Unfortunately, this situation does cause a serious problem in the way the US prosecutes war in the future. Traditionally (even if not in fact) wars were faught between two or more nation-states. These nation-states were bound by various treaties on how they would conduct themselves during war. In the future, the possibility of armed conflict with NGOs raises the issue of how to fight against organizations that don't 'play by the same rules' as a nation-state. The Republican foreign policy apparatus has temporarily side-stepped this question by treating conflict against terrorists as being equivalent to conflict against states that harbor terrorists or encourage terrorism, but this type of attitude and resultant policies can't continue indefinitely.
gonzales stirs up some mixed feelings. on the one hand, he's socially moderate (at least compared to george "god is my co-pilot" shrub). on the other, he made some relatively dangerous decisions. scary to think that shrub sees him as a moderate candidate.
Gonzales argument seems to be that, in his previous position, he was an 'advocate' for the administration and its policies. As such, he did his job as best he could, much in the same way a defense attorney might vigorously defend a murderer or rapist. As AG his 'client' would be the American people,, not the administration, so he would advocate different policies in that new role. It all seems a bit glib and slick for me, but hey, I'm not an attorney.
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