[Shadow_Group] Democrats to Confirm Gonzales!

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

  Democrats ready to confirm defender of torture as new US attorney 
  general

  By Joseph Kay
  12 November 2004

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  President George Bush announced Wednesday his nomination of current 
  White House Legal Counsel Alberto Gonzales to replace Attorney General 
  John Ashcroft, who submitted his resignation on Tuesday. The nomination 
  of Gonzales confirms that the Bush administration is preparing to 
  escalate its attacks on democratic rights and its defiance of 
  international law.

  Ashcroft became something of a symbol of the Bush administration's 
  contempt for constitutional safeguards and its assertion of 
  unprecedented police powers. His tenure saw an unrelenting attack on 
  democratic rights, including the implementation of the Patriot Act, the 
  mass arrests and deportations of Muslims and Arabs following September 
  11, and the detention without charge of US citizens Yasser Hamdi and 
  Jose Padilla. Ashcroft will be remembered for his assertion to a 
  congressional committee that critics of administration policy were 
  giving "aid" to the terrorists.

  Gonzales is, if anything, more consistent in his hostility to 
  constitutional principles and civil liberties. He is infamous for 
  having authored a 2002 memo arguing that the Geneva Conventions did not 
  apply to the war against Afghanistan. He is also implicated in 
  discussions within the administration on legal justifications for the 
  use of torture, military tribunals, and the claim that the president, 
  as commander-in-chief in the "war on terror," has virtually unlimited 
  powers.

  Demonstrating their utter prostration before Bush and the Republican 
  right, and their indifference to democratic rights, leading Democrats 
  have already announced that Gonzales will have little trouble being 
  confirmed by the Senate. Although the Republicans wield a majority in 
  the chamber, the Democrats have more than sufficient votes to mount a 
  filibuster and thereby block a nomination. They have gone out of their 
  way to make clear, however, that they will not exercise that option.

  Senator Charles Schumer of New York declared that "it's encouraging 
  that the president has chosen someone less polarizing" than Ashcroft. 
  Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware evaluated Gonzales to be "a pretty 
  solid guy."

  Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000 and a possible 
  replacement for Terry McAuliffe as chairman of the Democratic National 
  Committee, said on CNN that the Democrats would not seek to filibuster 
  the nomination.

  The New York Times, the newspaper of the liberal establishment and 
  supporter of the Kerry campaign, published an editorial on Thursday 
  declaring, "Mr. Gonzales has shown that he can distinguish between a 
  political agenda and the law." It continued, "We hope he brings that 
  sort of reasoned approach to the Justice Department."

  The Democrats are well aware of Gonzales's role in the administration. 
  In a speech he gave on May 26, 2004, Gore himself pointed to Gonzales 
  as one of the advisors who had crafted the administration policy that 
  led to the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. In earlier 
  speeches, Gore denounced as a " 'Big Brother' style of government" the 
  very policies pushed by Gonzales.

  As for the New York Times, it has documented in a number of articles 
  Gonzales's contempt for constitutional principles of law and 
  government. An article by Times correspondent Tim Golden published on 
  October 24, 2004 ("After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law"), 
  details how a group of right-wing lawyers-including Gonzales, one of 
  his deputies, Timothy Flanigan, and the vice president's counsel, David 
  Addington-pushed for an agenda that would undermine legal protections 
  for those detained in the "war on terror."

  Only a week after the September 11 attacks, Gonzales set up a group to 
  examine options for prosecuting individuals captured by the American 
  military and intelligence services. Gonzales himself favored the use of 
  military commissions, where the most basic rights would be denied. When 
  the original group failed to act quickly enough, Flanigan and 
  Gonzales's Office of the White House Counsel moved to scuttle the 
  discussion.

  According to Golden, with the White House and its Office of Legal 
  Counsel in charge, the planning of military tribunals moved more 
  quickly, culminating in a memo sent to Gonzales on November 6, 2001. 
  Written by one of Gonzales's deputies, Patrick Philbin, the memo set 
  out that the president had the "inherent authority" as 
  commander-in-chief to establish military commissions without the 
  permission of Congress.

  In the divisions that emerged within the administration over the 
  handling of detainees, Gonzales was consistently among the most fervent 
  opponents of granting democratic rights. Golden states that Gonzales, 
  Flanigan and Addington "opposed allowing civilian lawyers to assist the 
  tribunal defendants, as military courts-martial permit, or allowing 
  civilians to serve on the appellate panel that would oversee the 
  commission. They also opposed granting defendants a presumption of 
  innocence."

  On the question of the prosecution of detainees, Gonzales even 
  outflanked Attorney General Ashcroft, who worried that some of the 
  rules being proposed would be seen as "draconian."

  The military commissions set up in accordance with the proposals of 
  Gonzales and company were this week ruled illegal by a federal district 
  judge.

  Gonzales was also the author of a memo dated January 25, 2002, arguing 
  that no prisoners captured in the war against Afghanistan should be 
  accorded the rights of the Geneva Conventions. His position was more 
  extreme than that eventually taken by the administration.

  A presidential decision issued two weeks later declared that the Geneva 
  Conventions applied to the war in Afghanistan, but members of the 
  Taliban captured by American troops would be treated as "unlawful 
  combatants," and not prisoners of war. All factions within the 
  administration agreed that alleged members of Al Qaeda would not be 
  given any rights under international law.

  Gonzales opposed what would become the administration's position 
  because he thought it would limit the flexibility of the US government 
  in its interrogation practices and its plans for further wars. His memo 
  states, "The war against terrorism is a new kind of war.... 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 my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete 
  Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners."

  Gonzales also felt that by declaring that the Geneva Conventions did 
  not apply at all to Afghanistan, the administration would more securely 
  protect itself against future prosecution for war crimes. He noted that 
  the US War Crimes Act makes war crimes-defined as grave breaches of the 
  Geneva Conventions-punishable by death. Some provisions of the 
  Conventions (such as the prohibition of 'outrages against personal 
  dignity') apply whether or not the detainee is categorized as a POW. "A 
  determination that the [Geneva Conventions] are not applicable to the 
  Taliban would mean that [the War Crimes Act] would not apply to actions 
  taken with respect to the Taliban," he wrote.

  It is no surprise, therefore, that Gonzales was closely involved in the 
  memos produced within the administration that sought to create a legal 
  rationale for the use of torture. The most important memos on the 
  subject that have been leaked to the press were drafted at the request 
  of Gonzales, including the August 1, 2002, memo written by Assistant 
  Attorney General Jay Bybee.

  The Bybee memo sought to define torture in such narrow terms as to 
  allow a wide variety of methods expressly prohibited under 
  international law. It further developed the argument that the president 
  had unlimited powers as commander-in-chief, asserting that even if 
  torture were prohibited by law, such laws would be unconstitutional if 
  they unduly restricted the powers of the president. (See "Washington 
  Post publishes memo implicating White House in torture of prisoners".)

  Gonzales's close ties to Bush-going back to Bush's governorship in 
  Texas-no doubt played a role in his selection. There are a number of 
  ongoing investigations at the Justice Department involving the White 
  House. These include an inquiry into the leaking of the name of a CIA 
  operative who is the wife of an administration critic, and an 
  investigation of Cheney's former company, Halliburton. The Washington 
  Post quotes one administration official as noting, "It could be the 
  kiss of death [for these investigations] to have an attorney general so 
  close to the White House."

  While the Democrats are lauding Gonzales as "a pretty solid guy," the 
  Christian fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party is also 
  applauding his nomination, mainly because it means he will not be given 
  a seat on the Supreme Court. These layers are cool to Gonzalez because 
  of his support for affirmative action and what they consider to be his 
  "soft" position on abortion. His nomination as attorney general is a 
  signal that the Bush administration is preparing to appease the 
  Christian right with a suitable nominee to the Court in the likely 
  event that Chief Justice William Rehnquist resigns
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