Archive for the ‘Dick Cheney’ Category
Cheney’s Torture Dance
August 26, 2009. It would be nice to believe that sometimes an old dog can be taught new tricks. Definitely not the case with Dick. Now that the CIA report has made it clear just how immoral the so-called enhanced interrogations techniques were, all Dick can do is repeat his claim that we got results. Two obvious points: 1) Experts dispute this claim. Other methods are more productive. 2) The international agreements against torture don’t say, “Well, if you think it will get results, go ahead and torture.” They say, “Torture is immoral and unacceptable. Don’t do it!”
We tried enemy combatants in WWII as war criminals for some of the same acts that have recently been committed in our name.
Since old dogs like Dick Cheney can’t be taught new tricks, I thought it worth bringing back two posts from last spring.
….
Harsh Techniques (torture) to be used to Combat Swine Flu
April 26, 2009. The United States declared a public health emergency today. Although it appears that no one has died or become seriously ill in the U.S. from a new strain of the swine flu, health officials are taking no chances. All of the traditional measures to combat epidemics have been set in motion. Funds will be made available for anti-viral drugs, and time-tested and effective methods for tracking and preventing the spread of disease will be utilized. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) is reassuring the public, citing its decades of experience in handling epidemics and its recent preparation for pandemics.
However, former Vice President Cheney, through a spokesman, is calling on the CDC to avoid thinking within the box in deciding on measures to halt this attack on our nation. “We can’t afford not to act with every means available to us,” said his spokesman. Inside the CDC there is mounting pressure to consult with agents from the CIA to examine how harsh interrogation techniques might be of service. With fear mounting and pressure growing, expert legal advice is being sought in order to provide the proper “legal cover” for actions that international agreements have outlawed as torture.
“Look,” said a representative from the former VP’s office, “you gotta do what you gotta do. There are swine out there who, or I should say, that are dangerous. We need to know what, where, and when.” The plan seems to be to find the pigs that are harboring the terrorist virus, and apply harsh techniques, torture if you will, in order force them to provide operational intelligence.
There has been some concern that the swine won’t talk. But everyone should know that swine are among the most intelligent animals, according to experts in covert intelligence. A spokesperson for the CDC insists that with proper guidance, waterboarding a pig is possible, and it will get the animal to talk, and talk fast. (He then handed this reporter a copy of Animal Farm.)
Questioned about violating the rights of these animals, a Cheney spokesman said, “What’s the difference? Whether it’s a human animal or an animal animal. If it attacks you, or if you believe that it might possibly attack, you go after it.” There was little response to a question directed to Cheney himself (as he was walking his dog) by one reporter, “What about all of the innocent pigs, for example, the three little ones, that were just minding their business, trying to build lives for themselves?” Cheney did say that if we could apply harsh techniques to the virus itself, we would. But since we don’t have the technical means to do so, as many of the swine as possible gotta be boarded.
Asked to comment, The White House declined, claiming that as an inanimate object it had little to say. Although a spokesman for the President did say that if the tactics were forward-looking enough, and did not constitute a threat to his domestic agenda, he might be able to get his team behind the CDC. In any case, no CDC employee will be prosecuted for actions deemed acceptable by agency lawyers.
A spokesperson for the Humane Society claimed to be too upset to return this reporter’s call.
….
Cheney and Torture (or how the ex-VP fails Ethics 101)
April 21, 2009
The New York Times reports the following comments by Cheney in reaction to Obama’s release of the Bush administration memos defending acts of torture:
As the debate escalated, Mr. Cheney weighed in, saying that if the country is to judge the methods used in the interrogations, it should have information about what was obtained from the tough tactics.
“I find it a little bit disturbing” that “they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Mr. Cheney said on Fox News. “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity.” ”Pressure Grows to Investigate Interrogations,” April 20, 2009,
Leaving aside the fact that experts in the field have consistently challenged the utility of torture, leaving aside the fact that we could have gotten more information through alternative methods of interrogation, and leaving aside the fact that by torturing prisoners we increase the chances that our own soldiers will be tortured, what Cheney’s comments reveal is the poverty of the ethical imagination of the Bush administration.
Yes, there are good arguments to be made for taking into consideration consequences in judging whether acts are ethical. There is a whole philosophical tradition built around this notion, Utilitarianism. However, the idea that we can justify torture based on “the success” of the method, which presumably means the successful gathering of intelligence, is precisely what every declaration of human rights, including the Geneva Convention, repudiates. (As does every form of sophisticated Utilitarianism.)
Imagine if I said, let’s rape prisoners in order to get the information that we need. No decent human being would tolerate this as a legitimate means of gathering information. Rape is a basic violation of the dignity and integrity of another human being. It’s horrific to think that governments might write legal briefs defending rape on the grounds that it produced information that they needed. Yet, how different is torture from rape? It too is a basic violation of the dignity and integrity of another human being. If one thinks about what the act of torture does to another human being (and what it does to the torturer), it can be viewed as a form of rape, just as rape can be understood as a form of torture. Nevertheless, the Bush administration’s lawyers wrote legal opinions defending acts that time and again have been labeled torture.
So, here is my suggestion in response to Cheney. When he says, “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity,” replace the last part of the sentence, “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of raping human beings.” Now, tell me whether anyone who is even moderately ethical, or anyone who wants to defend the ideals for which this country stands, would be willing to utter such a sentence? But this is in fact a sentence that follows from Cheney’s crude consequentialism.
Cheney is a clever but hopelessly thoughtless man, who was part of a thoughtless administration. He still doesn’t understand how much damage he did to this country in his efforts to protect us. (And let’s not forget, his methods aren’t even good ones in terms of protecting the country.)
….
UPDATE, April 22, 2009: Former FBI supervisory agent discusses recent claims about the effectiveness of torture.
“My Tortured Decision” (excerpt)
By ALI SOUFAN, April 22, 2009, The New York Times
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.
One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence….
Dick Cheney: The Terrorists Have Won
Salem Witchcraft Trials (1692)
Question: What did the terrorist say to terrify Dick Cheney?
Answer: Boo!
If one listens to the words of the former vice president, it is clear that he is telling us that terrorism has worked. We must now live in perpetual fear, which is, after all, one of the main goals of those who seek to terrorize. The danger is so great that we can no longer think about “middle ground” positions, say, those that question the need, value, or morality of torture, for “compromises” of any sort will lead to mushroom clouds in our cities. We can not defend ourselves against terrorism unless we recognize the pervasiveness and unique power of this evil. Enhanced interrogation techniques, a k a as torture, may be all that is standing between us and the abyss.
The [Obama] administration seems to pride itself on searching for some
kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. . . . But in the fight
against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep
you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed
terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear armed
terrorist out of the United States….When just a single clue that
goes unlearned … one lead that goes unpursued … can bring on
catastrophe – it’s no time for splitting differences. There is never a
good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American
people are in the balance. Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced
interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our
country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that
strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and
the terrorist enemy. (Vice President Cheney
Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute
Thursday, May 21, 2009)
You know, we have seen this mentality of before in American history. It calls on us to fight the Dark Side with every means at our disposal. Two instances come immediately to mind: the Salem Witchcraft Trials and the accusations of Senator Joseph McCarthy about communists in government and industry, the Red Scare. In both cases the same sort of categorical, fear driven, mind-set possessed otherwise good people. The fact that there were no witches and that the threat from communism was external, not internal, is irrelevant to the point at hand, namely, that leaders can use fear to drive the public into unacceptable actions. Cheney has been betting on this. And it’s not a bad bet since fear helped drive us into an unnecessary war against a country that posed no threat to us.
Here’s an experiment. With Cheney’s words in mind, read those of Cotton Mather, who sought to defend the persecution of witches back in 1689. Across centuries they reveal themselves as kinsmen who own the Truth and challenge the integrity of those who dare to think differently. As you read Mather’s words, think about Cheney’s claim that we can not jail 245 prisoners from Guantánamo in the U.S. because they are far too dangerous. While no one has ever escaped from a super maximum security prison in the U.S., we must still fear these men. Perhaps they possess powers akin to those of witches, and they will be able to fly over the walls of our prisons or cast spells on the guards. [The idiosyncratic grammar is in Mather's text.]
But I am resolv’d after this [incident with a witch-M.A.], never to use but just one grain of patience with any man that shall go to impose upon me a Denial of Devils, or of Witches. I shall count that man Ignorant who shall suspect, but I shall count him down-right Impudent if he Assert the Non-Existence of things which we have had such palpable. Convictions of. I am sure he cannot be a Civil, (and some will question whether he can be an honest man) that shall go to, deride the Being of things which a whole Countrey has now beheld an house of pious people suffering not a few Vexations by. But if the Sadducee, or the Atheist, have no right Impressions by these Memorable Providences made upon his mind; yet I hope those that know what it is to be sober will not repent any pains that they may have taken in perusing what Records of these Witchcrafts and Possessions, I thus leave unto Posterity. Memorable Providences, Relating to the Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689)
Of course terrorists are real and dangerous, while “witches” are not. But if one were to believe Cheney, it appears that we are fighting a supernatural power, a fight that requires us to sacrifice the Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, and our morality. Witches were so dangerous and possessed such demonic powers that torture was certainly justified, and the same is true of terrorists (or alleged terrorists) for Cheney. I bet he feels just as powerful and self-righteous as those who thought that they were saving us from demons and wizards, for one must be very powerful indeed to fight such foes. But one must also be very scared, perhaps even a bit of a coward, to believe in foes of this sort.
Boo!
Cheney and Dr. Strangelove
In light of the VP’s recent comments on presidential authority and war (December. 21st), with a little help from an (originally color) photo of Cheney that appeared in The Onion in 2002, I offer the following images. (One caveat: I am not suggesting that Cheney is a Nazi. Dr. Strangelove is a fictional character. I am hoping that Cheney’s views become as strange to us as Dr. Strangelove in the not very distant future.)
UPDATE: Tom Brokaw likens Dick Cheney to “Dr. Strangelove” at inauguration
After the Election: Unreported Facts You Need to Know
Through careful investigative reporting, I now have an exclusive for readers of UP@NIGHT. Here are eleven facts that the MSM is simply not reporting (yet):
1. Sarah Palin returned to Alaska from the lower forty-eight by clicking her new red Pradas together three times and repeating, “There is no place like Nome.”
2. Osama bin Laden’s code name among his compatriots is, “Joe the Plumber.” And in one of the most bizarre twists in the election, it turns out that McCain’s “Joe the Plumber” is a hairless Osama look alike.
3. John McCain will be playing Saul Tigh in the last episodes of Battlestar Gallactica, if and only if he is willing to call himself a Cylon and not a Ceylonese.
4. The software program that the Obama campaign used so effectively on its web site is called Hawaii 5.0.
5. The name of Bill O’Reilly’s show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” actually refers to the role that Bill (as a double agent) hoped to play in an Obama victory; namely, Bill hoped to become the major factor in turning voters away from four more years of Republican rule.
6. George Bush was just joshing us when he kept mispronouncing the word, “nuclear.” It turns out that George has a wicked sense of humor. The last (almost) eight years have actually been a prank that he has been playing on the country. It seems that he was never The Decider, aka, the president. (The guys up in Canada who “pranked” Palin will tell you that they learned everything they know from George.)
7. John McCain secretly divorced Cindy just before he selected Sarah Palin for his VP. As part of the settlement, she agreed to stand 20 paces behind him at every campaign rally for the next six weeks and smile. In return Cindy got to keep all of their homes. John now has no where to live. (Hence, a good reason for him to stop confusing Cylon and Ceylon, see Fact #3, because he needs the extra money that an equity acting job will bring him.)
8. Dick Cheney’s identical (and evil) twin, Clyde Cheney, has actually been VP. Dick was removed from office two weeks after the inauguration when it became clear that he simply couldn’t tolerate Rovean tactics, sweet man that he is. The real Dick Cheney has been living as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago and is known in the neighborhood as My Man DC. (That’s the real Dick below.)
9. Obama’s first name is not Barack, and it’s not even Barry. It’s “Arthur.” But ever since he decided to become president in kindergarten, he has worried that having the name Arthur might lead envious opponents to refer to him as “King Arthur.” Bad news for a black dude. Thinking ahead, as he is wont to do, he asked his school teachers to call him Barry. And then at just the right strategic moment to make his run for president, he settled on the name Barack in college.
10. Idaho, the birthplace of Sarah Palin, was never admitted to the Union. We pretended to admit Idaho because we felt sorry for it due to its name and shape, and we wanted its potatoes. So Sarah Palin couldn’t have become VP even if McCain had won. You Betcha! (If you don’t believe this fact, look it up. There’s going to be a new Wikipedia entry explaining the whole scam.)
11. Joe Lieberman’s middle name is “Loyalty,” Joe Loyalty Lieberman; and he is actually a Klingon, albeit a confused one, confusing John McCain with the Klingon Empire.
Stay tuned for more facts as they become available…..
