Dick Cheney and torture
Here is the key paragraph from today’s speech by former Vice President Dick Cheney:
“I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.”
Let’s count the lies here, shall we?
“The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed.” By the sworn testimony of Ali Soufan, an FBI agent who conducted initial interrogations under normal interrogation techniques, that is wrong. Soufan told Congress that standard techniques were working very well until he was ordered by superiors to step aside to allow abusive techniques, which then failed.
“They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.” Based on the public record, they were none of those things. The legal opinions used in the early days by the Bush administration to justify its behavior were so embarrasingly illogical and contorted that the administration itself eventually repudiated them.
“The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.” There is no evidence that intelligence gathered through torture saved lives, and according to military and counter-insurgency experts, a lot of reason to believe that abuse of inmates at Guantanamo and Abu Graib inspired attacks that cost American lives. A 2004 report by the CIA inspector general, still top secret but supposedly due to be released soon, reportedly reaches that same conclusion.
However, the American people should at least be grateful to Cheney for helping to keep this issue on the front pages. The assertions he made in his speech — including charges of “feigned outrage” and “phony moralizing” from those in Congress who had been briefed on such matters but stayed silent — add force to the argument that a nonpartisan commission outside the control of Congress is needed to produce the truth for the American people.
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84 comments Add your comment
Kamchak
May 21st, 2009
2:42 pm
Jay
I have many “feelings” about Dick Cheney–gratitiude, however, is not among them.
Doggone/GA
May 21st, 2009
2:42 pm
Cue mention of Pelosi here. But I prefer this take on it: “we didn’t do anything wrong, but she should have stopped us anyway.” OF COURSE Cheney thinks all those things. When you are convinced you are in the right (get it?) you can’t do anything wrong. Uh huh.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 21st, 2009
2:42 pm
We’ve about talked this subject to death. How about a column on what happened at Dunaire school?
DB, Gwinnettian
May 21st, 2009
2:44 pm
Well, if we’re picking it apart, might as well mention that by “intelligence officers” he really means hired-goon contractors, not CIA.
Redneck Convert
May 21st, 2009
2:46 pm
Well, who cares if they were legal? They kept us safe. That’s what the former VP hisself says so it must be the truth. Besides, it wasn’t torture. A little water never hurt no one. I myself take a bath in it once a month without fail. I expect alot of people on this blog do the same.
Anyhow, we got people running around talking about rights. Well, rights don’t do you no good if you’re dead. We need to allow for taking away a few every once in a while just to keep alot of people alive. Besides, the only right you got if you’re dead is to get planted someplace or maybe burnt up. Unless you’re that Peterson guy and you just stuff your wife in a barrel and haul it off.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. Have a good p.m. everybody.
pat
May 21st, 2009
2:46 pm
Everybody knows the CIA and FBI tell lies to congress, so how could we trust thier testimony. Just ask pelosi. They lie about everything.
ty webb
May 21st, 2009
2:46 pm
Cue the faux outrage.
Scooter
May 21st, 2009
2:49 pm
I agree with Hillbilly.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
2:49 pm
Hillbilly Deluxe,
What happened at Dunaire school?
~~~~~~~~~~
Dick Cheney’s recent “Torture Good Media Tour 2009″ is proof positive that he was the Evil Genius behind Bush all along.
RealityKing
May 21st, 2009
2:56 pm
“There is no evidence that intelligence gathered through torture saved lives” -said the biased journalist
Of course, Obama would have no problem releasing the interigation documents if that were really the case. And he’s already shown his fondness for leaking classified info…, proofs in the pudding.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 21st, 2009
2:56 pm
Bosch, that’s where it is alleged that an 11-year-old was bullied to the point of inducing suicide.
Copyleft
May 21st, 2009
2:57 pm
Pat: Although I suspect Pelosi’s exaggerating to cover her own complicity in the Republicans’ war crimes, the fact that the CIA has lied to Congress–repeatedly–on MANY occasions–is well established.
Brian
May 21st, 2009
2:58 pm
Now wonder they call it the Urinal and Constipation. You’re right about one thing, the only way to settle it is to have an independent non-partisan commission outside the control of congress, but like that’s ever gonna happen.
pat
May 21st, 2009
3:00 pm
Agreed, done to death. Move on.
Still don’t care that some mass murdering terrorists got waterboarded. If they still got waterboarded I wouldn’t care. I don’t care what happens to them so long as they ain’t free to do terror again. Don’t condone torture, don’t care that it happened to them. You don’t want those files open, you will find that the Bush Administration did not invent torture for the purpose of extracting info. Keep the books closed. We’ve done it before, we may do it again.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 21st, 2009
3:01 pm
the fact that the CIA has lied to Congress–repeatedly–on MANY occasions–is well established.
Furthermore, here was a Republican happy to assert as much when it served his purposes to do so.
But when it’s Pelosi doing it, cue the poutrage.
jt
May 21st, 2009
3:02 pm
The previous topic.
I answered this question. ““Atlanta would secede from GA and either bcome it’s own state or re-join the union.”
As per Governor Sonny Perdue and Tommy Irvin, Atlanta can’t do this legally.
Tommy Irvin called to clarify. Atlanta COULD seceede from the state, if and only if, their termite papers were in order.
Sorry for any misunderstanding.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
3:03 pm
DB,
Oh, I read about that – so tragic.
oldmac
May 21st, 2009
3:03 pm
Face it Jay, Cheney was like the real word grown-up dad schooling the sniveling little kid who didn’t get his way.
retiredds
May 21st, 2009
3:04 pm
Either Ali Soufan is lying or Dick Cheney is lying. I think it is DC. His speech was nothing more than an apology (a defense or justification) their position.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
3:07 pm
George American,
Are you Mr. Dusty? Is she sleeping off her morning binge of mint juleps?
Mrs. Godzilla
May 21st, 2009
3:07 pm
cue the sadists as well.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
3:08 pm
oldmac,
Cheney knew that he could never be elected President, so he did the next best thing – mentored and groomed Dubya to win and picked himself as VP so that he could activate his plot to rule/ruin the world.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 21st, 2009
3:08 pm
Speaking of Republicans who were happy to trash federal law enforcement, let’s not forget the Newt.
Newt Gingrich thinks that if Nancy Pelosi says the CIA misleads Congress, it doesn’t mean that there should be hearings into the substance of what she’s alleging. It means she should resign as Speaker of the House. But when he was Speaker of the House and saying to the media that the FBI was incompetent and a threat to Americans, it didn’t mean he was undermining the FBI agents’ morale and he should resign. No, then it meant that Congress ought to investigate.
Could someone, somewhere tell this tubby, hypocritical —-er to go the —- away? Wait, no. Instead, please let him run for president in 2012.
George American
May 21st, 2009
3:09 pm
Who is Mr. Dusty?
George American
May 21st, 2009
3:10 pm
Who are the sadist? The polar opposites of the happiest?
N.J,
May 21st, 2009
3:12 pm
To think, just a few decades ago, the United States main claim which differentiated itself from the Soviet regime, the “Evil Empire” and Warsaw Pact nations was that they would torture their citizens, as well as the citizens of other nations who fell into their hands, into confessing things they had never done, and in America, such actions were impossibilities. Only police states invocated “national security” to indulge in such barbarous and unthinkable treatment of others.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 21st, 2009
3:13 pm
Yes, thanks Dick, after you let the first 3500 die, you seem to have gottewn the hang of it.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 21st, 2009
3:14 pm
don’t forget the complaints about the last couple of NIE’s on Iran….
that made some GOP heads melt.
George meet dictionary….
ty webb
May 21st, 2009
3:17 pm
cue the idiotic moral equivalency. Doh, too late.
jewcowboy
May 21st, 2009
3:17 pm
Hillbilly Deluxe,
“We’ve about talked this subject to death. How about a column on what happened at Dunaire school?”
I would posit that torture and what happened at Dunaire would be on the same footing, regardless of the non-biased report that was put out by a school under investigation.
George American
May 21st, 2009
3:19 pm
Ms. Godzilla meet Ms. Mothra.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
3:20 pm
Kamchak (if you’re around),
Ya’ see this?
http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/9597230/Ronaldo-ignoring-all-Real-rumors
The pretty one says he’s staying at Old Trafford.
I Rule You :-)/ You Whine :-(
May 21st, 2009
3:20 pm
He fried you liberals, didn’t he?
It must sting, ouch!
Brad Steel
May 21st, 2009
3:22 pm
Cheney/Satan – 2021
I use to thing that this was a funny and sarcastic notion. It’s looking a little too true now. Maybe he can breath some lie into the Stazi and KGB. He seems to be well on his way to moving the US toward our place on the Axis of Evil.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
3:23 pm
AND he knew that George was dumber than Jeb – Jeb would have stood up to him and told him to “STFU and go back to your crypt old man.”
George American
May 21st, 2009
3:25 pm
It is so funny to see the liberals squirm when the GOP flexes its muscle and puts the liberal elite in their place (the media, Braney Frank, and Nancy Liar Pelosi).
RW-(the original)
May 21st, 2009
3:32 pm
I bet Cheney at least knows who the Secretary of Defense is, but the way Obama has been taking over the private sector maybe he made a weird deal with Microsoft and Bill Gates really is the SecDef.
Time to load the introductions into the prompter along with the other pap he reads to us. It sure was nice seeing an actual adult address us after BO got done though.
Kamchak
May 21st, 2009
3:38 pm
Bosch
NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jewcowboy
May 21st, 2009
3:40 pm
“It is so funny to see the liberals squirm when the GOP flexes its muscle and puts the liberal elite in their place ”
I want what George is taking. I’m just afraid I’ll see the purple monkeys.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 21st, 2009
3:41 pm
GOP Flexing it’s Muscle
http://www.tvcrazy.net/images/andy/wallpaper/barney_fife.jpg
eventually Andy had to take that one bullet away from him….
Logical Dude
May 21st, 2009
3:43 pm
Bosch @ 3:20
Ronaldo stays at ManU? Didn’t think there was a threat to him moving. . . well, I also thought Beckham would be back at the Galaxy at the beginning of the season too. . .
N.J,
May 21st, 2009
3:44 pm
Unfortunately there is not only a vast inconsistancy between the dates Bush appointees to the CIA claimed they informed Congressional Democrats of the use of “enhanced interrogation” (there many dates on which the CIA claims it informed the appropriate Congressional Comittee, which do not appear at all on the Congressional calendars, legally required…the content of the meetings can be unpublished, but the meetings have to appear on the calendars of both the Congress and each elected officials office calendars) but the Bush Administration asserted its total right to be the intermediary between Congress and the intelligence agencies shortly after the passage of the Patriot Act, which the administration interpreted as giving it the power to keep secrets from Congress. One example dated 2005, in which Senator Dianne Feinstein asked for information directly from the CIA and recieved this response:
To: Sen. Dianne Feinstein
FROM:
Alfred Cumming
Specialist in Intelligence and National Security
Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division
SUBJECT: Congress as a Consumer of Intelligence Information
This responds to your request for a discussion of Congress and its role as a consumer of national intelligence, and for a listing and a description of some of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s principal intelligence products, including an identification of those which the executive branch routinely shares with Congress, and those which it does not.
Limitations on Congressional Access to Certain National Intelligence
By virtue of his constitutional role as commander-and-in-chief and head of the executive branch, the President has access to all national intelligence collected, analyzed and produced by the Intelligence Community. The President’s position also affords him the authority – which, at certain times, has been aggressively asserted (1) – to restrict the flow of intelligence information to Congress and its two intelligence committees, which are charged with providing legislative oversight of the Intelligence Community. (2) As a result, the President, and a small number of presidentially-designated Cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President (3) – in contrast to Members of Congress (4) – have access to a far greater overall volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including information regarding intelligence sources and methods. They, unlike Members of Congress, also have the authority to more extensively task the Intelligence Community, and its extensive cadre of analysts, for follow-up information. As a result, the President and his most senior advisors arguably are better positioned to assess the quality of the Community’s intelligence more accurately than is Congress. (5)
In addition to their greater access to intelligence, the President and his senior advisors also are better equipped than is Congress to assess intelligence information by virtue of the primacy of their roles in formulating U.S. foreign policy. Their foreign policy responsibilities often require active, sustained, and often personal interaction, with senior officials of many of the same countries targeted for intelligence collection by the Intelligence Community. Thus the President and his senior advisors are uniquely positioned to glean additional information and impressions – information that, like certain sensitive intelligence information, is generally unavailable to Congress – that can provide them with an important additional perspective with which to judge the quality of intelligence.
Authorities Governing Executive Branch Control Over National Intelligence
The President is able to control dissemination of intelligence information to Congress because the Intelligence Community is part of the executive branch. It was created by law and executive order principally to serve that branch of government in the execution of its responsibilities. (6) Thus, as the head of the executive branch, the President generally is acknowledged to be “the owner” of national intelligence…
http://feinstein.senate.gov/crs-intel.htm
Cheney and the Republicans can make all the public assertions they want to in order to obfuscate their role in misleading Congress. It makes no difference. At the time they are now asserting they were telling Congress everything, they were asserting their power to tell Congress NOTHING.
Logical Dude
May 21st, 2009
3:48 pm
N.J. @ 3:12
EXACTLY! We, as Americans, do NOT torture, do NOT abduct people off the streets, do NOT put people in jail with no recourse, do NOT go into war without full intelligence and planned end game. Unfortunately, I have seen my country to all of these things, removing our rights in order to preserve our rights. . . I am saddened by this, but also have hope that these wrongs have been corrected or are on the path to being corrected.
Bosch
May 21st, 2009
3:48 pm
Kamchak,
Sorry dude, it’s better to hear bad news early. It’s probably all BS anyway – he’ll probably go.
Logical Dude,
David Beckham playing for the Galaxy is the most bizarre thing in all of soccerdom that has ever occured. I did enjoy watching his wife prance around though.
jewcowboy,
Seeing purple monkeys ain’t so bad – they’re kind of cute.
@@
May 21st, 2009
3:49 pm
reportedly but yet here you are jumping the gun, eh jay?
BTW, Who the Hell is Stanley McChrystal?” Obama’s new head man in Afghanistan.
“Who is he?” is trying to get at: what he has done before, and therefore what he is likely to do in his new command. And what he has done suggests that he is an extraordinary leader — and perhaps a ruthless one. That he is an unparalleled hunter of suspected terrorists — and perhaps the overseer of their torture. That he has favored targeted military action over broad counterinsurgency and nation-building — and that he may be bringing that dramatic shift in strategy to Afghanistan.
Both Cheney and Rumsfeld think very highly of McChrystal. At one time he was under their command.
This is just too good to be true.
This dude’s B-A-D!!!!
Taxpayer
May 21st, 2009
3:50 pm
Dang, Cheney threw the interrogators, the little people, under the bus while simultaneously building up his insanity plea. The coward.
N.J,
May 21st, 2009
4:01 pm
Unfortunately every claim by Cheney was made illegal by the United States when it acted as one of the major creators of the Nuremberg Conventions, in which “national security” was removed as a justification for the use of inhumane acts. The entire prosectution of the Nazi regime participants was run by Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. Jackson was also a U.S. Attorney General before being appointed to the court. Jackson was given free reign to design and implement the trials. In any event, the Nuremberg trials, which basically created a set of legal conditions with regard to various things that states do to people, that basically banned them forever and under any and all circumstances.
In a separate set of trials at Nuremberg, officials were found guilty and sentenced for simply not asking if the things they were being asked to do violated international law. In the “Ministry Cases” German and other officials were prosectuted and convicted simply for not asking if the deportation of citizens from one nation to another was a violation of international law or not.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 21st, 2009
4:09 pm
Jewcowboy @3:17
I would respectfully disagree. The men who were waterboarded were big boys playing in a big boy game. The young boy at Dunaire was jsut a kid who evidently hadn’t done anything to anybody.
The point of my original comment was that we have seen this same subject here for quite sometime and I’ve yet to see anybody on either side of the debate move off their original position even a tiny fraction. The opinions will still be the same a month or two from now.
And I really would like to see some deep investigation done into the Dunaire story. I don’t know what happened but there’s just too many questions that haven’t been answered.
jewcowboy
May 21st, 2009
4:10 pm
Logical Dude,
“We, as Americans, do NOT torture, do NOT abduct people off the streets, do NOT put people in jail with no recourse, do NOT go into war without full intelligence and planned end game.”
Unfortunately we do, and there are those among us who wish for us to continue to do so. I am relieved my Grandfather, who served in WWII, is not alive to see what his country has become. He fought for ideals that the neo-cons trampled on.
jewcowboy
May 21st, 2009
4:17 pm
Hillbilly Deluxe,
I meaning to parrallel the fact that bullying is, in fact a form of torture. But you are correct that it is not a fair comparison.
“And I really would like to see some deep investigation done into the Dunaire story. I don’t know what happened but there’s just too many questions that haven’t been answered.”
I agree fully. The “non-biased” report smells a little like a cya for a school that is about to enter into litigation. There seems to be several dissenting reports from other parents that were interviewed and their concerns dismissed.
“The opinions will still be the same a month or two from now.”
Right again. Rehashing the same subject over and over rarely yields a change of heart.