On Ashcroft and Gonzales

As you probably know John Ashcroft recently resigned from the Attorney General’s position and has been replaced by Alberto Gonzales. I was not a fan of Ashcroft’s, at all, and wish we could view him somewhat humourously as the man who lost his re-election bid for the Senate to a dead man. Unfortunately, after losing that election contest the strong Pentecostal was soon appointed Attorney-General, where he presided over the Patriot Act, most notably, and various other curtailments of civil liberties. Ashcroft’s sweeping roundups after September 11^th targeted Arab and Muslim men. Ultimately, 8,000 were taken in for special questioning by the FBI and a further 5,000 were detained for some period of time. None of those men has ever been charged with a terrorist-related crime.

It’s interesting to note that Ashcroft waged a war on drugs, targeting those who sold drug paraphernalia and jailing Tommy Chong among others. This war on drugs has dated back to his days as Governor of Missouri when he favoured an investigative policy that targeted recreational drug users. However, when his nephew Alex Aschroft and a housemate were arrested with over 60 marijuana plants the latter was not convicted and Ashcroft received only probation and community service, which showed an unusual amount of leniency on the part of the prosecutor’s office. Nor was Alex charged when he tested positive for marijuana on his first probation-ordered drug test. Ashcroft’s legacy can be summed up in his famous quote, “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.”

It’s too early to know what Gonzales’ legacy will be, but I’m not holding my breath that it will be noticeably better than Ashcroft’s. The bare facts on Gonzales are worrisome. He authored a February 2002 memo which called the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and “obsolete”, arguing they did not apply to enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, despite senior US military officials advising him that this would undermine respect for law in the US military. I, among others, would argue that this helped create the climate in the military which showed an absolute lack of respect towards Arabs and Muslims and led to Abu Ghraib. Gonzales also staunchly backs the Patriot Act. An August 2002 memo cleared by Gonzales argued that laws preventing torture do “not apply to the president's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants.” Whatever steps forward were made by this appointment were slight and people who consider civil liberties to be important rights that must be protected will likely need to continue to fight against the Attorney General during the next four years.