In the Mercury News Gonzales: Torture treaty doesn't bar 'cruel, inhuman' tactics
A few choice quotes from "more than 200 pages of written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee"
"He warned that any public discussion about interrogation tactics would help al-Qaida terrorists"
and
But he drew a distinction between U.S. anti-torture statutes and the international Convention Against Torture, which calls on nations to prevent acts of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that may fall short of torture.
When the Senate ratified the treaty, it defined such treatment as violations of the Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendments. Because of that provision, Gonzales said, the Justice Department decided that the convention applies only to actions under U.S. jurisdiction, not "treatment with respect to aliens overseas."
So we signed this international treaty in 1990, during the Bush I reign, after seven years of intensive international negotiations, in order to prevent us from torturing our own citizens at home? Was that a big problem that we needed to solve? We won't use torture at home, but everybody else is fair game?
Is there any lie they are too ashamed to mouth to justify their despicable actions?
