White House Counsel Called Geneva Conventions "Obsolete" and "Quaint"

[DrFunkenstein]

WASHINGTON - The Iraq prisoner abuse scandal shifted Sunday to the question of whether the Bush administration set up a legal foundation that opened the door for the mistreatment. Within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales reportedly wrote President Bush a memo about the terrorism fight and prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions.

"In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," Gonzales wrote, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Secretary of State Colin Powell "hit the roof" when he read the memo, according to the account.

Asked about the Gonzales memo, the White House said, "It is the policy of the United States to comply with all of our laws and our treaty obligations."

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the reports that Rumsfeld approved a secret program on interrogation for use in Iraq raise "this issue to a whole new level."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&e=4&u=/ap/us_prisoner_abuse





Isn't that just quaint?

[bluestateguy]

1. I can't wait to read Powell's book after he leaves

What will he call it? I like "Isolated".

[Djinn]

11. I'd prefer

"I'm a souless fucking hypocrite" - for me he's even worse than the most ardent neo-con war mongers like Wolfie/Cheney and Rumsfeld - because YOU KNOW he doesn't beleive what he's saying, you know he thinks they're all mad - and he acts a fig leaf for them anyway.

As for "quaint" :puke: - lets take them at their word - if and when the Bushco Orwellian nightmare is over lets do some interrogation of our own - there's many unanswered questions that I'm sure a bit of "frat style" sexual assault, beating and rape could help clear up.

[Eye and Monkey]

2. Gonzales - Bush-appointed to Texas Supreme Court, Halliburton puppet

http://www.commondreams.org/views/121800-105.htm

Published on Monday, December 18, 2000
Was the Fix In?
New White House Counsel Accused of Favoritism for Cheney's Halliburton

by Nathan Newman

This Sunday, December 17th, Bush nominated Alberto Gonzales, a man Bush put on the Texas Supreme Court in 1999, to be the new White House Counsel. Yet Justice Gonzales has been a focus of ethical controversy in Texas, with the organization Texans for Public Justice noting that Gonzales like other Texas Supreme Court Justices have taken large amounts of money from the Cheney-run Halliburton companies, then ruled in favor of the company in cases that came before the Court.
Cheney's Halliburton corporation, through its executives and its separate subsidiaries, was the second-largest corporate contributor to Texas Supreme Court races in the last three election cycles, contributing over $79,000 to the Justices. Five times in the past seven years, cases involving Halliburton have come before the Texas Supreme Court, and each time the Court has either ruled for the company or refused to hear an appeal of a favorable verdict for the firm from a lower court.

In 1999, a Halliburton employee had won a $2.6 million trial verdict due to allegations that a company supervisor framed him to test positive for cocaine, only to see the verdict overturned by a Texas Court of Appeals. Just before the Texas Supreme Court ruled on the case, Halliburton gave a number of contributions to the Justices, including $3000 to Alberto Gonzales. None of the Justices recused themselves from the case and the Court refused to hear the appeal against Halliburton.

Making the Gonzales conflict even more controversial is the fact

MORE -

[oblivious]

3. Caption for your smiling Gonzales photo.

Hee hee! Did you see the torture photos? Weren't they great? *giggle*

[rumguy]

4. Gonzales looks like a straight up dweeb

[Jose Diablo]

5. They will not call the Geneva Conventions

"obsolete" and "quaint" when they are swinging from a rope around their necks.

I see a War Crimes Tribunal in the future for all them bums.

[pa28]

6. This is huge

MSNBC is leading with it now on their website. It appears there is a paper trail leading straight to Bush and connecting him to suspension of the Geneva Convention as well as torture and abuse of innocent civilians in Iraqi prisons. Bush, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft ". . . signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods".

Let's keep this one kicked.
:kick:

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. Yeah, this appears to have legs

If we can just kick Bush in the ass with this....

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[Rowdyboy]

8. Alberto Gonzalez is one of the top rightwing picks for Supreme Court

vacancies BEFORE TODAY!!!!!!!!!

Excellent! This cuts him off at the knees!

[AgadorSparticus]

9. oooooooh.......this is big......

kick

[FDRrocks]

10. I call his insight and mindset

Bought and paid for and infinitely below that of the draftees of the Geneva Convention.

[leftofthedial]

12. I live for the day the bushgang is obsolete

along with the grinning Gonzales