NYT: Ex-Military Lawyers Object to Bush Cabinet Nominee (Gonzales)

[DeepModem Mom]

Ex-Military Lawyers Object to Bush Cabinet Nominee
By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: December 16, 2004


WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Several former high-ranking military lawyers say they are discussing ways to oppose President Bush's nomination of Alberto R. Gonzales to be attorney general, asserting that Mr. Gonzales's supervision of legal memorandums that appeared to sanction harsh treatment of detainees, even torture, showed unsound legal judgment....

***

Mr. Gonzales, as White House counsel, oversaw the drafting of several confidential legal memorandums that critics said sanctioned the torture of terrorism suspects in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and opened the door to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

A memorandum prepared under Mr. Gonzales's supervision by a legal task force concluded that Mr. Bush was not bound either by an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation.

The memorandum also said that executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons, including a belief by interrogators that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful." Another memorandum said the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/politics/16jag.html?oref=login

[Judi Lynn]

1. Hope they can organize and do something to help the country/world!

If they've come this far, they should go ahead and make a formal stand on Gonzalez. I hope they don't back away from this.

We can probably see a hate campaign launched against Pat. Leahy right away, looking at this, from the article:

Mr. Gonzales and the White House have already been put on notice by Senate Democrats that he should expect to be questioned vigorously about his role in the memorandums. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, sent several letters to Mr. Gonzales, the most recent of which said that "you will be asked to describe your role in both the interpretation of the law and the development of policies that led to what I and many others consider to have been a disregard for the rule of law," the practices at Abu Ghraib. "You will be called upon to explain in detail your role in developing policies related to the interrogation and treatment of foreign prisoners."
(snip)

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Bush Atty. Gen. Nominee Gonzalez Fought to Hide Bush Drunk Driving Arrest

November 16, 2004

By: Joe Strupp
Editor and Publisher
.......One interesting item the reprot found from Gonzales' time in Texas: "Gonzales was instrumental in getting Bush excused from jury duty in 1996 -- a move that allowed the governor to avoid having to disclose that he had been arrested for drunken driving in Maine in 1976, the Houston Chronicle reported. Bush was able to keep it a secret until the final days of his 2000 presidential campaign."

Gonzales appears to have offered support for press rights during his service as a Texas Supreme Court justice, from Jan. 14, 1999 to Dec. 22, 2000, the reports say: "Gonzales joined the majority in upholding the rights of the media -- while in some cases also declining to adopt increased protections recognized in other jurisdictions -- in all four Texas Supreme Court decisions involving free press or freedom of information issues that were published during his tenure."

At the White House, however, the report points out Gonzales' interpretation of executive privilege, which he has sought to broaden under the Bush Administration, as potentially the most troubling of his actions as White House counsel: "Alberto Gonzales has been an active defender of what is best described as a quasi-executive privilege, invoked repeatedly by the Bush administration in attempts to keep government information from public scrutiny."
(snip/...)

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=9866&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

[struggle4progress]

2. kick

:kick: