Comments on: Cheney Edges Away From Claim That CIA Docs Will Prove Torture Worked

By: Aluceo

Aluceo — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:49:40 +0000

WHY THE CHENEYS WON’T LEAVE THE SCENE: A QUESTION OF JOURNALISTIC DEONTOLOGY!
The recent appearances of the Cheneys over the media as a credible political opponent on par to the Obama administration’s policies and stances raises an issue of journalistic deontology! This is definitely of artificial making. On the one hand, we’ve got a legitimately elected President of the United States who has undergone the rigorous electoral process having to make his case to the American people and coming out successful in eliciting the policies he intends to carry out during his mandate within the confines of the American political institutional structure and process. On the other hand, we’ve got political personae (the Cheneys) who are effectively being presented by the media as a legitimate opponent on par to the Obama administration whereas they do not bear any electoral mandate whatsoever for the political views they profer and with no consequent responsiblity, stake and risk that will arise from any such mandate while the President is tied to them.
The latest case in point, is Liz Cheney’s appearance on the Scarborough Show with her critical and undermining views of the President presented in effect as critical views to the Obama speech delivered in Egypt under the disguise of expressing her opinions. For comments/expressions of opinion on the President’s policies, her views as well as those of her father have been given such a broad artificial reception by the media that runs very contrary to the expression of opinion as we’ve come to know it. These views are rather given almost the same weight and placed on par as the political stances of a legitimately elected president with a legitimate mandate for the policies he is undertaking while the Cheney’s hold no such legitimate mandate and with no accompanying political accountability whatsoever. The issue here is that such attitude by the media is contrary to what we’ve come to expect from normal implicit democratic rules. If the Cheneys had any pretense for policies they wished to be implemented after the Bush Administration, the solution would have simply been for Dick or Liz to run for president. Since they didn’t, it is artificial for the media to strive to present them as a counterweight on par to the Obama administration’s policies well beyong what will be expected for the opinion of a simple citizen that the Cheneys are now notwithstanding their previous political roles. And by the way, by extension is it acceptable that any citizen, no matter what self-righteous pretense they might have, to be artificially given a similar counterweight role on par with the President on any policy issues of the Obama administration while not holding any legitimate political mandate for which they will be politically accountable for their stances? It can be understandable, that the Cheneys can be of direct concern when it comes to matters of direct relation to political issues having to do with Cheney’s role in the Bush administration. But to raise their views on the policies and stances the administration should take on par with the President undermines appropriate journalistic deontology because as we should all know by now “elections do matter”.
What strikes the mind here is that the Cheneys have perfectly understood this “naïvété” of the media and are using this “media confusion about fairness” to artificially strive to extirpate Mr. Dick Cheney from accusations of introducing torture policies during the Bush Administration among other political accusations. Their strategy is very simple. Legally, Cheney can’t make it (they know that secretly). In all courts of law, so-called EITs are definitely torture practices. Besides, the facts as we know them are overwhelmingly against him and the Bush Administration, and Dick Cheney’s contradictions are extensive. The real strategy of the Cheney’s here is totally otherly: turn it “political”. First, saying torture works and was for the good of the country should elicit the fervour of many Americans. Afterall, all what is needed is that a substantial number of Americans polled buy to this argument, and then the issue’s legal underpinning may be undermined. Secondly, posing artificially as the right wing counterweight to the Obama’s administration policies elicits the impression and fervour in some quarters particularly to the right that he is making the President moderate and thus he is political useful. A look at this second political trick shows how the media has effectively been manipulated: knowing fairly well that in his administrative role the President will have to take practical and pragmatic postures with respect to the release of photos of abused detainees as well as on other policies, all what Dick simply have to do is to posit that he is against releasing the pictures and pretend to take critical policy issues postures on the right, making him seemingly a moderating influence on the President. Thirdly, the Cheneys simply have to claim that Obama is following the Bush Administration’s policies he criticized pointing to his strategies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. In this case too, the media is manipulated as they ignore the fact that the Obama administration does not have the luxury of starting from scratch as Bush had on all these issues but rather adopts a “course correction strategy” of the situations to bring them as close as possible to what he advocates. The fact is that, the underlying strategy of Dick and her daughter is to make this three steps political trick extirpate Dick from the accusations levied against the former administration. The sad thing is that the media is “naïvely” falling for these political tricks!

By: DE Teodoru

DE Teodoru — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:31:31 +0000

Well, Mr. Cheney, finally you realize that the ever so effective “BIG LIE” smashes to pieces when it slams against the wall of historical documentation. You tried a bluff and, like Rove, realized that a clumsy bluffer, sooner or later, stands naked exposed by the very light he Narssistically shines on himself. At least GW chose to be more modest, informing us that all he does is walk Barney, picking up what he tried to avoid for 8 years. Had you fit in that category?

By: Third Eye

Third Eye — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:29:36 +0000

Cheney is pro-gay rights only because his daughter is a lesbian. Nothing more nothing less. He cannot publically disown her. Looking at the way he pimps out one of his daughters’ on TV to defend him, he needs all help he can get.

Further he is no religious nut job. The whole neo-con movement itself is not rooted in religion. Rumsfeld, Wolfie, Pearle etc seem to not involve themselves in any religion directly (more like secular jews) while they use religion to get things done like manipulating the dummy (Dubya)

Anyway I am always tickled by the word “States Rights!”. As GB Shaw once said “Politics is the last resort of scoundrels!”, “States rights seem to be the penultimate resort of crooks”. Why don’t you go even further and say County rights, City rights, Community rights etc.

Anyway I am not pro-gay marriage while I strongly accept civil unions to be in place for homosexual couples.

By: MrToad

MrToad — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:45:57 +0000

No surprises here. Remember when “weapons of mass destruction” were gradually ratcheted down, first to a “weapons program” and, ultimately, to a “capability?”

Could it be that the torture documents in question are merely “aspirational?”

By: P.Tirebiter

P.Tirebiter — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:22:21 +0000

silus dogood asks: “if the memos were no[t] as dick said why doesnt obama want you to se[e]them…? use your head”

You first silus… no? Okay, the obvious and simplest is, for the same reason Dick didn’t when he could, the memos contain information that could still be valuable to adversaries. For instance, the timeline could be cross referenced, revealing particular actions taken in response to particular intel, etc.
Next, no leader is going to declassify documents on a dare from a dead-ender who’s less popular than the clap. Reasons that Dick was likely counting on, hoping he could poison the well before the goods do come out. Obama’s patient; if and when they get released, it will be on his schedule and in the meantime, Levin, Gates, Jones and the CIA will leak the truth while Cheney bleeds. Cheney’s hubris will be his undoing, he’s not dealing with W.

By: svh

svh — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:16:08 +0000

Parse fail.

By: silus dogood

silus dogood — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:02:14 +0000

if the memos were no as dick said why doesnt obama want you to se them????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? use your head.

By: Ego Nemo

Ego Nemo — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:35:08 +0000

You all might be right, but you’re missing a bigger, simpler point:

There are only, reportedly, TWO memos.

All that Cheney stands on, all that document the supposedly first-rate actionable intelligence that these ‘techniques’ elicited is summarized in only TWO memos?

If torture worked so well, shouldn’ t there be reams and reams and reams of reports? (We don’t know how long these reports are, but is it safe to assume that they don’t run into the thousands of pages each?)

Dick Cheney: He has staked his entire reputation on TWO memos.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:26:37 +0000

I’ve long theorized that the waterboarding was not necessarily used in an attempt to obtain information on future terrorist attacks, but instead used as a last resort by Cheney & Co, to somehow deliver the evidence they needed to support their justification for war.

At this point, after finding no WMD’s, and no clear evidence of a tie between Iraq and 9/11, Cheney/Rumsfield/Bush must have been desperate to find proof of a link that would justify their leading the US into war in Iraq. Since they had somehow convinced themselves that the link existed, it was logical that they thought they could delivery the proof with more coercive techniques.

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:50:19 +0000

But Cheney only makes a distinction with regards to waterboarding specifically; when he says “interrogation program for high-value detainees,” he could just mean “enhanced interrogation,” encompassing sleep deprivation, stress positions etc, but not necessarily waterboarding. That was my immediate interpretation, anyway.

By: Zach

Zach — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:05:51 +0000

Two points that aren’t being discussed enough:
1. Word is that torture effectively stopped after the blow-up about it in 2004/5; how does this jive with Cheney claiming that Obama’s putting us in danger by not torturing?
2. Are the reports that Cheney references merely official restatements of the leaked story communicated over and over by Cheney, Hayden and other torture advocates that details how Zubaydah’s torture begat KSM’s capture which begat a series of events that disrupted attacks on LA? If so, this isn’t news, and Cheney’s depending on the reports *not* being issued to benefit from the illusion of additional, classified evidence backing his claims. That story also contradicts the statements of people more directly involved than Cheney, Hayden, etc.

By: Cadmus

Cadmus — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:19:12 +0000

Cheney said that the administration’s concern was that tens, maybe hundreds of thousands could be killed so the “enhanced interrogation” techniques outlined lawyers, with medical staff present, were warranted. See the disconnect? If were about preventing a mushroom cloud in an American urban center, then why the restraint with medical care, and cover? Cheney wants us to believe he was doing everything possible to keep us safe, but he drew the line at leaving pysical scars! If we are talking about hundreds of thousands of American innocents, then why not go totally Jack Bauer with red hot iron pokers, acid and electricity in sensitive areas? Think of the lives it would save. The world would understand and forgive extremes applied to this kind of terrorist. Knowing Cheney’s willingness to operate outside the law, why didn’t he go there? I figure it is because he never truly believed their was a ticking time bomb. I believe our intelligence figured that out pretty quickly. NO, the reason Cheney opted for scar free torture like waterboarding with a doctor was because he was looking to justify the invasion of Iraq. He needed to gather “confessions” of a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

By: rmwarnick

rmwarnick — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:15:17 +0000

It seemed an obvious bluff from the get-go. If these documents really said what Cheney claims, why didn’t he declassify them when he had the authority?

By: Ralph

Ralph — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:54:57 +0000

Cheney has managed to steer the discussion away from the salient point: it doesn’t matter whether the torture produced “good intelligence”; it’s still illegal and a war crime. Giving to the poor is good, but you can’t rob a bank to do it. That’s basically his argument: that because we got good intel, the illegal torture is justified. The MSM follows his argument without question, but hopefully the lawyers seeking Cheney’s prosecution know this simple legal fact.

By: sbj

sbj — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:44:02 +0000

Keep in mind that Obama banned ALL of the EITs that were used – not just waterboarding. Cheney has never been defending ONLY waterboarding.