Gonzales' fingerprints all over un-American behavior

[struggle4progress]

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers

<snip> We have not yet gotten to the bottom, or the top, of the prisoner abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or the extra-legal or illegal status of the foreigners imprisoned without charges or legal protection at America's own Devil's Island at Guantanamo, Cuba.

Despite his faulty memory and his denials in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales' fingerprints, and his legal advice, are all over the administration's papers that sought to turn both the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions on their heads.

Opinions and advice flowed out of the White House to both the Justice Department and the Defense Department beginning early in 2002 as to the lack of prisoner-of-war status and legal protection for people taken prisoner by American military forces, first in Afghanistan and then later in Iraq.

At the Pentagon that advice was turned into guidance that flowed down from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, and from Myers on down the chain of command. <snip>


http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10798390.htm

[Tigress DEM]

1. Senator Robert C. Byrd's assessment of Gonzales

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0202-32.htm

<snip>
Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks regarding the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be the nation’s next Attorney General. During the speech, Senator Byrd expressed strong concerns about Mr. Gonzales’ role in the prisoner abuse scandals that have arisen from cases in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, and the use of torture as an approved American interrogation policy. Senator Byrd also told his colleagues that the nominee, as the White House Counsel, has been responsible for programs and policies that undermine the principles of the Constitution of the United States.

((In school we were taught there are things called checks and balances to the three tiered system. Chimp et al are ignoring it again..))

<snip>
Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 69 described in detail exactly how the American system can and must be distinguished from the British monarchy. He wrote:


there is no comparison between the intended power of the President and the actual power of the British sovereign. The one can perform alone, what the other can only do with the concurrence of a branch of the Legislature.

No one man, no President, not his White House Counsel, nor all of the attorneys in the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Justice Department can, on their own, act in contravention of a law passed by Congress.

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No President can nullify or countermand a U.S. law to shield from prosecution those who would commit, or attempt to commit, torture. But that was the result sought by the White House.
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When asked by Senator Durbin if he still believes that the President has the authority as Commander-in-Chief to ignore a law passed by Congress -- to decide on his own whether it is unconstitutional or to simply refuse to comply with it -- Judge Gonzales stated that yes, he believes it is theoretically possible for the Congress to pass a law that would be viewed as unconstitutional by a President, and, therefore be ignored.

[indepat]

2. All this is a.o.k. with most Senators