Alberto Gonzales doesn't like foreigners much, it appears:
Alberto Gonzales has asserted to the Senate committee weighing his nomination to be attorney general that there's a legal rationale for harsh treatment of foreign prisoners by U.S. forces.In more than 200 pages of written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who plan to vote Wednesday on his nomination, Gonzales told senators that laws and treaties prohibit torture by any U.S. agent without exception.
But he said the Convention Against Torture treaty, as ratified by the Senate, doesn't prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" tactics on non-U.S. citizens who are captured abroad, in Iraq or elsewhere.
[snip]
As he did at the hearing, Gonzales said President Bush had ordered that torture not be used by the U.S. military or the CIA. He used the definition of torture in U.S. statutes: an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering."
But he drew a distinction between U.S. anti-torture statutes and the international Convention Against Torture, which calls on nations to prevent acts of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that may fall short of torture.
When the Senate ratified the treaty, it defined such treatment as violations of the Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendments. Because of that provision, Gonzales said, the Justice Department decided that the convention applies only to actions under U.S. jurisdiction, not "treatment with respect to aliens overseas."
His attitude seems to be "Torture anybody without a US citizenship. Then it's all legal."
I'm sorry, but torture is not an option for anyone whose job is to act as America's attorney. Why the idea doesn't provoke revulsion in his mind or that of his supporters just shows how out of whack their "moral values" really are.
Write Call your Congressperson. This man shouldn't be Attorney General of the US.
Torture is torture...and nobody has to have an official rulebook to clarify the definition as much as the administration's legal team conflates mitigating arguments (combantants vrs. POWs) to muddle it up. Setting aside the moral component, the only way around the legal issue is to outsource the torture to nations that practice torture as a routine method of interrogation. I'm sure that some of the recently requested $80 billion more for the Iraqi War could cover the room and board of the detainees shipped abroad for questioning disguised as a fellowship program. The fact of the matter is that the nation's that the terrorists grew up in already use torture to extract infomation free from legal challenges and the members of terrorists' organizations as a precaution do not shareware critical intel.
Posted by: RONW at January 26, 2005 10:33 AM