Dick Cheney apparently does not relish the obscurity he help build for himself. He is all over the news calling everything President Obama does a national security disaster while defending the Bush/Cheney approach to solving world crisises. That was either ignor them or bomb the hell out of them. His remarks are beginning to even draw the scorn of fellow Republicans which wish he would fade back into his fortress of obscurity. He soon may wish otherwise, and try to retreat back into his fortress, but hopefully he will be getting his just deserts.
Recently President Obama released the long sought after Bush
torture memos. Since then he has faced a
barrage of criticism from the right wing for aiding the enemy, even though most of the salient details were already known by
al-
Quaeda. Cheney has been especially critical and now it seems we all know why. Rather then trying to extract that next "ticking time bomb" of information, it seems excessive torture was used for political goals. We have heard the semantic
arguments from defenders of torture who would have you believe "it can't be torture because we didn't do this or that." Well kiddies their final
argument is BS, Cheney wanted an
alleged link to Sadam Hussien and al-Quaeda to help bolster his excuse to engage in an illegal war. That's right, not to gain information on the next
eminent attack on the United States and her citizens, but to aide Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush
Regime cover for invading Iraq, which had
nothing to do with 9/11 in the first place.
Furthermore of concern, my friend in Canada
Mentarch indicates that
torture may have been used on children! Is this what we as a nation came to? I didn't and I demand that an investigation begin
immediately. Leave it to Keith
Olbermann tonight to bring up many salient points so far over looked in these reports, and I will bring up another he
completely overlooked. Remember when Donald
Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense testified before Congress over the
Abu Ghraib torture
scandal? Did he not tell Congress "he didn't know about this" until it basically was reported in the press? Funny that now this has been exposed as a lie in this report by Carl Levine.
Rumsfeld himself signed off on the use of torture as early as August, 2002! Didn't know? Keith
Olbermann had Janet
Karpinshi on tonight. You remember her, the
Brigadier General in charge of
Abu Ghraib who was hung out to dry by
Rumsfeld et al. She has said before, and said again tonight that the orders for the torture of those prisoners came from much higher up the chain of command, but in a salient remark noted that Obama does not want to prosecute those
CIA members who engaged in torture? What about those lonely
GI's that followed orders of CIA contractors and engaged in this torture and are now serving time for this with a loss of all their military careers? If President Obama does not want to allow prosecution of CIA personnel for following orders signed off on by
DOJ attorneys, how the hell do you convict these
GI's of doing what the Secretary of Defense signed off on along with those
DOJ attorneys?
I am not forgiving of these actions by either the
GI's or CIA. They tortured, in violation of both U.S. laws and international laws, so they are subject to whatever criminal prosecution comes their way. Their was no patriotic calling in their actions. By their actions they became no better then the criminals that behead Daniel Pearle and others after torturing them. As noted by many of the talking heads tonight, President Obama has lost control of this issue, and
damnit he should have
foreseen this. If he didn't he is not that bright, smart politician we all voted for. President Obama, screw your so called "rainbow coalition" you wish to reach across the isle to form. If Republicans don't want this bit of dirty laundry aired who should care? This is the call of many career criminals during the sentencing portion of their trials. On top of this you promised a transparent open government, yet by protecting the Bush
cabal you hide the truth, and although you have a lovely smile, you will not improve this nations standing in the eyes of the rest of the world. Political leaders unlike voters have long memories, and this will always be laid on our door step until we openly, honestly, deal with it. Remember Nuremberg, you cannot make a
separate set of rules for us.
Just today Rove, Arlen
Specture and Dick Cheney implied the Obama Administration was acting like a "
Central American
banana Republic with tinted sun glasses" for pursuing these crimes any further. Yet again today the news is our National Security Advisor,
Condelesa Rice, and Vice President Dick Cheney
signed off on these tortures as early as July, 2002, prior to the
DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel's memos allowing such
procedures. In all the books I read and movies I saw, it was those tinted sun glass dictators of South and Central America who were torturing. Yet just this past week,
Peru convicted it's former President Fujimori of human rights violations including torture. Whose the
banana Republic here? President Obama they tell me you are a
brilliant Constitutional scholar and attorney. Your lack of
enthusiasm to prosecute criminals makes me think you were asleep in Criminal Law 101. You should know that with all your knowledge of secrets including those declassified that failure to act makes you a war criminal too, and in the eyes of American law, an accessory after the fact. Appoint a Special Prosecutor now!