Religious Leaders Question Gonzalez on Morality

In an open letter to Alberto Gonzalez, 225 religious leaders have called on Gonzalez to denounce the use of torture, affirm that it is unconstitutional to imprison anyone for months without access to a lawyer, affirm that the Geneva Conventions are legally binding, and to reject the practice of sending prisoners to countries which practice torture as part of interrogation.

It's a sad period in the history of the United States when we have an administration which has abandoned moral leadership and now engages in practices more commonly seen in dictatorships of the right and left. It is also a shame that the media dwelled so often on trivia and ignored important issues in the 2004 election such as the erosion of civil liberties under the Bush administration. The author of this letter point out the direct connection between Gonzalez and the abuses we are now seeing when they ask him:

How could you have written a series of legal memos that disrespected international law and invited these abuses? How could you have justified the use of torture and disavowed protections for prisoners of war? How could you have referred to the Geneva Conventions as “quaint” and “obsolete.” We fear that your legal judgments have paved the way to torture and abuse.