- AUSTIN, Texas - When, in
the future, you find yourself wondering, "Whatever happened to the
Constitution?" you will want to go back and look at June 8, 2004.
That was the day the attorney general of the United States - a.k.a. "the
nation's top law enforcement officer" - refused to provide the Senate
Judiciary Committee with his department's memos concerning torture.
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- In order to justify torture, these memos declare that
the president is bound by neither U.S. law nor international treaties.
We have put ourselves on the same moral level as Saddam Hussein, the only
difference being quantity. Quite literally, the president may as well wear
a crown - forget that "no man is above the law" jazz. We used
to talk about "the imperial presidency" under Nixon, but this
is the real thing.
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- The Pentagon's legal staff concurred in this incredible
conclusion. In a report printed by The Wall Street Journal, "Bush
administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound
by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture
prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department.
...
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- "The report outlined U.S. laws and international
treaties forbidding torture, and why those restrictions might be overcome
by national security considerations or legal technicalities."
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- The report was complied by a group appointed by Department
of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who has since been nominated
by Bush for the federal appellate bench. "Air Force General Counsel
Mary Walker headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed
lawyers from each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence
agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report."
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- When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned
Ashcroft about his department's input, he simply refused to provide the
memos, without offering any legal rationale. He said President Bush had
"made no order that would require or direct the violation" of
laws or treaties. His explanation was that the United States is at war.
"You know I condemn torture," he told Sen. Joe Biden. "I
don't think it's productive, let alone justified."
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- But another memo written by former Assistant Attorney
General Jay S. Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge in California,
establishes a basis for the use of torture for senior Al Qaeda operatives
in custody of the CIA. I am not one to leap to conclusions, but it seems
quite clear how whatever perverted standards allowed at Guantanamo Bay
jumped across the water to Abu Ghraib prison. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller,
commander at Gitmo, was dispatched last August to Abu Ghraib to give advice
about how to get information out of prisoners. "Miller's recommendations
prompted a shift in the interrogation and detention procedures there. Military
intelligence officers were given greater authority in the prison, and military
police guards were asked to help gather information about the detainees,"
according to The New York Times.
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- Among the legal memos that circulated within the administration
in 2002, one is by White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez, famously declaring
the Geneva Convention "quaint," and another from the CIA asked
for an explicit understanding that the administration's public pledge to
abide by the spirit of the Geneva Convention did not apply to its operatives.
The only department consistently opposing these legal "arguments"
was State. In April 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld sent a memo to Gen. James
T. Hill outlining 24 permitted interrogation techniques, four of which
were considered so stressful as to require Rumsfeld's explicit approval
before they were used.
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- It has been apparent for some time that the abuses at
Abu Ghraib were not isolated instances - torture from Afghanistan to Gitmo
to Iraq has so far resulted in 25 deaths now under investigation. As the
late Jacabo Timmermann, the Argentine journalist who was tortured during
"the dirty war," said, "When you are being tortured, it
doesn't really matter to you if your torturers are authoritarian or totalitarian."
I doubt it helps any if they're supposed to be bringing democracy, either.
And as Ashcroft said, it isn't productive.
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- The damage is incalculable. When America puts out its
annual report on human rights abuses, we will be a laughingstock. I suggest
a special commission headed by Sen. John McCain to dig out everyone responsible,
root and branch. If the lawyers don't cooperate, perhaps we should try
stripping them, anally raping them and dunking their heads under water
until they think they're drowning, and see if that helps.
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- And I think it is time for citizens to take some responsibility,
as well. Is this what we have come to? Is this what we want our government
to do for us? Oh and by way, to my fellow political reporters who keep
repeating that Bush is having a wonderful week: Why don't you think about
what you stand for?
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- Molly Ivins writes for Texas Oberserver.
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- \http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18919
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