Well according to Cheney logic, America is safer under Obama because there hasn’t been attack since he’s been president. We know the country was attacked under Bush, so I’d say Obama is doing a much better job (without torture) than Bush ever did. HAVE A NICE DAY!
You are being naive if you think mint juleps and truffles are what interrogators are using when they don't use torture. I'd also say you are being naive if you don't look at the evidence we have in the form of testimony from the man the CIA and FBI called to interrogate the high level al-Qaeda suspects. You don't have to wonder if other methods or torture works better for these guys. We know the answer. We saw what the man who did the interrogating had to say on it.
you can't use mint juleps...that would be considered 'mind altering' drugs...ad truffles can release endorphins which also effect one's state of mind. you guys are crual tricksters and barbarians.
This is a guest post that Steve Clemons is sharing at TPMCafe written by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor at the College of William & Mary. This piece also appeared at The Washington Note. The Truth About Richard Bruce Cheney Last night I was on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC at the top of the hour. But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package. Let's just say that five minutes of the Sith Lord was stunningly inaccurate. So, when I got home last night, I thought long and hard about what I knew at this point in my investigations with respect to the former VP's office. Here it is. First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney's watch than on any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact. There was absolutely no policy priority attributed to al-Qa'ida by the Cheney-Bush administration in the months before 9/11. Counterterrorism czar Dick Clarke's position was downgraded, al-Qa'ida was put in the background so as to emphasize Iraq, and the policy priorities were lowering taxes, abrogating the ABM Treaty and building ballistic missile defenses. Second, the fact no attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11--much touted by Cheney--is due almost entirely to the nation's having deployed over 200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and not to "the Cheney method of interrogation." Those troops have kept al-Qa'ida at bay, killed many of them, and certainly "fixed" them, as we say in military jargon. Plus, sadly enough, those 200,000 troops present a far more lucrative and close proximity target for al-Qa'ida than the United States homeland. Testimony to that fact is clear: almost 5,000 American troops have died, more Americans than died on 9/11. Of course, they are the type of Americans for whom Cheney hasn't much use as he declared rather dramatically when he achieved no less than five draft deferments during the Vietnam War. Third--and here comes the blistering fact--when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way. My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued. What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency? Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida. So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop. There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....) Less important but still busting my chops as a Republican, is the damage that the Sith Lord Cheney is doing to my political party. He and Rush Limbaugh seem to be its leaders now. Lindsay Graham, John McCain, John Boehner, and all other Republicans of note seem to be either so enamored of Cheney-Limbaugh (or fearful of them?) or, on the other hand, so appalled by them, that the cat has their tongues. And meanwhile fewer Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We're at 21% and falling--right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and loonies in the country. When will we hear from those in my party who give a damn about their country and about the party of Lincoln? When will someone of stature tell Dick Cheney that enough is enough? Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends--and your friends. Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done--to the country and to its Republican Party. -- Lawrence Wilkerson http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/14/the_truth_about_richard_bruce_cheney/?ref=fp2
It won't let me rep you again or I would. This guy is right on the money, and someone who isn't a liberal. He's a distinguished military officer who's served our nation well. He's also a Republican, but one that seems to be willing to call a spade a spade.
You are out of your mind if you think this guy is anything but partisan. Read the little op-ed piece that he wrote. Rachel Maddow wouldn't be giving him a handy on her show if he was not anything but ultra-partisan or had an axe to grind... no cred...
The guy is a Republican, who served in our nation's military, and served with General Collin Powell while he was part of the Bush administration. He doesn't seem like a Republican partisan. He seems to put principle over party in this case. If you want to discuss the merits of his words go ahead, otherwise provide some evidence to support your claims. See ya
more from Josh -- Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI) was just interviewed on MSNBC and he talked about the new reports that Vice President Cheney tried to get the Iraq WMD investigators -- after the invasion -- to waterboard an Iraqi intelligence official to try to pump him for information about Saddam's alleged alliance with al Qaida. Whitehouse noted that this would dramatically change the legal terms of the question since even the notorious OLC memos allow practices like waterboarding to avoid imminent threats to the US. But waterboarding this Iraqi guy about Saddam's relationship with al Qaida -- after the invasion -- would have been to get political information, proof of the purported but then largely discredited rationale for the war. (Also worth noting is that an Iraqi intelligence official captured during the invasion would, I think, very clearly be an old fashioned POW.) More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq. --Josh Marshall
