Twelve distinguished retired Generals and Admirals have published an open letter [pdf] to the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing against Gonzales’ nomination as Attorney General (well, coming as close to a stance as CYA-laden diplomacy does, at least).
Not too surprisingly, they express concerns over Gonzales’ position on the Geneva Convention, as well as the familiar “torture memo” issue. With regard to the Convention in general, they echo Colin Powell’s concern that:
…abandoning the Geneva Conventions would put our soldiers at greater risk, would “reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions,” and would “undermine the protections of the rule of law for our troops, both in this specific conflict [Afghanistan] and in general.” State Department adviser William H. Taft IV agreed that this decision “deprives our troops [in Afghanistan] of any claim to the protection of the Conventions in the event they are captured and weakens the protections afforded by the Conventions to our troops in future conflicts.” Mr. Gonzales’ recommendation also ran counter to the wisdom of former U.S. prisoners of war. As Senator John McCain has observed: “I am certain we all would have been a lot worse off if there had not been the Geneva Conventions around which an international consensus formed about some very basic standards of decency that should apply even amid the cruel excesses of war.”
It’s nice to see that tactics used to date have not completely quieted informed dissent.
(via truthout.)
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