Dick Cheney "The Prince of Darkness"

[sentagur]

And that was it as they say...

[chaos]

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Liz Cheney: Obama doesn’t ’stand up’ and defend America « - Blogs from CNN.com

heh, wow. Pretty sure that I've never seen anything like this in my lifetime, with Cheney and now his daughter being so active in working against Obama. At least not publicly like this.

[Arative]

Originally Posted by chaos

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Liz Cheney: Obama doesn’t ’stand up’ and defend America « - Blogs from CNN.com

heh, wow. Pretty sure that I've never seen anything like this in my lifetime, with Cheney and now his daughter being so active in working against Obama. At least not publicly like this.

Well maybe Obama will get a little payback and go after Cheney for War crimes. Just to show him, you don't fuck with the Obama.

[Astrocreep]

Originally Posted by Arative

Well maybe Obama will get a little payback and go after Cheney for War crimes. Just to show him, you don't fuck with the Obama.

how dare cheney criticize him.

[Screamfeeder]

Originally Posted by Astrocreep

how dare cheney criticize him.

Well, when people criticize Cheney, they do get arrested...

[Desidero]

Originally Posted by Plisko

big quote

There's an interesting turn of events - didn't expect you to show up here! Lots of text inc, but read the bottom paragraph under the line for the only important part of this post if you don't want to read the rest.

Anyway, here's my justification:
First, when we were are that part of the thread where I was talking about how I wasn't a fan of the methods you used in your video, I brought that up because I was already talking about the methods the OP used. I was basically calling the OP crazy at the time and then someone went ahead and posted "Crazy YouTube guy" which was... crazy as well? Your video was entertaining for ADD internet audiences, but I will still argue that it is preaching to the choir. You aren't converting anyone with that video. The main value is that it might have began some debates.

You mentioned that I didn't give specific examples about how your arguments "weren't quite there". Basically, what it amounts to is that you compared specific crimes that would be categorized as horrific with torture. Yes, torture is absolutely horrific and vile, but there is still that small fact that it can be necessary in rare cases. I won't defend a liberal use of torture (or even a barely-more-than-extremely-conservative-ticking-timebomb use), but as you yourself said, it may be useful in very specific situations.

Originally Posted by video

but doesn't that mean he might rape again

It was also implied that it may happen again if nothing is done. While I can certainly see the angle you're approaching with, the fact is that Cheney is done. Changes have been made in the CIA and other organizations. Cheney getting busted won't have any effect on whether or not they do it again. There are more specific rules in place now.

Originally Posted by video

If this was another country that tortured our people, we would be going to war over punishing the people who authorized it.

Again, obviously true. I will also repeat once more that torture is a bad thing. However, this isn't the same scenario as us fighting another country. This is about hoping to get some information out of a group of extremists who attacked our country and would gladly die killing us. While we really shouldn't have used torture like we did, the examples don't quite match up. This is what I'm trying to point out - not that you're flat-out wrong, but that your examples are off by just enough that they lose a lot of their persuasive power.

Originally Posted by video

This is a struggle for America to get its soul back, and the people who are gonna resist us are the ones that lost our soul in the first place.

You make it an us-vs-them thing here. By doing this, you immediately polarize the argument, putting anyone who was iffy on the subject (they accept some of your points and some of the counter-points) in a defensive position. When people are in a defensive mindset in an argument, there is absolutely no way that their position will be changed. None. What you said could be wrong or it could be so true that Jesus himself comes down and says, "Yeah, that's right." It won't matter because you just made people stop listening. After listening to the rest of that portion of your video, it sounds more like you're talking about big political people rather than regular undecided citizens, but the damage has already been done. I had to replay the video for this post in small segments in order to notice that you weren't even talking about who I thought you were talking about.


-----------------------

And now, the exciting conclusion:

What I'd really like is for you to just read the stuff I said and not comment on it. I know we can go back and forth on semantics with that stuff, but it's really not important.

What is important is that the post you made on this forum was actually really good. That's how it should be done. You stated a lot of things that were in the video with a more refined word choice and less buzzword nonsense, and it came off as a very good argument. It is very convincing and may actually change peoples' minds a bit. I've always been in the position that torture is a bad thing, but I'm against the prosecution of Cheney for reasons stated above. I still hold that position, but reading your post and doing some digging on the web for various facts has made me lean more toward prosecution.

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Plisko

Hello Fellow Gamers from "Crazy YouTube Guy"

Welcome to FoH. I hope your stay is long but it can get kind of... brutal... sometimes. Posting's of your quality are always welcome, however.

[Arative]

Kit Bond: Democrats running a banana Republic

I guess the new tact the GOP is taking in regards of prosecuting members of the previous administration is to accuse the Democrats of being a banana Republic. God forbid we actually expect our elected officials to comply with the laws of the land.

[Astrocreep]

Originally Posted by Arative

. God forbid we actually expect our elected officials to comply with the laws of the land.

too bad nobody on either side does this.

[Simas]

The whole situation is frustrating as shit. Obama wants to push healthcare and enviro reform. The economic crisis continues. The reality is political capital is needed to handle these things. Any sort of investigation will drain this capital. It will also dominate the news cycle. It will dominate congress.

Its not about not being able to handle the truth, its about not being able to afford the truth.

Clinton was impeached for perjury b/c it made sense politicly and now were going let torture be "mysterious" (fuck you peggy) because it makes sense politicly. And the most frustrating part is I cant fault Obama for it. Its pragmatic in the utmost. And I want healthcare and the rest.

I just wish the issue wouldnt be so polarizing. In a perfect world republicans and democrats would want to know if the govt violated the law. And if so what to do about it. But thats not how the game is played.

/edit If public sentiment does gel to the point where most do want to investigate then by all means go for it. And tar the republicans for impeding it/shielding criminals the whole way. I just dont really see that happening. More pics are being released soon though.

[Smocca]

I think a lot of people feel that way Simas but the truth is that the public is already behind investigations.

Meet the Press and the media's distortions of the prosecutions debate - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

A USA Today poll from February -- headlined: "Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics" -- found "two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants," and "four in 10 favor criminal investigations." A Gallup poll from mid-February found that between 60 to 70% of Americans favor investigations for torture, warrantless eavesdropping and DOJ politicization, and that majorities of Democrats (and more than 40% of all Americans and independents) favor criminal prosecutions. Only small percentages of independents -- between 25-38% -- oppose investigations for each of the three lawbreaking allegations. A Washington Post/ABC News poll from January similarly found that a majority of Americans (50-47%) -- and an overwhelming majority of Democrats (69%) -- believe that the Obama administration should investigate whether the Bush administration's treatment of detainees was illegal. While polls can vary based on how the questions are asked, every poll shows substantial percentages favoring investigations.

These polls happened BEFORE the memos that really sparked this firestorm were released to the public. The idea that the American people are against holding politicians accountable is ridiculous. "Political capital" is far too quickly and easily thrown out as an excuse to let things go.

[Simas]

This article points out the "game" of it all quite well.

"We need to look at to make sure exactly what happened is known to the public and to deter any future president from doing like behavior, if it was wrong," said one well-respected member of Congress. "In that regard, if we can do it in a bipartisan fashion, I think that's what we should do. Every American benefits when you can control X abuse of power. If this was an abuse of power, then we need to know about it."

It was February 2001 not April 2009. The topic was Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich not the use of torture techniques on detainees. And the above quote was attributed to then-Rep. Lindsey Graham not, say, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

When Indignation Was Righteous: Republicans Once Wanted To Investigate The Past Administration

[Arbiter]

Investigate if they want, but I don't think congress and the Bush administration handled anything wrongly throughout that time, in fact, I think they were very careful in what they legislated and put into use.

It comes down to mainly just political points.

[Chips]

I look forward to the next Republican Administration where they can investigate Obama for spending trillions of dollars and putting my grand kids who are not even born yet in massive financial debt. Oh and also they can investigate him for trying to turn out country from one of personal responsibility and freedom into a country of social welfare checks and asking the government for permission to cross State lines.

[Badass]

Originally Posted by Chips

I look forward to the next Republican Administration where they can investigate Obama for spending trillions of dollars and putting my grand kids who are not even born yet in massive financial debt. Oh and also they can investigate him for trying to turn out country from one of personal responsibility and freedom into a country of social welfare checks and asking the government for permission to cross State lines.

I look forward to when un-american right wing idiots like yourself will finally start going to college so you can shut the fuck up and quit embarrassing the rest of us. The only thing protecting your ass from a pitch forked mob is the ideals that this country was built on.

Ideals that you have completely abandoned and no longer support. A few ideologues in the Bush Administration turned America into a state sponsor of fucking torture. The fact that there are so few, if any, republicans who are willing to stand up and say AMERICA DOES NOT TORTURE is fucking disgusting. Who the fuck are you people??

Why are republicans making this a political issue. This is not a political issue. This is an issue of a few executive officials violating U.S. and International Law. They are war criminals. Why would the republicans not just distance themselves from this shit. Baffling.