The day the Constitution died

The day the Constitution died

Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate

06.10.04 - AUSTIN, Texas -- When, in future, you find yourself wondering,
"Whatever happened to the Constitution?" you will want to go back and look
at June 8, 2004. That was the day the attorney general of the United
States -- a.k.a. "the nation's top law enforcement officer" -- refused to
provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with his department's memos
concerning torture.

In order to justify torture, these memos declare that the president is
bound by neither U.S. law nor international treaties. We have put
ourselves on the same moral level as Saddam Hussein, the only difference
being quantity. Quite literally, the president may as well wear a crown --
forget that "no man is above the law" jazz. We used to talk about "the
imperial presidency" under Nixon, but this is the real thing.

The Pentagon's legal staff concurred in this incredible conclusion. In a
report printed by The Wall Street Journal, "Bush administration lawyers
contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting
torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his
direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department. ...

"The report outlined U.S. laws and international treaties forbidding
torture, and why those restrictions might be overcome by national security
considerations or legal technicalities."

The report was complied by a group appointed by Department of Defense
General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who has since been nominated by Bush
for the federal appellate bench. "Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker
headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed lawyers from
each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence
agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report."

When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Ashcroft about
his department's input, he simply refused to provide the memos, without
offering any legal rationale. He said President Bush had "made no order
that would require or direct the violation" of laws or treaties. His
explanation was that the United States is at war. "You know I condemn
torture," he told Sen. Joe Biden. "I don't think it's productive, let
alone justified."

But another memo written by former Assistant Attorney General Jay S.
Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge in California, establishes a
basis for the use of torture for senior Al Qaeda operatives in custody of
the CIA. I am not one to leap to conclusions, but it seems quite clear how
whatever perverted standards allowed at Guantanamo Bay jumped across the
water to Abu Ghraib prison. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commander at
Gitmo, was dispatched last August to Abu Ghraib to give advice about how
to get information out of prisoners. "Miller's recommendations prompted a
shift in the interrogation and detention procedures there. Military
intelligence officers were given greater authority in the prison, and
military police guards were asked to help gather information about the
detainees," according to The New York Times.

Among the legal memos that circulated within the administration in 2002,
one is by White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez, famously declaring the
Geneva Convention "quaint," and another from the CIA asked for an explicit
understanding that the administration's public pledge to abide by the
spirit of the Geneva Convention did not apply to its operatives. The only
department consistently opposing these legal "arguments" was State. In
April 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld sent a memo to Gen. James T. Hill outlining
24 permitted interrogation techniques, four of which were considered so
stressful as to require Rumsfeld's explicit approval before they were
used.

It has been apparent for some time that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not
isolated instances -- torture from Afghanistan to Gitmo to Iraq has so far
resulted in 25 deaths now under investigation. As the late Jacabo
Timmermann, the Argentine journalist who was tortured during "the dirty
war," said, "When you are being tortured, it doesn't really matter to you
if your torturers are authoritarian or totalitarian." I doubt it helps any
if they're supposed to be bringing democracy, either. And as Ashcroft
said, it isn't productive.

The damage is incalculable. When America puts out its annual report on
human rights abuses, we will be a laughingstock. I suggest a special
commission headed by Sen. John McCain to dig out everyone responsible,
root and branch. If the lawyers don't cooperate, perhaps we should try
stripping them, anally raping them and dunking their heads under water
until they think they're drowning, and see if that helps.

And I think it is time for citizens to take some responsibility, as well.
Is this what we have come to? Is this what we want our government to do
for us? Oh and by way, to my fellow political reporters who keep repeating
that Bush is having a wonderful week: Why don't you think about what you
stand for?

(c) 2004 Creators Syndicate