[Peace-discuss] Torture and the attorney general

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the nomination of
Alberto R. Gonzales to be U.S. Attorney General.  His record is
horrendous, as we would expect from this administration, perhaps most
notably on the criminal torture policy of the Bush wars. I've faxxed the
appended to the Illinois senators, Richard Durbin (fax 202.228.0400) and
Barack Obama (fax 202.228.1372). --CGE]


Dear Senator:

I hope you will vote against the confirmation of Alberto R. Gonzales as
U.S. Attorney General.  His arguments in the infamous torture memos make
him unfit for that job.

At the very least, he must declare, as Amnesty International has insisted,
that he unequivocally opposes torture and ill treatment under any
circumstances, including war and any other public emergency; that he
supports the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry, wholly
separate from the Department of Justice, to investigate all aspects of
U.S. detention and interrogation policies and practices; that he supports
an end to the use of secret and incommunicado detention; and that he will
prosecute any U.S. agent implicated in war crimes, "disappearances",
secret detentions, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

In a memorandum from January 2002, Mr. Gonzales states that the United
States is in a new kind of war against international terrorism that
"renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy
prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions..." At a press
conference in June 2004, Mr. Gonzales asserted that some prisoners are
"not legally entitled" to humane treatment.  These shocking statements
alone should be enough to disqualify him.  His views and actions surely
should be seen as anti-American.

Sincerely,

C. G. Estabrook