Alberto Gonzales, War Criminal

 
The reasons why Bush won't ax Gonzales, are not restricted to the ones given in the recent Time article of that name. Gonzales is indeed all that stands between the White House and special prosecutors. But the rest of Mr. Calibresi's article falls flat. A "non-partisan" replacement? Worries about legal bills? Not hardly.

Alberto Gonzales is a war criminal, a capital felon under U.S. law, punishable by death in the United States, or by life in prison if tried in the International Criminal Court. By perverting the law to excuse and advocate torture as public policy, our Attorney General made himself guilty, on the public record, of aiding, abetting, and enabling one of the most heinous crimes in the human experience. And Gonzales "got results".

Promoting Gonzales to Attorney General was a brilliant maneuver by the Bush regime, because Mr. Gonzales' crimes are in the public record, which only needs to be verified as accurate in a court of law to convict him and send him to death row. Lesser criminal violations against the American people come easily under these circumstances. As Mr. Gonzales fights for his masters, he is fighting for his life: The perfect human guard dog.

For the record:

"The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever [...] (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) taking of hostages; (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment"
- Geneva Convention of 1949

"Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death. [...] the term “war crime” means any conduct defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party.
- War Crimes Act of 1996

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
- U.N. Resolution 3452, Part I Article II.

Smoking gun: The Gonzales memo (PDF format).