Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over

The Immorality of Dick Cheney

It has become apparent that Dick Cheney has no morals when it comes to his beliefs and the power he once wielded. His contention that it is his opinion and only his opinion that counts runs contrary to everything that America stands for. Isn’t there an undisclosed location that he could inhabit for the next 20 or so years? Of course, this would mean that he won’t be held accountable for the torture program he pushed for and the war crimes he committed. I would prefer a nice cozy jail cell in the Hague instead of the undisclosed location but either one would work for me. I am getting pretty sick of his shit.

Richard Clarke has had his fill of Dick Cheney as well. A recent op-ed pretty much destroys the fantasy world that Cheney has pushed on the public since 9/11 and especially since he left office. (Clarke is the former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism for Clinton and Bush in case you forgot.) There are many parts to the Cheney fantasy that most people haven’t realized yet. Let’s destroy the illusions and the lies once and for all, shall we?

1. Cheney claims we were caught unawares on 9/11. Only the clueless NeoCons running the country were caught with their pants down because they ignored the warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that al qaeda was planning attacks against the United States. These NeoCons did not believe that a bunch of cave dwelling fundamentalists could manage the scale of attacks that the warning briefs were signaling so they went on vacation. 

2. Cheney claims that all appropriate measures were taken after the attacks to make sure we were not attacked again. Again, not true. The measures they took were extreme, poorly thought out, and often illegal. They were in panic mode because they did not want to be held accountable in case of a second attack took place on their watch. Illegal wiretaps, the Patriot Act, waterboarding, extraordinary renditions, secret CIA prisons, and outright torture were the measures the Bushies took in response. None of these had the desired effect of keeping us safer. All they did was infuriate our citizens, our allies, and our enemies once they were made public.

3. Iraq and Saddam Hussein helped al qaeda to plan 9/11. This is the NeoCon fantasy supreme because they refused to believe that Osama bin Laden could have pulled this off by himself. Torture was approved to try and establish a non-existent link between the two. Despite Cheney’s claims to the contrary, no such link has ever been found.

4. Torture of detainees saved lives.  Torture does not work because the information that results is unreliable. The most famous example is that of John McCain in Viet Nam. He was tortured and he broke. His captors wanted names of his battalion leaders so he gave them the starting offensive line of the Green Bay Packers and they were never the wiser. Cheney is now claiming that two memos would prove they got viable intel from tortured detainees but Senator Carl Levin has seen those secret memos and he says they do no such thing. Every example that Bush and Cheney have used to justify torture have been disproven by the facts already known.

5. Torture was made legal because of the Office of Legal Counsel’s memos. Were it only that easy. International law prohibits torture, a law we agreed to. US law prohibits torture. We have prosecuted torturers in our recent past. Dick Cheney seems to think that circumventing the law is as easy as saying, “We think differently about torture” and then putting that sentiment in writing. all they have done is givin any future prosecutions the smoking gun evidence to convict the whole bunch of them of war crimes.

6. Detention without trials was the best way to deal with suspected terrorists. Ignoring the fact that the Clinton administration had convicted and locked up every terrorist prior to 9/11, the Bush people thought they could go one better with their plan for indefinite detention. Not only did our abandonment of our national ideals show the hypocrisy of this move this tactic meant we were stuck guarding these people forever. A number of detainees were innocent but only after years of imprisonment were any of them released. Abandoning trials was a huge mistake, one we pay for in damaged reputation for decades.

7. Tested interrogation techniques were abandoned in favor of harsher methods which worked better. This is the biggest lie of all. Incident after incident that has come to light shows that regular police style interrogation worked to illicit viable intel from suspects and when subjected to torture techniques no viable intel was gathered. In addition to being illegal, they simply did not work.

8. Wiretapping gained valuable intel but it meant bypassing FISA. Then it no longer is wire tapping. It is illegal wire tapping. Breaking the law in a land of laws cannot be justified even by the president of the United States. No one is above the law. No proof was ever offered that viable intel came from any of the illegal wiretaps.

9. Extraordinary measures are needed to fight terrorists and terrorism. This does not mean illegal methods can be employed or that our standards have to be discarded. That route only puts us on par with the very terrorists we are trying to defeat.  You cannot enforce American values by ignoring them or abandoning them. This is a point lost on the NeoCon Cheney crowd time and time again.

10. Repeating a lie a thousand times does not make it true. If it did, Dick Cheney would be known as the most moral man in America but he very clearly is not. His complicity in torture, illegal wire tapping and other compromises of American law just make him the most immoral man in America. Lying about it and trying to justify illegal actions cannot stand the test of time or the court of public opinion.

Shameful.

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052901560.html