Gonzales Offers Tortured Defense Of His Pro-Torture Past
Gonzales Offers Tortured Defense Of His Pro-Torture Past
In an interview with Law.com, disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales attempts to walk back pro-torture arguments he made to President Bush, claiming that he was only criticizing isolated provisions such as “a requirement that you provide athletic uniforms, commissary privileges, scientific instruments, [and] a monthly allowance” to detainees. According to Gonzales, “I didn’t mean to say that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions requiring basic humane treatment were outdated. No, I didn’t say that.”
Gonzales’ attempt to whitewash his previous statement, however, does not jibe with the facts. Here’s what Gonzales actually wrote in a 2002 memo to President Bush:
The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.
So while Gonzales did indeed criticize provisions which supposedly require the United States to provide detainees with athletic uniforms and scientific instruments, he also clearly rejects the Geneva Conventions’ limits on torture and other abusive interrogation techniques as “obsolete.”
Moreover even if Gonzales’ defense of his prior views could be taken at face value, they, at best, reveal him to be a completely incompetent attorney. Many of the provisions Gonzales labels as “quaint” simply do not exist. For example, nothing in the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War requires a detaining power to provide detainees with “athletic uniforms” or “scientific instruments.” The only provisions which even vaguely resemble such a requirement are Article 27, which mandates that detainees must be given appropriate “[c]lothing, underwear and footwear,” and Article 72, which provides that detention guards cannot seize mail sent to detainees which contains harmless items such as “scientific instruments” and “sports outfits.”
Similarly, while the Geneva Convention does include provisions requiring that detainees be given access to a kind of store, such provisions exist solely to ensure that the detainees most basic needs are met. Under the heading of “QUARTERS FOOD AND CLOTHING OF PRISONERS OF WAR,” Article 28 provides that a “canteen” must be set up in prisoner of war camps which provides necessities such as “foodstuffs” and “soap” (possibly because many prisoners of war are addicted to cigarettes when they are captured, the convention also provides for access to tobacco). To enable detainees to obtain food and soap from the canteen, Article 60 provides for prisoners to receive a modest “advance of pay.”
In other words, the “commissary” and “scrip” provided for under the Convention are really just a way of ensuring that the detainees basic needs are provided for. It is a mechanism to feed and clean detainees, not a requirement that detainee camps house their very own Wal-Mart.
Despite his attempts to whitewash the past, the meaning of Gonzales’ 2002 memo is clear. Gonzales believed that Geneva’s ban on detainee mistreatment is “render[ed] obsolete” by modern day terrorism; and he affirmatively misrepesented the contents of the Geneva Convention in a memo to the President of the United States.
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Your pants are on fire Gonzo. It’s the least of your problems though, I think I hear a special prosecutor calling your name!
August 25th, 2009 at 9:10 pmshouldna wrote it down gonzo. Guess that dictatorship didn’t work out so well did it?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:18 pmGonzales Offers Tortured Defense Of His Pro-Torture Past
– - Oh Fredo, just go fishing in a rowboat on a private lake. And take a “friend.”
August 25th, 2009 at 9:21 pmSpeaking of criminals:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7374
FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was allowed to speak about much of what the Bush Administration spent years trying to keep her from discussing on the record.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:28 pmTwice gagged by the Bush Dept. of Justice’s invocation of the so-called “State Secrets Privilege,” Edmonds has been attempting to tell her story, about the crimes she became aware of while working for the FBI, for years.
Words cannot express my contempt for this man, and for the administration that put him in charge of “justice” in our country.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:30 pmThe special prosecutor is going to start with torture, but along the way is going to uncover the entire C-street crime syndicate. There are going to be a lot of different types of crimes that are going to have to be prosecuted.
You just know the criminal Republicans are shitting their pants over this, including Gonzales, and I love every minute of it.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:32 pmWhen will this un-American slime be going to prison?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:41 pmwhy hasn’t the bar association kicked his ass out yet?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:45 pmI wonder if they offer graduate studies in Historical Revisionism at Regent University? It could take decades to rewrite the history of U.S. politics since 1994!
August 25th, 2009 at 9:52 pmExcellent dissection of Gonzales’ statement, TP. Hats off.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:54 pmSo am I understanding this correctly that the memo he sent to Bush gave Bush the justification to go ahead and use “torture” while totally ignoring the Geneva Conventions in hopes of extracting information from suspected terrorist?
But also took away the detainees basic rights because he lied to Bush that the Geneva Convention was out of date?
I’m going to have me several glasses of wine to calm my nerves, this is just totally un(phucking)believable.
And to think this “dangerous” thug is teaching students how to break the law.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:54 pm“disgraced” indeed.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pmWhat is it about these people that makes them think that the only way to get good information out of people is to threaten them, to beat them, to act tougher than them? Why do they think that the only way to show strength is through physical violence? I really have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney really that pathologically sick?
I can’t find the story right now because I have to get ready for bed, but I remember reading that Dick Cheney was on about three different kinds of medication, each seeming to counteract the side effects of one of the other two, and that this combination of medicines, along with his well-documented multiple heart attacks, may have actually changed his personality over the years making him a bitter, evil person. It would explain a great deal.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:18 pmThe problem with Gonzo is that he gives all other Gonzos and dirt bags a bad name. Maybe we will get lucky and other hispanics will simply disavow him. That he is actually being paid to mentor law students is frightening.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:19 pmOh, come on! Let’s not be disingenuous, here. How do you expect to be able to quickly gain information from someone wearing an athletic uniform?
August 25th, 2009 at 10:33 pmMany things were “rendered obsolete” during Gonzo’s tenure as head of the DOJ — integrity, honesty, competence and independence just to name a few.
Can’t blame him entirely, though. After all, look at what a lousy role model his boss, GDumbya, was.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:41 pmHere you go Wayne check this site out it’s pretty extensive on Cheney’s health.
Health & Medical History of Richard “Dick” Cheney
http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/a_cheney.htm
August 25th, 2009 at 11:00 pmSince these crooks can’t blame Holder or Obama for their crimes from 2001-2008, they will start to turn on each other like hyaenas picking the scraps off a carcass. Can you imagine any other outcome when you sit in meetings during the Bush Administration and you are getting advice from Rove, Cheney, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld?
August 25th, 2009 at 11:01 pmbzb says:
Health & Medical History of Richard “Dick” Cheney
I still maintain that Dr. Suess diagnosed Cheney correctly. His heart is two sizes too small.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:05 pmNew war? What is different about this war when war has been writtem about for five thousand years?
August 25th, 2009 at 11:06 pmThis useless bastard and David Addington should be sharing a cell at The Hague! Right next to GW Botch and Dick(head.
Listening to a drill starting up or a gun being loaded.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:07 pmIm surprised they cav even see the thing given that light cant escape from a black hole
August 25th, 2009 at 11:11 pmAddington said he thought of Cheney as a client. I take that to mean that he did what his client wanted and protected him instead of actually advisingas to what the law actually means.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:16 pmWhen will Ron Christie get his eyes fixed?
August 25th, 2009 at 11:17 pmLegally speaking, the Geneva Conventions were never “rendered obsolete.” They still have the force of law to this day, having been enacted by Congress and signed into law by U.S. Presidents in 1882, 1907, 1929, 1949 and 1977. Anyone purporting to provide legal advice to a new President might want to mention that at some point.
The most disgusting thing about this is that the opinions provided by the DoJ were not opinions comparing proposed actions to the law; rather, they were opinions comparing proposed actions to Bush’s own policy statements, as the above quote makes clear:
These are not legal factors. The “nature of the new war” is not a legal concept in any sense of law whatsoever. The wartime priorities of the executive branch are not laws either.
At some point, somebody should have said “Sir, do you want me to tell you what the law says or what you want to hear?” The answer to that question, put directly, could constitute a crime that would make Nixon blush.
Man, remember when the Attorney General was about the most respected Cabinet position there was? When its historical independence from the White House was touted as an island of integrity in Washington? Good times, good times.
Until a Bush-appointed official ruined all that.*
* (Copy this sentence and save it in a text document; it is extremely useful and may be used to explain a number of current situations and events.)
.
hivanh says:
The problem with Gonzo is that he gives all other Gonzos and dirt bags a bad name.
He has indeed smeared the name of a great entertainer.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:25 pmXisithrus says:
Addington said he thought of Cheney as a client. I take that to mean that he did what his client wanted and protected him instead of actually advisingas to what the law actually means.
Good point. Not “here’s how to avoid breaking the law,” but rather “here’s how to get away with what you want to do without getting caught.”
August 25th, 2009 at 11:26 pmAugust 25th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
It is if you watch 24
/snark
August 25th, 2009 at 11:31 pmGonzo remains a stooge. He was and always will be a stooge…BUT, he’ll get a front row seat on the plane to the Hague for his War Crimes trial..scum of the pig farm…
August 25th, 2009 at 11:39 pmIt was not his job, or the president’s job, or the vice president’s job to decide that the Geneva Convention was anything but law they were required to abide by. Here we have tons of evidence that the Bush administration violated the Constitution flagrantly and often, yet now these wing-nuts are having anuerisms over President Obama violating the Constitution (in their minds). Delayed Stress Syndrome?
Nah. They’re just nuts.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:03 amHe played a part in war crimes. WAR CRIMES. And yet that doesn’t seem to matter.
Lucky for him, war crimes are legal in the U.S. Well, legal up until all of the culprits live out their comfortable lives in luxury and die of old age/ natural causes. Then an investigation will assuredly, and righteously, get to the bottom of things! (harrumph! harrumph! harrumph!)
I mean, who really cares about laws anyways? After all, laws are so….oh, what’s the word…..oh right, quaint!
August 26th, 2009 at 12:15 am“Gonzales Offers Tortured Defense Of His Pro-Torture Past”
Spare me.. Fredo offering torture defense is like George W. Gump Bush offering an alcoholic advice from the 12 step program. Pass the popcorn please….
August 26th, 2009 at 12:45 amTheres something wrong with the picture of cheney and gonzales.They should both be wearing orange jumpsuits with D.O.C printed on the back.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:19 amWhat a STUPID, IGNORANT, MAGGOT!
Does he really think that the AG office is supposed to make up shitty legal documentation and be expected to stand up to scrutiny?
Actions have consequences, you fail miserably at trying to defend what you did. NOW! Stand up and take what you deserve.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:27 am.
W. T. F. ?
… Fredo recalls something?
.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:28 amJust want to see justice done.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:33 amDen Hague. Soon.
OT…Senator Ted Kennedy has passed away.
Rest in peace, Senator; you will be missed.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:34 amLeftside…
… :(
Peace to a Great Man.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:39 amTed Kennedy is gone.
We have lost the last of the Kennedy brothers.
All we can do now is hope their in a better place.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:54 amJust heard about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death. RIP. Great man, Senator, and humanitarian,
August 26th, 2009 at 1:56 amRest in peace senator Kennedy.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:59 amLets see if fox noise has anything positive to say about a good man who dedicated his life to serving the American people.
I’m for Senator Kennedy getting a State funeral.
Anyone with me on this?
August 26th, 2009 at 2:00 amIm with you on the state funeral cd.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:10 amThe Senate and his country will miss his august presence.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:18 amA great Senator.
May he rest in peace.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:20 amJoe died at Sea
JFK had to have a closed casket
RFK didn’t want a State funeral
That leaves us with Edward….if he wanted a State Funeral.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:34 amI was really looking forward to him voting for health care. It would have been the perfect capstone to his career and life.
Unfortunately, his seat will now be vacant for 145 – 160 days while Massachusetts holds a special election.
Of course, this might convince a lot of other D’s to switch towards reconciliation, since 60 votes for cloture won’t be possible.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:42 amNIce I am now in the club. I’ve been called Lazy by a republican who’s never met me. Boo yeah. Medal of freedom please!
August 26th, 2009 at 4:18 amRIP Senator Kennedy.
The health care reform bill needs to be called the Edward Kennedy bill.
And the bill may pass:
A Democratic member of the “Gang of Six” senators charged with finding a bipartisan solution to health care reform said at a town hall Monday that he would support using the budget reconciliation process to push a bill through the Senate if necessary.
Reconciliation is a parliamentary procedure that would allow Democrats to pass health care reform with 51 votes,…
August 26th, 2009 at 4:32 amThe lion finally sleeps tonight.
Rest in peace, Senior Senator.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:23 amBums me out that Kennedy didn’t last long enough to see health care reform pass.
My hope is that the Democrats honor his memory by passing this thing WITH A PUBLIC OPTION, even if they have to use the memory of Senator Kennedy as a political bludgeon to get the Blue Cross…err Dog Democrats in line.
I want to see ads on TV that say:
Pass Health Insurance Reform, Do It For Teddy
August 26th, 2009 at 7:01 amElBruce says:
Unfortunately, his seat will now be vacant for 145 – 160 days while Massachusetts holds a special election.
Of course, this might convince a lot of other D’s to switch towards reconciliation, since 60 votes for cloture won’t be possible.
As a resident of Massachusetts, I will do my best to encourage others to vote Democrat for the open position. Can’t say I really appreciate the choices for Republican anyways…
From the Associated Press:
On the Republican side, potential candidates include Cape Cod businessman Jeff Beatty, former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and Chris Egan, former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Cooperation and Development.
I, for one, hope to see either Coakley or Meehan get the position, as I would rather have the current U.S. Representatives from Massachusetts in their current seats to stay. I think Coakley would be a great choice, myself.
I pray that Kerry Healey doesn’t get the shot at running for the seat; her campaign against Deval Patrick for governor was rife with smear tactic ads.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:29 amRIP Senator Kennedy.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:41 amRIP Senator Kennedy.
You and your attributes truly were what I looked for when I considered someone for the Senate. We may not have agreed with every position you took, but I say say with confidence you were one of the few politicians I liked in a town full of crooks and liars.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:47 amAlready, the hacks are smearing a legend. Nora O’Donnell and several others couldn’t wait to thrust the Health Care debate just hours after Ted Kennedy’s passing. Sigh. Ted Kennedy deserves the most profound respect. MSM, is without a doubt, a true disaster.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:07 amRIP Senator… The little people of the world just lost the Lion who fought for them everyday of his life. The world is a sadder place today.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:02 amIn loving memory of Ted. Read this visionary link:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/08/the-office-of-the-presidency-must-end/
August 26th, 2009 at 9:15 amP.D. says:
Already, the hacks are smearing a legend.
They’ve been smearing him all his life. Nothing new there.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:59 amGeneva Conventions were out of Alberto’s league. He really had no business speaking of something he knew little or nothing about.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:10 amIn reallity Alberto was only an ignorant cover for the now rotting miscarriage of the bush cheney legacy.
He has lost his humanity.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:31 amIsn’t Gonzo a lawyer ?
Any lawyer worth their salt learns how to introduce earlier statements into evidence and show inconsistencies between the earlier statements and current statements.
Oh, “worth their salt”. Never mind.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:41 amThe rule of law ?
August 26th, 2009 at 11:02 amThe obvious violations of real and applicable laws are ALL still unprosecuted ! Why bother having laws if the powerful can break them without consequences and then the next administration just “moves on”?
How will other countries manage to deal in good faith with a nation that fails to fulfill its international commitments while killing and torturing ?
Maybe while Holder is at it he can find out what really happened on 9/11/01.
The Bush version is obvious bullshit.
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
August 26th, 2009 at 2:36 pmNapoleon Bonaparte’s troops butchered people up and down Europe and he ordered cannon fired at rioters in the streets of Paris. He was a real sweetheart. And he did not believe in torture as a tool. He forbid it in his empire. What did he know that Dubya, Cheney, Gonzalez and Yuu didn’t? Probably everything. He wrote his own code of laws and most of it is still used.
You can do worse than to follow Napoleon’s examples.
Of course, Bush wasn’t the ruler Napoleon was, nor was Gonzalez the lawyer Napoleon was.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:13 am