I'm Glad He's Gone
One of the things that has made me angry about the fallout after the resignation of Alberto Gonzales is the implication that he left because of totally unfair and basically racist treatment by the Democrats. What, as liberals we're supposed to put up with egregiously evil behavior by any government official because he or she is a person of color?
Oh, please.
That stance is as evil as the man who provoked it, and at least one Mexican editor agrees. From an August 28, 2007 editorial in Mexico's La Jornada:
The relief provoked by the news of Alberto Gonzales' resignation from the U.S. Department of Justice is insufficient to overcome the tremendous destruction wrought by that public official on our neighbor to the north's system of justice, on individual liberties and guarantees, and on the cause human rights. First, as legal counsel to George W. Bush and later as Attorney General, Gonzales - the first U.S. citizen of Mexican origin to hold that position - engineered the biggest rollback of the institutional protections and democracy in that country in decades, and it will take much time and legislative work to repair the vast legal regression he has caused. ...
One must keep in mind that as a presidential advisor, the now outgoing Attorney General played a major role in elaborating the legal regression called the “war against terrorism,” launched by Bush after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. This regression took its most deplorable expression in the so-called Patriot Act , approved by Congress in October of that year, all within the context of the hysteria generated by the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That document legalized, among other things, spying on U.S. citizens without a warrant, the illegal searches of homes, and - if thought to be suspicious in the eyes of the authorities - the indefinite detention of foreigners without providing them with legal counsel. In addition to promoting that legislation, Gonzales drew up a document [Executive Order 13233 ] in which he recommended ignoring the directives of the Geneva Conventions on the matter of prisoners of war, with the purpose of giving the military and U.S. public officials wide latitude to mistreat those captured and put them under “moderate” torture.
This and similar kinds of legal backsliding have generated a catastrophic moral regression in the society of our northern neighbor, sparking a weakening of ethical and humanitarian standards and encouraging public officials and opinion leaders to maintain that if inflicted on terrorists - torture is acceptable. Because of these acts, a repressive and barbaric climate eventually translated in the atrocities perpetrated at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers operated by the U.S. armed forces, as well as the creation of a vast government network dedicated to the kidnapping, aerial transport and torture of uncounted terrorist suspects in Europe, Asia and Africa. [Emphasis added]
And that was before he became Attorney General. Then after John Ashcroft was gone (quite possibly engineered by Mr. Gonzales's ambitious drives), Betito had a new fertile field to plow.
With this record Gonzales arrived at the Justice Department in February 2005, exercising his duties with a clear sense of partisanship and in a spirit of complete submission to Bush. During his management, the FBI was accused of applying the Patriot Act in an abusive and illegal manner, and the Department of Justice became a gigantic front for masking the shady behavior of the president and vice president. One incident that brought into bold relief, the authoritarian and dictatorial mentality of Gonzales, was his declaration that in the United States, habeas corpus falls outside constitutional protections - an opinion that scandalized jurists of the neighboring country. [Emphasis added]
Why, yes. I believe that's a reasonably complete description of how this man wiped out a couple of centuries worth of democracy in this country. And we should sit still because this man happens to have wrapped himself in the mantle of the American Dream?
I don't think so.
Oh, please.
That stance is as evil as the man who provoked it, and at least one Mexican editor agrees. From an August 28, 2007 editorial in Mexico's La Jornada:
The relief provoked by the news of Alberto Gonzales' resignation from the U.S. Department of Justice is insufficient to overcome the tremendous destruction wrought by that public official on our neighbor to the north's system of justice, on individual liberties and guarantees, and on the cause human rights. First, as legal counsel to George W. Bush and later as Attorney General, Gonzales - the first U.S. citizen of Mexican origin to hold that position - engineered the biggest rollback of the institutional protections and democracy in that country in decades, and it will take much time and legislative work to repair the vast legal regression he has caused. ...
One must keep in mind that as a presidential advisor, the now outgoing Attorney General played a major role in elaborating the legal regression called the “war against terrorism,” launched by Bush after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. This regression took its most deplorable expression in the so-called Patriot Act , approved by Congress in October of that year, all within the context of the hysteria generated by the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That document legalized, among other things, spying on U.S. citizens without a warrant, the illegal searches of homes, and - if thought to be suspicious in the eyes of the authorities - the indefinite detention of foreigners without providing them with legal counsel. In addition to promoting that legislation, Gonzales drew up a document [Executive Order 13233 ] in which he recommended ignoring the directives of the Geneva Conventions on the matter of prisoners of war, with the purpose of giving the military and U.S. public officials wide latitude to mistreat those captured and put them under “moderate” torture.
This and similar kinds of legal backsliding have generated a catastrophic moral regression in the society of our northern neighbor, sparking a weakening of ethical and humanitarian standards and encouraging public officials and opinion leaders to maintain that if inflicted on terrorists - torture is acceptable. Because of these acts, a repressive and barbaric climate eventually translated in the atrocities perpetrated at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers operated by the U.S. armed forces, as well as the creation of a vast government network dedicated to the kidnapping, aerial transport and torture of uncounted terrorist suspects in Europe, Asia and Africa. [Emphasis added]
And that was before he became Attorney General. Then after John Ashcroft was gone (quite possibly engineered by Mr. Gonzales's ambitious drives), Betito had a new fertile field to plow.
With this record Gonzales arrived at the Justice Department in February 2005, exercising his duties with a clear sense of partisanship and in a spirit of complete submission to Bush. During his management, the FBI was accused of applying the Patriot Act in an abusive and illegal manner, and the Department of Justice became a gigantic front for masking the shady behavior of the president and vice president. One incident that brought into bold relief, the authoritarian and dictatorial mentality of Gonzales, was his declaration that in the United States, habeas corpus falls outside constitutional protections - an opinion that scandalized jurists of the neighboring country. [Emphasis added]
Why, yes. I believe that's a reasonably complete description of how this man wiped out a couple of centuries worth of democracy in this country. And we should sit still because this man happens to have wrapped himself in the mantle of the American Dream?
I don't think so.
Labels: Well Duh
posted by Diane at 3:01 PM
1 Comments:
Abu was a self-hater.
That seems to be a Repug affliction.
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