Monday, March 12, 2007

All eyes on Gonzo....

The litany of abuses documented by the Times includes the fact that "the attorney general helped formulate and later defended the policies that repudiated the Geneva Conventions in the war against terror, and that sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture."

While serving as White House counsel, Gonzales helped set the course for the interrogation policy against detainees by yielding legal control to others, "particularly Vice President Cheney's influential legal counsel, David S. Addington." In an attempt to justify depriving Guantanamo detainees of their rights to challenge their convictions, Gonzales has opined, "There is no express grant of habeas corpus in the Constitution." He has blamed the administration's poor track record of convicting Guantanamo detainees on legal challenges filed by Gitmo lawyers courts. And he has helped usher in a new legal regime that provides the president sweeping new powers under the Military Commissions Act "to arrest and detain non-citizens -- and possibly citizens as well -- either here or abroad, including individuals who are not engaged in armed conflict against the United States -- and to hold them indefinitely without charge."

Gonzo needs to go...

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