Darth to Bambi: Put up, or Shut up.

I thought Cheney believes all this stuff needed to stay confidential for national security reasons? He now wants to weaken national security? Seems sorta traitorous.

 

It's important to grandstand - this is a public rebuke of torture. One that is necessary both at home and abroad.

WHat kind of message does it send to the world when you say "The USA is done with torture" and then also provide some self-serving memo at the bequest of a documented liar that says "but torture is TOTALLY SWEET and works well" (which, all evidence indicates, is not the case)

Being "fair" to Dick Cheney should not be a factor in any policy decision. Ever.

 

Luckily we know that the relevant information we got from those suspects came not from torture but other techniques. In fact we know that once waterboarding torture was used, they started giving us false information and wasted valuable manpower and resources investigating the false leads.

It is quite telling that you are still relying on claims that have proven to be false.

 

What a CIA guy trying to cover his ass? You don't say.

 

Agreed. It's just not completely telling the truth to say hey torture doesn't work, and then these memos might show that say it did. I don't think it would hurt the cause at all, if anything it might actually strengthen it? We should be able to say hey, torture might accomplish some beneficial things, but we aren't going to stoop to that level. I think that would be a much stronger statement.

 

As if any rational person believes anything in the New York Times.

 

There probably aren't even any memos that say specifically "the torture of detainees has yielded no useful information." The CIA seemed far too willing to use torture to leave something that damning lying around and I seriously doubt the Bush/Cheney White House would do the same.

I do recall from previous readings that before torture was implemented, the FBI had gotten the best results using their regular interrogation techniques but after the fact, the credit was given to the CIA by the White House. So it seems to me what Cheney wants released are falsified accounts.

 

It needed to stay secret if we planned to still do it. I guess he thinks Obama plans to still do it. If Obama does not plan to use it, it is no security breach.

His statement to release the info gathered is for the voters to make their own decision if it worked.

 

Dude, your reliance on infinite websites and quotes as a response leaves you in no place to make a comment like that. Wake up. You used to be a good poster. I don't think anyone will get mad if you become a good poster again.

 

Unless, of course, they have other confidential information in them. After all, Cheney was claiming executive privilege on this stuff when he was still in office. Or do you think he was acting in bad faith back then?

 

That's true for the information on techniques and that type of stuff, but would have nothing to do with the information gathered. That stuff is either secret or not and has nothing to do with whether we continue to use torture or not. When he was in office, he was claiming it needed to stay secret to protect US interests. Now, he's saying it should be public. Why?

 

The american people did make their own judgment.

That's why Dick Cheney left office with a 13 percent favorability rating.

But hey if you want to open up ALL the floodgates and are ready for all the dirty secrets from Bush's 8 years of misrule and lies - I'm down - are you?

Let's start with putting Gonzo, Rove, and Junior on trial for the US Atty thing. Let's have the president testify about the Plame affair. Let's figure out what exactly Cheney knew when he went on TV and repeated lies. I'd like to see minutes of his meetings with Addington. There's lots of skeletons for us to look at....if full disclosure is the goal than let's fully disclose. Let's see the minutes of CHeney's energy committee meetings in 2001 - now locked down due to executive privilege....

 

Actually torture boy has been spouting off at the mouth since the election.

 

Basso

To be fair I was going to say the same thing.

 

He has been making the talk show rounds practically begging for terrorist attacks and nuclear proliferation for months - he's a real patriot. Maybe he will supplant Rush or Glenn Beck as head of the party.

 

I've got no problems with more declassification. If it supports torture, fine. I still don't want to engage in torture, even if it is wonderfully effective. But, knowledge won't hurt.

Of course, there might still be sensitive information in those documents that preclude them from being declassified. Cheney may be counting on that so Obama will be stuck not declassifying.

In the end, though, I don't care about that part, since I don't want to torture anyway and never saw efficacy as any sort of argument for it. So, if Obama purposely witholds that information simply to make Bush look bad by denying him a defense, that's fine. Bush could have declassified things his way when he was in office.

 

So you're saying Cheney is now playing politics as well?

 

Al Gore?