with that.
Left oranges show for buck
black apples It title strike
Yes, I agree with the thread…..
At the same time, we should bring back a true human rights activist like Janet Reno….who advocated using our military to kill innocent women and children in Waco. I wonder if those citizens, as misdirected as they were, were contemplating the true meaning of the term torture as they were being insinerated…..
John Owens-ream said:
So there you go again more concerned with platitudes and sticking up for your Administration than you are about compassion, our world image, justice, or most importantly, reality. You keep interchanging Saddam for Osama, and now you’re interchanging all Iraqi’s for Terrorists.
Well, not exactly, John. I, for one, see no compassion for ununiformed terrorists who’s stated goal is to exterminate us and our allies. Nice liberal word, but not really applicable.
I don’t much care about our world image. Your allies in the press, specifically but not limited to, CNN/AL-Jazeera/USA, The New York/Al-Queda Times, the moe, larry, and curly networks, USA/Al-Queda Today, etc have taken care of that image for us….not to mention polititians in your own party too numerous to mention who have made a career of trashing our country at every opportunity…a few examples, Your party’s chairman, the certifiable kook running for the senate in Connecticut, the presidential candidates from the 2 previous elections, the more certifiable congressman in Ohio….etc etc etc.
Just because John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Howard Dean say Gonzales advocates torture doesn’t make it true, folks.
John, and the writer of this thread, you might research your stuff a bit before posting…..just a suggestion.
figura tango ..