Alberto Gonzales – No Treaty With Al Qaeda

Today begins the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales and it will be interesting to see the usual suspects in full attack mode. Senators “asking tough questions” or should we say, making long-winded speaches with stinging accusations, all delivered in mock horror. Most of the time spent on listening to themselves talk and very little on listening to answers.


Is it just us, or do these hearings have nothing to do with eliciting information to make an informed decision, but everything to do with scoring political points? Wouldn’t it be nice if our Senators cut the grandstanding and just did what was best for the country? It’s hard to imagine they actually believe most of their own arguments. Maybe we will be proved wrong.


In the mean time, read this great article at National Review Online written by Andrew C. McCarthy. Excerpts below, but read the entire article: Should We Make a Treaty with al Qaeda? here.

[Today] the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for [Alberto] Gonzales. Critics are urging committee Democrats to question the nominee aggressively on the benighted administration policy of no Geneva protections for terrorists whose lives are singularly dedicated to annihilating Americans. Fair game, one supposes, but no senator should be allowed to take up the torch without at least answering a simple question: Do you favor a treaty with al Qaeda?

The inarguable, inconvenient fact is we have no such treaty. Al Qaeda is not and, indeed, cannot be among Geneva's high contracting parties. It is not a country. The U.S. has for over two decades expressly rejected a treaty — the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions — that would have vested terrorists with Geneva protections. I hate to spoil the party, but if we're going to have such a treaty with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, it will have to be a new one.

Under Article III of the Constitution, the consent of two thirds of the Senate's membership is required before a treaty can be approved. Although we haven't yet been able to arrange getting President Bush and Emir Zarqawi together for a signing ceremony, getting the senators on record — especially given the caviling over Gonzales — could really get the ball rolling. So let's ask them. All of them. Plain and simple, so the folks back home know just where you stand: Do you favor a treaty with al Qaeda?

Does anyone think there are 67 yea votes on that one? How about ten? How about one? No. The fact is, outside a lunatic fringe, there's not a politician in America who would support something so absurd.

The next attorney general's position on this matter is not a radical view. It's America's view. So ask away — it'll be good for all of us to know where everyone stands.