…And a Legacy
of Torture, Massive Spying, and Other Illegality
By Kenneth J. Theisen, 9/14/07
On September 14, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
one of the Bush regime’s chief architects of torture, massive surveillance, and
various other crimes finished his last day of official work by telling a
massive lie in a speech, “Over the past two and a half years, I have seen
tyranny, dishonesty, corruption, and depravity of types I never thought
possible. I’ve seen things I didn’t know
man was capable of.” When I first read
this, I thought Gonzales was about to come clean about all the crimes of the
Bush regime. But then he continued, “But
I will tell you here and now that these things still leave me hopeful. Because every
time I see a glimmer of the evil man can do, I see the defenders of liberty,
truth and justice who stand ready to fight it.” He was talking about the Bush regime, not
those who are fighting the regime.
Gonzales has been under increasing political fire for the
last several months for his roles in the political firings of several U.S.
Attorneys, the implementation and continuance of massive spying on millions of
Americans, and his contradictory statements about both of these before
Congress. Democrats and Republicans had
been jumping on the band wagon demanding that he resign and some had even
suggested impeaching him.
But each time that Gonzales came under fire, his good
friend, former client, and fellow conspirator, George W. Bush, came to his
defense. Even when accepting Gonzales”
resignation, the President stated, “After months of unfair treatment that
has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales
decided to resign his position and I accept his decision.” Bush went on to say that the attorney
general’s “good name was dragged through the mud for political
reasons.”
The President was bothered that all the attention Gonzales
received “created a harmful distraction.”
Does he mean it distracted the regime from continuing all of its illegal
spy programs; from issuing executive orders and directives conferring
dictatorial powers on the President; from continuing to conduct “extraordinary
renditions” to conduct torture in other countries, or on U.S. military bases;
from continuing to strip detainees of all due process rights; or ensuring that
all U.S. prosecuting attorneys are loyal to the regime; or conducting illegal
wars across the globe? Well now that
Gonzales is gone, the regime will not be distracted from conducting business as
usual.
Of course the Attorney General was active in all the above
crimes and Gonzales has been a loyal consigleri for Bush since Bush’s days as
Governor of Texas. One of his first legal roles was to keep Bush from serving
on jury duty early in Bush’s career.
This was important as it allowed Bush to hide his criminal record,
including his drunk driving arrest, which if revealed at the time could have
cut Bush’s political career short. Typically jury questionnaires asked all
jurors to answer questions under oath about past criminal activities.
Another important role that Gonzales played in Texas was to lay the legal groundwork to execute Texas prisoners on death
role. During Governor Bush’s six-year reign in Texas there were 152 executions. In the first 57 of those cases, Gonzales
prepared the “execution summary” for Bush’s review to decide on clemency. After studying these legal briefings, Alan
Berlow wrote an article in a summer 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly where he
reported that Gonzales “repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial
issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest,
mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.” As a result Bush was able to allow the
executions to proceed with a “clear conscience.” His role in the executions undoubtedly
prepared Gonzales for his later roles in torture memos and other abuses of
prisoners in the “war on terror.” The
godfather, I mean the Governor, appreciated these various legal efforts and
rewarded Gonzales repeatedly.
Gonzales served as legal counsel to Bush in Texas. Bush even appointed him to the Texas Supreme
Court. When Bush became President, Gonzales became White House legal
counsel. He was finally rewarded with
the job as the nation’s top law enforcer a couple years ago. Gonzales never wavered in his loyalty to the
godfather. He helped devise legal
rationales for torture, the stripping of due process from prisoners (the Geneva
Convention is “quaint”), various spying operations, firings of “disloyal” U.S.
Attorneys, the general expansion of presidential powers, and probably many
other crimes which we will only learn about after the departure of the entire
regime. But because he was the legal front man for many of the regime’s most
notorious crimes, he also took the political hit many times for the
President.
He has appeared before various contentious Congressional
hearings over the last several months where he frequently answered “I
don’t know” and “I can’t recall.” When he did answer the questions, he was
often caught in inconsistencies in his testimony or he was contradicted by
others” testimony. In non-polite company
we call these “lies,” but the Bush regime gets furious when you call any of
their henchmen “liars.” Take for example
this angry answer to a reporter by the President at a press conference in early
August. “Implicit in your questions is that Al Gonzales did something
wrong. I haven’t seen Congress say he’s done anything wrong.” I guess the President was not listening to
all the accusations made by various members of Congress.
Gonzales joins other top henchmen of the regime that have
had to resign while under fire since the 2006 elections. Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld left right after the election. Next, Paul Wolfowitz resigned as President of
the World Bank under the cloud of scandal for getting his girlfriend a
top-paying political job. Wolfowitz,
while at the Defense Department, was one of the leading neo-con architects of
the Iraq
war. The latest casualty was Karl Rove
who claimed to be leaving to spend more time with his family (I guess the “Bush
family” was not enough for him), but by coincidence was under subpoena when he
refused to testify before Congress and cited “executive privilege.” Several thousand e-mails were also erased by
Karl in the attorney firings” case.
Congress is investigating his roles in the Attorney firings” case and
also in using various executive agencies for partisan electoral advantage. In
October 2005 another top henchman Scooter Libby, VP Cheney’s top aide, was
forced to resign when he was indicted in the CIA leak case. In January 2007, White House counsel and Bush
confidant Harriet Miers resigned. Although not under fire at that time, she has
since refused to testify before Congress about her role in the attorney firings
and she is facing a possible Congressional contempt case as a result. Bush had
previously nominated her to the Supreme Court but she had to withdraw under
political fire from the “extreme right” of Bush’s supporters.
The departure of all these criminals is welcome, but the
regime’s fascist program is still with us and will continue until we drive the
entire regime from power.