Dick Cheney "The Prince of Darkness"

[chaos]

Originally Posted by Saidin

I'd be more in favor of drugging people up with that talk serum (if it works) than I am in favor of putting people through pain. I'd be even more in favor of simply asking them for the information. I'm not a monster, but if I were put into a situation that required me to torture, I would do it shamelessly. When I say required, I mean that if my family themselves were in danger. I would hope you guys would protect your own family the same way.

Here's the difference: if you threaten my family and for some reason, torturing you was the only way to save them, then yes I would torture you and 10 motherfuckers who look just like you. But I understand the consequences for that, that I am breaking the law and the very spirit of America's founding values, because I value my family's life more than I value the rule of law. That is not the same as defining and implementing a torture program in an effort to inflate bogus intelligence claims so we can go to war in Iraq. It's not the same as one branch of the government deciding that the law doesn't apply to them, and the other 2 looking the other way as they do it.

That scenario is bullshit and has nothing to do with America instituting a torture program.

[vegetoee]

What I find hilarious is how Cheney tries to justify their negligence by claiming it saves lives. That guy and his crony both had prior intelligence and they ignored it. Bush went on vacation, and we ignored several signs of danger. That alone tells me these two are full of shit. To make matters worse, they actually try and justify the use of torture and loss of our constitutional rights. Under no circumstances should we EVER EVER!!!!!!!!!! and I mean EVER sacrifice our rights our forefathers gave us. You think for one second the terrorists believe they can nuke or blow all of the U.S.A up? I highly doubt that. They know they have little chance of killing every last American. Their entire jihad isn't based around killing us, it is based around making us like them in whatever way possible. This includes suppressing our rights, and using torture.


I just can't imagine all the people who will believe this man today. There is a difference between protecting the lives of our fellow countrymen and a difference between sacrificing our rights and acting inhumane. Once you cross that line, you are screwed. Anyone notice how talks of repealing the Patriot Act is never mentioned? Does that not scare anyone? I am scared to death. It is too easy to misuse methods and laws such as these. In fact, we see it practically each month. You realize, once we give the government undo power to change what they see fit to "protect" us, they will ask and take more and more? This is exactly what our forefathers learned a long time ago, and were worried about, yet most of you will pass it off as some loon overreacting, and it is OK because we are killing towel heads so who cares.


Sorry for the long post.

[Smocca]

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Obama's torture speech from this morning.

I have opposed the creation of such a Commission because I believe that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability. The Congress can review abuses of our values, and there are ongoing inquiries by the Congress into matters like enhanced interrogation techniques. The Department of Justice and our courts can work through and punish any violations of our laws.

I lol'ed at this. Did Obama not preempt those memos with blanket immunity? Isn't it clear now that he is keeping Holder on a short leash to prevent any sort of real investigation or consequences from happening? What a joke. Pay no attention to the elephant in the room everyone. The rule of law applies to politicians and citizens alike.

Anyway here is Cheney's speech too. I have a feeling him and Obama will continue to agree wholeheartedly with each other in the most aggressive and disagreeable manner possible. Obama: "We need to look forward not back!" Cheney: "No, that's totally wrong and dangerous thinking! We need to not get wound up in past mistakes and do what is necessary to protect this nation." That is some major change right there.

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[Mario Speedwagon]

Originally Posted by Heylel Teomim

Yes you are, your whole post was about it. Stop being a pussy and own up to it if that's your true opinion.

Chaos said it best. We're not Hamas, we're not Al Qaeda. We're not even Japan, Great Britain or whoever else. We're the United fucking States of America. They may hate us irrationally, yes that's true. However, we *don't* hate irrationally here. We're above it, just as we should be.

You can't be leader of the free world in jackboots. This isn't a "save the whales" thing. It's an "Christ on a cracker I'm shocked that in this day and age we're even having this conversation" thing. It's like debating the merits of slavery. It's something humanity has largely done away with, and there's absolutely no benefit in looking back.

I'd say they have plenty of rational reasons to hate us.

[CnCGOD]

Why does GITMO Prison have to be shut down? Just reform the practices and add some oversight. We spent a ton of money building it and keeping the scum out of the continental US seems like a good idea.

[Haus]

Odd side note. His public opinion poll numbers are going up..

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - CNN Poll: Favorable opinion of Dick Cheney on the rise « - Blogs from CNN.com

Of course I think this is the fact that anybody not in office tends to trend better than people while they are in office. Part of the "not really happy with the government" vibe thing.

[Sunder]

Cheney slams Obama in speech - CNN.com

Apparently Dick(less) Cheney thinks the U.S. Constitution let's the President torture people. Do you conservatives just not read the Constitution at all? How fucking dumb do you guys have to be?

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Originally Posted by Smocca

Anyway here is Cheney's speech too. I have a feeling him and Obama will continue to agree wholeheartedly with each other in the most aggressive and disagreeable manner possible. Obama: "We need to look forward not back!" Cheney: "No, that's totally wrong and dangerous thinking! We need to not get wound up in past mistakes and do what is necessary to protect this nation." That is some major change right there

Well they are cousins...

[Zhaun's_Shade]

Originally Posted by CnCGOD

Why does GITMO Prison have to be shut down? Just reform the practices and add some oversight. We spent a ton of money building it and keeping the scum out of the continental US seems like a good idea.

Why? So we can do illegal and immoral things to them with little to no oversite or accountability?

[Dr. Rubicite]

Originally Posted by Saidin

I don't see how you guys can't stomach torturing people. The people getting tortured HATE us. If you were over in the middle east as a prisoner, they would torture the fuck out of you. Hamas is known for eye gauging/knee cap shooting and Al'Qaeda uses electric drills, irons and meat cleavers to force people to talk. I could go down the list,but the point is : both sides torture. Great Britain, Japan, Russia ... They ALL have torture in their history.

Brings me back to my youth/teenage years when I'd hear all this stuff on Radio Free Europe about how our governments arrested people in the night, carried them off to secret prisons, and tortured them for confessions--many of which were false and the people only confessed to stop the torture. Luckily, there was the shining hope that when Communism would be overthrown and liberal, western ideals would be instituted those kinds of things wouldn't happen anymore. I was so young and naive in those days...

Honestly, this whole conversation doesn't even make me angry, just sad. "Those people HATE us!!!"? If only you knew how much you sounded like Slobodan Milosevic and Tito just now.

[Erronius]

Originally Posted by Saidin

The people getting tortured HATE us.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Well, if they didn't hate us before, then they sure as shit hate us after getting picked up by some goon squad, extradited in secret to our handlers, kept in Quantanamo, and tortured, amirite?

We shouldn't presume that each and every person in Quantanamo was a terrorist and 'hated' us, as there have already been instances where we've seen that more than likely (in hindsight), that some of those individuals simply got caught up in their local drama/politics and got handed over as "Terrorists". By itself, that's an excellent argument for trials, hearings, and habeus corpus.

Originally Posted by Saidin

If you were over in the middle east as a prisoner, they would torture the fuck out of you. Hamas is known for eye gauging/knee cap shooting and Al'Qaeda uses electric drills, irons and meat cleavers to force people to talk. I could go down the list,but the point is : both sides torture.

Well, organized crime is known for brutal treatment, and I wouldn't aspire to stoop to that level - neither should we as a country. As far as terrorists go, they do a lot of other unconscionable acts, and no one is going to validate raping, pillaging, or murdering our opponents simply because because a bunch of brutal, hateful extremists do.

Or at least, I fucking HOPE not...I didn't think we'd have a "Pro-Torture" argument in America, where someone would say "Well...our enemies do it!"

Originally Posted by Saidin

Great Britain, Japan, Russia ... They ALL have torture in their history. While I'm not justifying the action due to other people doing it, there is a reason they did/do it.

You segued from "those that torture today" to "those that used to use torture". Countries that have moved away from torture should be commended for such a move, such as we had been...until recently. Now we share the ranks with Hamas and Al Qaeda? I'm thrilled! (ok, no, not really)

Originally Posted by Saidin

It is an effective way of gathering intel to save the lives of their countrymen.

No it isn't. Let's say we torture 100 people. How many people are going to give you solid intel? Only a few, and only if they are either inclined to do so in the first place, or have little or no love for their parent organization. If they truly despise you, they'll tell you anything, ANYTHING, but what you want to know. They'll rationalize that they are fighting you the only way they can.

Let me put it another way, but from the flip side so people understand (a lofty goal, but wth). The setup: American soldiers being held prisoner, tortured for information. Soldiers are trained and indoctrinated that they should keep their silence, that they shouldn't break. They struggle against their captors, and engage in misinformation (which is bad for the interrogators, right?), knowing that if they are tortured once they'll likely be tortured numerous times. Keeping information from the enemy is a lofty goal, a heroic aspiration. And here is the kicker - those foreign terrorists feel the same way about it as our soldiers do, heroism and all - perhaps even moreso. These fuckwits are willing to suicide-bomb themselves into getting 40 virgins, are we to assume that they'll just open their mouths and out will spill good, solid intel? They'll do everything they can do to thwart our efforts, if they know anything. And once we start torturing, we'll naturally feel the need to torture more, to be thorough, to completely 'break' people. Then we're simply torturing people to torture, on the off-chance that maybe, someday, we'll hit the motherlode. Until that time, we will simply be torturing people.

And how much information did our enemies get from our poor soldiers, imprisoned and tortured in ways that you seem to espouse? Little to none, and their torture and mistreatment simply became a self-perpetuating cycle that I wouldn't wish upon most people.

Not to mention that all the claims that torture was used successfully to garner information, didn't stand up when dates were mentioned. Holy shit, the information had already been given up before the use of torture, I mean why use torture at that point? We should have been buying them hookers and baking them cupcakes, taking them to the zoo or a cricket match (these fucks love cricket). Fuck, we could have had James take them on a Texas wildlife safari, it might very well have produced better results.

Originally Posted by Saidin

In the end you can blame it on Dick Cheney and Bush all you want, but had they of not authorized it, someone else would have. I'm not ashamed to say that I would have authorized it myself.

Who would have, no, who could have, authorized it, if not the White House? And I am talking on the scale, the broad scale, that it was indeed done on. I'm actually intrigued, who else had the power, the influence, to authorize the use of torture, or obfuscate the issue enough that they could get the same sort of sweeping results? I'm not talking about authorizing some E-5 to butt-stroke a terrorist being held in the back of a HMMWV into talking, or some secret squirrel agent in some ally pulling a "Jack Bauer" to get information. I'm talking about who, exactly, could have done what the Bush White House did?

The answer is no one. No one else could have, or would have, been able to open the floodgates to the use of torture as the BWH did. As such, I will fucking blame Bush and Cheney. They were at the wheel, and I don't care if they were asleep through it or awake, and steering the bus of policy purposely on the path it took. If they hadn't given approval, if they hadn't sought ways around the resrictions in place on torture, it wouldn't have happened. The safeguards that were already in place would have done their job, if the BWH hadn't went to an enormous amount of effort to sidestep those measures and safeguards.

Originally Posted by Saidin

It just sickens me to see that this is a fad topic to most (not particularly talking about those in the thread) equivalent to saving the whales and global warming. If you offered to give people a free Ipod in place of them voting against torture, most people would do it.

It isn't a fad, I mean seriously, come the fuck on. People were conned in to some revolting sort of tacit approval, through "You aren't a patriot unless you support Bush/War/WH foreign policy/"facts" put out by the administration", as well as blurring what was really going on. This kind of shit ALWAYS takes time to out, time for us to get a picture of what was really going on. We didn't have the administration going to any length at all to give their opponents a clear picture of their machinations, and finally (finally!), we are beginning to see what really was going on (especially now, without "interpretations" by the BWH that made everything sound so damn peachy!).

But mostly, people are learning. People are learning what happened, when, and under what circumstances. Learning takes time, and just because people are just now starting to realize what went on, and to what extent, doesn't make it a fad.

The sad thing here is that I really don't think Bush and Cheney thought they were doing anything "evil", but at the same time, they knew they were treading on thin ice,and they knew what they were doing while twisting public opinion/approval. That alone prevents me from feeling any remorse of pity for them, that alone make some despise them. They took torture, rolled back rights and individual freedoms, and wrapped it up for public consumption. It was like when you give your dog a pill, you wrap it up in some velveeta and they suck it right down. Sadly, not all dogs are bright enough to realize the deception, they keep sucking it down. Others eventually figure it out, much to the frustration of those doling out their wares.

[chaos]

Originally Posted by Zhaun's_Shade

Why? So we can do illegal and immoral things to them with little to no oversite or accountability?

Actually, that's exactly it. It has nothing to do with not wanting those people on American soil, no reasonable person thinks these guys would escape from a supermax prison, or that they are going to get into prison and suddenly recruit Bubba and Adolf to join their little group. It's about denying them trials in order to cover up what was done. Trials mean shit comes to light.

[Zhaun's_Shade]

Watching these clips of Cheney's speach, all I can think is "Jesus, is he evil looking." He looks like some kind of supervillan from Bond or Batman or something. He looks like he runs on pure hatred and rage.

[I'm Rich Bitch]

The good thing about the Obama-Cheney speech debate yesterday is that we have returned to intelligent political discussion instead of the Olbermann-Hannity political pornography we typically see. Obama and Cheney have very valid points and are distinctly different. They are able to have a valid political discussion without gimmicks such as tea bags, yelling "Socialism", or asking for a birth certificate.

Yesterday was a great day for the country. Unfortunately, the Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity/Olbermann/Coulter/Ingraham/Levin/O'Reilly political pornography will win back the floor soon due to ratings. A world without Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity/Olbermann/Coulter/Ingraham/Levin/O'Reilly/Palin and tea bagging would indeed be a very nice reality.

[Zhaun's_Shade]

Interesting, because I just saw an evil old white man trying to defend an 8 year track record of doing evil shit to assuage the delusions in his own mind.