COLUMN: 01-30-2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey should never have been confirmed by the Senate because he shows the same lack of moral courage as his predecessor. The United States of America is a nation of laws. We pledge allegiance to the US Constitution as the basis of those laws and not to any sovereign, president, party or another other person or group of people. Being the chief law enforcement office in the country requires the Attorney General to clearly state what is within and what is outside the boundaries of those laws, whether they come from federal, state, or local governments or from international treaties and laws to which our government has agreed. Torture is clearly illegal for all American citizens to participate in everywhere in the world. Using the excuse that we would be "telling our enemies exactly what they can expect" if we capture them to negate announcing the clear illegality of torture is a cowardly answer. History has proven in every case that information gathered from torture is worthless and counter-productive (especially when it leads to unnecessary wars like the current War in Iraq). The entire Bush administration needs a lesson in the rule of law because they seem to try to find every excuse to skirt laws that they don't like (rights for POWs, warrant-less wiretapping, definitions of torture, etc) by invoking ridiculous statements such as the president having the right to bypass laws as the commander-in-chief of the military during a time of war. We need our government to reflect our values domestically and internationally especially during a time of war, otherwise we will become like every other authoritarian government in the world that invokes national security as the excuse for their inhuman behavior.