25 January 2005 - 11:27pm
Ends justify means?
Well, here it is about to happen -- confirmation of Rice and Gonzalez. Apparently,
- Telling the truth
- Respecting the rights of everyone
- Owning up to one's own mistakes
- Taking responsibility for one's own actions
- Respecting people's rights to dissent
- Being a leader of nations in the world
- Treating others as we would be treated by them
- Standing up for the little guy
- Civil rights
- Human rights
...are not American moral values any more. No, now it's 'Might makes right.' Now our 'moral values' are God (because He made Bush president), guns (because they are an essential part of a 'pro-life' worldview) and gays (because they corrupted Tinky Winky, Barney, Tom Delay and our beloved SpongeBob).
Well, here and now ... I dissent.
Condi Rice has failed in so many ways, she should not be given a promotion for a job badly done. And her repeated lies of convenience do indeed impugn her integrity. Funny how she blames that on Barbara Boxer. No, the buck doesn't stop with Condi!
Alberto Gonzalex has absolutely no business going from advocating and defending torture to becoming our Attorney General, top law enforcer in our country.
Wingers (who so vehemently opposed confirmation of Clinton's appointees, to the extent that Bush inherited a grossly understaffed judicial system) claim that Bush should get the cabinet he wants. Well that's all fine and dandy for Senators. But what about the rest of us? These torture-advocating chuckleheads are going to be put into positions of great power.
In our name.
Over our lives.
These people are destroying everything that made America great -- our sense of justice, our goodwill and our compassion. No, they think America is great by grace of God, and that means we can go and bomb the crap out of anyone we don't like, torture the survivors just in case they might know something, and pat ourselves on the back for being righteous and good.
I know they don't give a crap what we citizens think, but I'll say it anyway:
Senators! Vote against confirmation of Rice and Gonzalez!
Please!
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Comments
It's outrageous that Alberto Gonzales would be nominated for any cabinet post. An article, I quote in part from [url=http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/]MSNBC[/url] on "The Roots of Torture" states:
[quote]
Gonzales wrote to Bush. "The nature of the new war places a — high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians." Gonzales concluded in stark terms: "In my judgment, this [i][b]new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."[/i][/b]
. . .
Gonzales also argued that dropping Geneva would allow the president to "preserve his flexibility" in the war on terror. [b][i]His reasoning? That U.S. officials might otherwise be subject to war-crimes prosecutions under the Geneva Conventions. [/i][/b]
. . .
[/quote]
[i][b]Emphasis mine.[/b][/i]
A man who is an apologist for torture? This man clearly is not fit for the office to which he has been nominated.
As one government official said off the record, "the Bush Cabinet has set a tone. It has spread corrosively from the top down. What happened in [the torture of prisoners] comes directly from the top."
We don't need any more corrosion at the top.
I hope the US Senate does its job and blocks this guy, but fast.
Of course we know that won't happen. Beltway politics trump morality. The GOP will back "their guy" and many Dems will go along, because they don't want to make the all-powerful elephant mad.
The law and constitution must be interpreted and enforced literally - that is, unless it doesn't go along with what the administration wants.
High placed source say that Gonzales' underlings were shocked by his legal opinions on torture as no one below on the staff, reporting to Gonzales, could find any legal justification for his position.
Is this what we want at the top?
But, as Bush said to an ordinary citizen who did not have well-funded access, "Who cares what you think?"