A Quote by Ari Melber
The Bush administration opened several lines of attack against the rule of law and the integrity of an independent Justice Department. The scandals are so famous that they've been reduced to shorthand: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, NSA, Attorneygate.
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At a time when our moral standing in the world has been weakened by a rubber stamp Justice Department that placed the Bush Administration above the law, we now need someone who is objective and independent. And, make no mistake, Eric Holder is independent.
The effort to blur the lines between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib reflects a deep misunderstanding about the different legal regimes that apply to Iraq and the war against al Qaeda.
I did a piece where I was talking about torture at Abu Ghraib, and I embroidered my hand with the image of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoners who'd been tortured using a needle and thread. I know that meeting a Holocaust survivor when I was eight and seeing the tattoo on her arm from her time in the camps influenced my piece about Abu Ghraib.
If there was one fact that sent me hurtling off to write 'Politics Lost,' it was when I learned that John Kerry had focus-grouped Abu Ghraib. We knew about the Justice Department memo in June of 2004, and Kerry didn't raise that in any one of his three debates with George Bush.
What makes Bush different from Hitler? He commits crimes in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons. With all these crimes, they still behave like bullying claimants. They get angry once they see an independant nation.
Regrettably, it has become clear that torture of detainees in United States custody is not limited to Abu Ghraib or even Iraq. Since Abu Ghraib, there have been increasing reports of torture.
I was ordered not to go out to Abu Ghraib after dark early on, because Abu Ghraib was extremely dangerous.
The Department of Justice must be nonpartisan and uphold the rule of law. Likewise, the leader of that department - the Attorney General - must always be independent and focused on doing the right thing, regardless of the politics.
Things like Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo are not new things: there are many precedents.
The rule of law means that law and justice are upheld by an independent judiciary. The judgments of the European Court of Justice have to be respected by all. To undermine them, or to undermine the independence of national courts, is to strip citizens of their fundamental rights. The rule of law is not optional in the European Union. It is a must.
When Bush says that Abu Ghraib was the work of a few, he forgot to mention that he was one of them.
There is no rule of law in Zimbabwe; there's selective application of the rule of law. Patrick Chinamasa, who is the minister of justice, destroyed the independent judiciary.
Whether or not Americans supported George W. Bush, they could not avoid learning about Abu Ghraib.
I do want to make clear that I am personally committed to the integrity of the Department of Justice. Since becoming acting attorney general, I have run the department to the best of my ability, with fidelity to the law and to the Constitution.
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
In the United States, rising esteem for the military in uniform corresponds to the growing militarization of the society as a whole. All of this despite repeated revelations of the illegality and immorality of the military's own incarceration systems, from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, whose systematic practices border on if not actually constitute torture.
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