Summary
One of the first steps down the road to perdition was a January 25, 2002, legal memorandum advising [Bush] to deny legal rights to Afghan prisoners of wat "There are reasonable grounds for you to conclude that [the Geneva POW Convention] does not apply ... to the conflict with the Taliban," wrote [Alberto Gonzales], then working as White House counsel. Deploying his characteristic blend of ignorance, arrogance and illogic, he called the Geneva Conventions-which have saved the lives of thousands of captured American soldiers- "quaint." He then argued "that the Taliban and its forces were, in fact, not a government but a militant, terrorist-like group." Actually,the Clinton and Bush administrations had treated the Taliban regime as a government, negotiating with its leaders over oil-pipeline transit fees and subsidizing it with millions of U.S. tax dollars. U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, had embassies in Kabul. History was collateral damage in the war of terror.
Worried that the American people might someday return to its senses and prosecute them for their monstrous crimes against humanity, the Bushies again turned to their affirmative-action poster child-this time for a CIA memo validating torture. The CIA wanted permission to use six "pressure techniques" against prisoners. Mock burial, Gonzales and his legal staff thought, was a mite "too harsh." The medieval practice of waterboarding, on the other hand, was OK. Another practice, "open-handed slapping of suspects, drew much discussion," reported Newsweek. The idea was "just to shock someone with the physical impact," one of Gonzales' staffers said, with "little chance of bone damage or tissue damage." Gonzales approved it.See the full content of this document
Extract
Gonzales Vs. United States
NEW YORK-Al Capone served six years at Alcatraz-for tax evasion. The true Original Gangsta was never held to account for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre that left seven men cut in half by machine gun fire. Or the two disloyal wiseguys he ordered beaten to death with baseball bats. Or the corruption and mayhem his gang...
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