Again, we are seeing how former VP Dick Cheney's 'truths' are slowly being unspun as the alleged "irrefutable" evidence he has claimed for so long from classified documents slowly seeps its way into the public sphere.
Here again is just one more example disproving Cheney's justifications for torturing prisoners in the poorly named "War on Terror", even though it contributed little to nothing in terms of knowledge, and instead irrefutably damaged the image of the United States throughout the world.
The op-ed can be found here:
A few quotes:
The three that were released recently by the C.I.A. — the 2004 report by the inspector general and two memos from 2004 and 2005 on intelligence gained from detainees — fail to show that the techniques stopped even a single imminent threat of terrorism.
One damaging consequence of the harsh interrogation program was that the expert interrogators whose skills were deemed unnecessary to the new methods were forced out.
Meanwhile, the professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective, unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program — one that may have given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country’s reputation — is finished.
3 comments:
We all need to get over Dick Cheney. The idea that he was this "Darth Vader", all knowing, all powerful, smasher of truth and the American way of life, liberty and law is not constructive. There are millions of memos out there, millions. Pick one. Pick a topic. Pick a context. Pick a situation. Pick a belief system. Make whatever you think true. Convince others that you think truly. Then publish it. Dick Cheney was not our government. George Bush was not our government. The conservatives never had absolute sway. Nancy Pelosi knew and approved... you know she did. Even John Murtha knew and allowed. We are our government. No one is off the hook.
We were all scared "shitless" after eleven Muslims slit the throats of flight attendants with box cutters, broke into cockpits and did the same to the pilots, and then smashed three 150 million dollar aircraft carrying hundreds of innocent passengers into the World Trade Center towers, not in an effort to kill some 3000 people, but to kill as many as 30 to 50 thousand people who were in and around the buildings during working hours. This was not a late night attack on some aspirin factory or office building choreographed to minimize casualties. This was an attempt at "mass slaughter" the likes of which have not been seen since Pol Pot..
We need to give our country a break. It may be cheque for the left leaning politicos, the Europeans, the Middle Easterners to forget what happened that day. It may even be convenient to push their agendas. Our intelligence was "way behind the eight ball" after the attack. Thanks in part to extremely aggressive deconstruction of our intelligence gathering apparatuses and legal barriers constructed by left leaning lawyers and politicians that attack may have happened in the first place. Perhaps this "evil" torture committed by Mr. Cheney personally was part and parcel of a necessary learning curve. They all, we all, were willing to beat the crap out of a few to save millions. The stakes were and are still that simple.
So, we did it. Dick Cheney, without reservation, with no qualms at all, I forgive you even if you feel you don't deserve forgiveness. I thank you and folks like you for putting the radical Islamic world on notice that we "won't go softly into the night!" I hope that Osama and his ilk have and will continue to live miserable lives hold up in meaningless caves worrying about the next hellfire missile to explode on their miserable and dirty turbans.
Our enemies are our enemies. Our friends are our friends. Our friends, the Europeans love to hate us. Europeans just love to have us do their dirty work. When we "take care of business" they sit back and cluck their tongues. If for one nano second one believes that those who chose to demonize Mr. Cheney, both domestic and foreign, don't have an agenda of their own, which benefits them and diminishes the U.S., one is in serious denial.
If the Obama Nation doesn't get over this "It's all Bush and Cheney's fault" way of thinking their administration is doomed whether it lasts four or eight years. Young and upwardly looking citizens need to beware. What is todays popular way of thinking and demonizing is tomorrow's folly.
This whole discussion is not just about domestic and constitutional issues and behaviors. The hyperbole that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Bush, and the "Bushies" are a greater threat to our constitution than the 9/11 hijackers it just that, hyperbole. It is words used in a concerted, choreographed, agenda driven way to diminish our nation, even to destroy it as we know it. We can not be the only nation without boarders both literally and metaphorically. We can not afford to be seen as so committed to a philosophical belief (i.e. it is not good to beat people up) that we are willing to allow our people to be slaughter wholesale.
As for lies. I have committed to stop counting Mr. Obama's and his promises he has and is about to break.
I think our biggest disagreement lies in intentions and actualities. You see the intention to kill thousands, and compare it to WWII, I see what the United States has done under the Bush Administration, waging wars that may not have intended to, but certainly did kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. This to me is worse than intentions, because it is real.
You see Cheney's desire of "putting the radical Islamic world on notice," via torture as something justified "to save millions." I see the hanging of Blackwater contractors in Fallujah as exactly the same thing and attacks by the Taliban and by Iraqis on US soldiers as equally justified as well. All of these are justified at the same level, and each one is an attempt by those aggrieved to preserve their way of life, or their perception of how life should be in their country. Each nation is wonderful at justifying its own policies under some righteous cause.
As for Obama, yes, at some point he will take responsibility for the current problems... responsibility, but not the blame. Iraq, Afghanistan, torture and the economy were not his mistakes. However, the first three were intentional and direct policies of the Bush administration, not side effects of an entire governmental system.
The fact that Cheney can still hold his head high and arrogantly prance around asserting that the policies of the Bush administration were effective and justified is truly what sickens me.
In my mind, he should be the one that goes softly into the night. I greatly admire former President Bush for exactly that, he has gone into retirement and not stood on some washed-up soap box preaching holier than thou lies against the current administration.
Interesting counter points. A response if I may. Mr. Bush is not "going quietly into the night." He is being dignified, allowing the current president and administration to just do its job. (Mr. Cheney has the right to say what he wishes and respond if he feels he is being unfairly attacked.) This is something that Mr. Clinton was granted by his predecessor President George H. W. Bush. This is something that Mr. Clinton never offered to his successor even before the Iraq war.
Mr. Cheney and his ilk did not send a message or wake up call to the Islamic radicals by using torture. The Bush administration put them on notice by attacking the Taliban, establishing the "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive strikes against foes who would use mass murder against our nation, stating the obvious that there was in fact an axis of evil whether you like the term or agree with it, and he invaded, for better or worse, Iraq as part of the preemptive doctrine. The torture is a red herring, a straw man. Perhaps water boarding prisoners was not our finest hour. Still, the responsibility to protect out nation from threats both foreign and domestic (largest of Constitutional duties) loomed larger than ever in our history after he 9/11 attacks. I would bet that we would be having this same discussion had Mr. Obama been in office with all the Democrats in control of congress. 9/11 was big! Perhaps we need to learn from it.
I firmly believe that the efforts to make this torture issue the center piece of discussion is an overt attempt to castrate our government, to paralyze it in the future, to take away our will to "use the big stick" even defend ourselves. That may seem to be an over simplification, but I firmly believe that sometimes simplification is needed. (You Georgetown types make things so complex our nation couldn't decide to pee in its pants if it discovered they were on fire.) A JOKE! LOL
The Blackwater men knew the job was dangerous when they took it. Their deaths, though regrettable, were not unpredictable. They were, perhaps if you would allow, there trying to do some good for the people of Felluja... in the long run. They were protecting diplomats. To equate their presence and mission to the intent and acts that took place on 9/11 is not credible. To equate beheadings, burnings, mutilations with waterboarding is a stretch too. The visural nature of the Islamic fanatics is certainly different. I don't believe we should put it aside and consider it some "little theological oddity."
We've been fighting to avoid the next WWII since that war ended. I didn't bring WWII up in my piece, I brought up Pol Pot. That is brutality. That was 9/11. We sat still on Cambodia, didn't beat up a soul. Didn't lift a finger. 2 million butchered. NO MAS.
My view, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, the Joint Chiefs, Senate, House lanced a boil that needed to be lanced. The focus of the world needs to be on Islamic terror and modernity. If it is on waterboarding we are doomed to repeat 9/11. Cleaning up a lanced boil is always messy.
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