"The best way for the American people
to send a message to the Bush administration
and the world that 'we the people' of the
United States do not condone torture
is to mobilize to reject the nomination
of Alberto Gonzales."
-- Ron Daniels, Executive Director, the Center for Constitutional Rights
President Bush's nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales
to be the next Attorney General would elevate the architect of the
Administration's torture policy to the position of the chief law
enforcement officer in the land. His confirmation hearing begins on
January 5. Please help us oppose this travesty of justice - tell your
representatives: "tough questions are not enough." Send a message to
the Bush Administration and the world that the American people do not
condone torture.
Mr. Gonzales is the author of the infamous "torture memo" that called
the Geneva Conventions "obsolete" and "quaint," and he has argued for
virtually limitless presidential power to evade or circumvent laws
and treaties on the theory that the Commander-in-Chief is not
accountable to the Judiciary as it relates to the "war against
terrorism." The memos Gonzales authored and commissioned paved the
way to the abuse and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu
Ghraib, many of whom are represented by the Center for Constitutional
Rights. At CCR, we have seen the terrible effect of the evasion of
the rule of law on human beings first hand. There is no question but
that there is a causal link between the memoranda and other
directives devised by Mr. Gonzales and the horrible infractions
committed by officers in the field.
As White House counsel, Gonzales consistently treated the law as an
inconvenient obstacle and ignored the expertise of those who
disagreed with him. He argued that U.S. citizens could be held
incommunicado and stripped of the right to counsel and the right to
challenge their detention in a court of law for as long as the
President deemed necessary. He hosted meetings where they discussed
the use of specific torture techniques, including mock burial and
"water boarding," where the victim is made to feel that he is
drowning. Gonzales and his circle approved the use of dogs, hooding,
and extreme sensory deprivation, all forbidden by the Geneva
Conventions and the International Covenant Against Torture. He
redefined torture to limit it to only those actions that lead to
organ failure, death or permanent psychological damage. Gonzales
justified this relaxed definition of torture on the grounds that in a
time of war, interrogators need to extract information from prisoners
quickly to save American lives. However, it has long been established
by experts in the field that torture leads to false confessions and
bad intelligence. The policies advocated by Mr. Gonzales will expose
our own troops to danger the world over for decades to come.
In their scathing editorial on the nomination, The Washington Post
linked Mr. Gonzales directly to the tortures at Abu Ghraib and called
his legal positions "damaging and erroneous." Newsweek wrote that
"Gonzales ultimately signed off on all of the administration's most
controversial legal moves."
Many members of Congress have said that they will not oppose Mr.
Gonzales's nomination, that he will only be made to answer tough
questions before sailing through the confirmation process. We at the
Center for Constitutional Rights object to giving an architect of
torture a promotion. We reiterate, tough questions are not enough.
Please ask your Congressional representatives and the members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee to stand up and oppose the nomination of
Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. We hope you will join us in
declaring that this man and his policies do not represent who we are
as Americans!
Please circulate this widely and quickly - the hearings begin the
first week of the New Year! To send a letter, click here.
http://www.ccr-ny.org/actionalertSincerely yours,
Ron Daniels
Executive Director
Center for Constitutional Rights
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
--Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor
