Human Rights Watch Opposes Gonzales Nomination

[Jack Rabbit]

From Human Rights Watch
Dated Monday January 24

Human Rights Watch Opposes Gonzales Nomination

Human Rights Watch opposes the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to serve as Attorney General of the United States. Mr. Gonzales played a key role in providing legal justification for policies that led to torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. While we did not realistically expect Mr. Gonzales to repudiate the Bush Administration's past positions during his confirmation hearing, we hoped he would seize the chance to reassure the world that he would in the future uphold and enforce the laws that prohibit torture and ill-treatment. Instead, in his answers to Senators' questions, he raised new doubts about whether he is committed to the rule of law, and whether he even understands the laws that govern the conduct of war and the treatment of prisoners. We therefore believe Mr. Gonzales should not be confirmed to serve as Attorney General.

As Counsel to the President, Mr. Gonzales helped lay the faulty legal foundation of the Bush Administration's detention and interrogation policies in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and secret locations abroad. Ignoring the advice of Secretary of State Colin Powell and the United States' top military leaders, he urged President Bush not to apply the Geneva Conventions to the armed conflict in Afghanistan. He also wrote or requested legal memoranda that untethered U.S. treatment of detainees from its traditional moorings, leaving U.S. soldiers and interrogators without clear limits on their conduct. The theories these memos advanced provided the basis for the approval of interrogation methods the United States has long condemned as torture, including binding prisoners in painful positions, threatening them with dogs, extended sleep deprivation, prolonged exposure to extreme heat and cold, and reportedly simulated drowning. Whether giving advice to the President or reviewing the opinions of government lawyers, Mr. Gonzales never said "no" to extreme legal theories when "no" was legally and morally required.

Human Rights Watch has never before opposed the nomination of a cabinet official in the United States. We do so today mindful of a President's prerogatives in putting forth candidates for executive posts. But more important is the U.S. Senate's role in ensuring that nominees are minimally fit to serve. The Attorney General must scrupulously enforce the law and lead a Justice Department that is committed to ensuring that no one - not even the President - is above the law. Sadly, Mr. Gonzales's statements to the Senate indicate a continuing willingness to bend the law in service of a desired policy outcome, rather than an unbending commitment to respecting the law . . . .

The Bush administration has retreated from its absurdly narrow definition of torture. But when Senators asked Mr. Gonzales if he believes that the President could lawfully order a prisoner to be tortured, Mr. Gonzales repeatedly refused to say, simply, "no." Instead, he argued that the Congress could, theoretically, pass a law that is unconstitutional, which the President could, hypothetically, ignore. But the laws against torture, like the laws against murder or rape, are not hypothetical; they are real and unconditional. The United States should not have an Attorney General who refuses to say whether the President is bound to obey specific, existing laws that reflect its most fundamental values as a nation.

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[Atman]

1. Isn't that a glowing endorsement for BushCo supporters?

I mean, Human Rights Watch? Sounds like a bunch of left-wing wackos to me, yup! They probably all carry ACLU cards...always worried about their precious liberal agenda of dependence upon the government teat while Al Qeada are runnin' lose getting ready to blow us all to smithereens!

Good for Bush! Get all the torturing yes-men he wants, if he really thinks that has anything to do with being a world leader. But the democrats should not be supporting his lying, criminal nominees.

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