Gonzales evades the open secret

[ivolsky]

I have been reading all of the papers in hopes of fully understanding yesterday's Gonzales confirmation hearings. But even after going through many if not all of the related articles, I'm still scared.

Gonzales could not recall his original position on the August 2002 "torture memo" he helped draft but added that "I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached." But in what has by now become part of the official record, the abuses of Abu Ghraib and beyond "were in fact procedures , which would not have been possible without policies that had been approved" and still supported by the likes of Alberto Gonzales. Once again, Gonzales sanctioned torture.

(The August 2002 memo discussed interrogation techniques Americans could use against detainees and narrowly defined torture as something that induced organ failure or worse.)
Asked whether he thinks the president can order torture and throw out anti-torture conventions, Gonzales acknowledged that, "hypothetically that authority may exist" and that while he could not remember who had requested the August 2002 memo, harsh interrogation techniques were discussed at White House meetings.

Gonzales attributed the Abu Ghraib abuses to inadequate supervision and training of military personnel in interrogation tactics and rejected the idea that his legal policies had opened the door to the abuse at Guantanamo Bay or Iraq. But both the Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations (The Schlesinger Report ) and the AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigadeby Major General George R. Fay suggest just the opposite. As Mark Danner points out these reports concluded that, "procedures that 'violated established interrogation procedures and applicable laws' in fact had their genesis not in Iraq but in interrogation rooms in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba--and ultimately in decisions made by high officials in Washington."

Ultimately, Gonzales did not acknowledge the obvious. And his ability to so easily evade the truth-- truth so easily accessible to anybody with an internet connection-- speaks, once again, to the death of American democracy. That fact that Gonzales's legal opinions directly led to the abuse and torture of prisoners is an open secret. But as always, that which is hidden in the open is always hardest to find. (And in this case, the public just wasn’t looking.)

As for Gonzales, the man who penned the policies that have since radicalized so many Muslim men to the global war of Jihad, he will now be responsible for prosecuting the recently radicalized terrorists. How fitting.

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