DICK Cheney, the fraud

[Chadman]

Dick Cheney's losing his old black magic
Mr. Secret Bunker calls Obama "afraid." Wingnuts clap, world yawns.
BY JOAN WALSH

Ooooh, Dick Cheney's back, just in time for Halloween! In a Wednesday speech at Frank Gaffney's far-right Center for Security Policy, Cheney blasted President Obama for being "afraid" to make a decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan, insisting the White House "must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger." Cheney had the audacity to say the Obama team merely implemented the Bush-Cheney strategy when they sent 21,000 more American soldiers to Afghanistan in March.

How does a man who spent much of his vice presidency hiding in a secret bunker get off accusing the president of being "afraid"? How does a guy who got five deferments from service in Vietnam, because he famously had "other priorities," call someone else a coward? (Still, Chickenhawk Cheney had no problem sending other people's children off to die in needless wars.) How does a guy who dropped the ball on the Afghan war, letting Osama bin Laden escape and the Taliban retrench, blame someone else for "dithering" on Afghanistan?

Now, as Obama is forced to dig out of another Bush-Cheney mess he inherited, and the former veep is savaging him again? The irony is that it's true that Obama approved a troop increase that had been requested during the Bush-Cheney administration, but as press secretary Robert Gibbs notes, that's because it "sat on desks in this White House, including the vice-president's, for more than eight months."

It's great to watch people step up to smack Cheney down. Retired Gen. Paul Eaton blasted back today, and I couldn't say it any better:

"The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. ?

"No human endeavor can be as profound as sending a nation's youth to war. I am very happy to see serious men and women working hard to get it right."

Former GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander defended Obama too:

"I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan. Then I think he should come to Congress and say to the American people what that plan is and see if he can persuade us and all of the American people of the rightness of it because he needs to have support all the way through to the end of that mission, so I want him to take the time to get it right."

Maybe the tide is turning on Cheney, and even responsible Republicans are starting to realize he is one of the most unpopular figures in American history, whose administration will be remembered for its unwon wars and economic collapse. I think Cheney should take a break from speechifying, maybe spend more time at home with his family, frightening his grandchildren.

 

[Skulnik]

Obama lies and troops die.

:nono:

 

[smurphy]

How does a man who spent much of his vice presidency hiding in a secret bunker get off accusing the president of being "afraid"? How does a guy who got five deferments from service in Vietnam, because he famously had "other priorities," call someone else a coward? (Still, Chickenhawk Cheney had no problem sending other people's children off to die in needless wars.) How does a guy who dropped the ball on the Afghan war, letting Osama bin Laden escape and the Taliban retrench, blame someone else for "dithering" on Afghanistan?

:00x33

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

Obama lies and troops die.

:nono:

Why aren't you over in Iraq?

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Hmm lets take a look at the other side--

I have highlighted ares that white house has refused to rebut--
so will give you a chance Chad--
--which can you say are incorrect

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that the Bush administration had developed a new strategy on the war in Afghanistan before leaving office -- a strategy that he said "bears a striking resemblance" to the one announced by President Obama in March.
In a speech to the Center for Security Policy, Cheney said the Bush administration handed Obama's transition team a policy review of the Afghan war conducted last fall to meet the new challenges posed by the Taliban.
"They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt," Cheney said.
Cheney's comments countered a recent claim by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the Obama administration had to form an Afghan war strategy from scratch because the Bush administration hadn't asked any key questions about the war and left it "adrift."
The comments add more fuel to the ongoing war of words between the former vice president and Obama administration officials over the current administration's national security policies, including the Justice Department's probe into alleged abuse of terror suspects by the Bush CIA and the president's plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama is currently debating whether to ramp up war at the request of his military advisers or scale back the effort and focus on going after Al Qaeda in Pakistan, as some of his political advisers are urging.
Gen. Stanley McCrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is reportedly seeking up to 40,000 additional troops on the ground where there are currently 68,000 U.S. soldiers.
Cheney called on Obama to support his military commander.
"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," he said.
"Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," he added. "Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Cheney's statement was "curious."
"I think it's pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan," he said Thursday. "Even more curious, given that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's for more than eight months -- a resource request filled by President Obama in March."
"What Vice President Cheney calls 'dithering', President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," he said. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."
Obama has drawn sharp criticism from conservatives who argue that the deliberations are playing into the hands of the Taliban and damaging the morale of the U.S. troops fighting there.
Obama has said he will make a decision soon, possibly before Nov. 7 runoff election between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah.
Emanuel told CNN that the president is "asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side and the strategic side."
"It's clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that's adrift, that we're beginning at scratch, just at the starting point...and that there's not a security force, an army, and the types of services that are important for the Afghans to become a true partner."
In his speech Wednesday, Cheney prodded Obama to pursue the strategy he unveiled in March.
"They made a decision -- a good one, I think -- and sent a commander into the field to implement it," Cheney said, referring to McChrystal, who was chosen in May by Obama to lead the fight in Afghanistan.
"Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced," he said. "It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."
In March, Obama ordered 4,000 more troops into Afghanistan, bringing the total then to 21,000 additional soldiers since he took office.
"So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future," he said at the time.
But rapidly deteriorating conditions and a widely disputed and unresolved election in Afghanistan gave the Obama administration pause and led to the current policy review.
"Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission," Cheney said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Cheney for asserting that Obama is "afraid" to make a decision.
"That's really not a dignified statement," she said Thursday. "The president has a very difficult decision to make. I don't think that's a constructive comment to make."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Personally I think we see O wait till after nov gov elections to get "off the fence"

I will have to admit to one error I made pre election--I said O couldn't vote present as president--I stand corrected.

 

[Chadman]

So, again, Wayne, you dismiss in kind the complete story regarding Cheney, and pose different questions which I would have no answer for. You say the White House refuses to comment on them - the ones you bolded - which seems a little odd to me. Do I believe Dick Cheney? No. Why would I? Why would anyone? But, I think the story is very much on point.

I don't have any way to know what Cheney and Bush supposedly had done and was hidden from our view. I know plenty that was hidden from our view in the past that proved to be completely false, and I don't share his views on much of anything. So, do I give him more credence than the current administration?

NO WAY.

But, thanks for avoiding the Cheney points, and looking at things from "the other side."

 

[Chadman]

Furthermore, why would I specifically give any credence to any "report" that Cheney was a part of, and why would I think he would give Obama "the benefit of the doubt" and try to help him out?

To think those supposed things would even be on the up and up, and they were only trying to be helpful to Obama and the democrats is ludicrous.

But thanks for looking at things "from the other side."

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

I'm just asking why Gibbs/O/white house don't refute what he said instead of taking it in another direction.

On O's assertion that they did nothing for 7 years--
--someone might remind him that fighting/winning war in Iraq simultaneously is much tougher than waving whte flag and saying we lost/surrender.

Truth of matter is O has only one war to fight--we'll see how he does.

Personally I think he has found worst possible time to be floundering.
You got Pakistan that has finally got in agressive mode--and they got be be reconsidering sticking their necks out now as well as afgan.

Put yourself in these peoples shoes--despite hating taliban would you stick your neck out for someone who is wishy washy and may pull out tomorrow.
One thing about GW--he proved to them in 8 years he could be trusted and wouldn't run-They already know O would have ran in Iraq--
-school still out on afgan --:0corn

 

[THE KOD]

Cheney is full os shit and just needs to go away and retire with his 100 billion he padded his accounts with the last 8 yrs.

what more does he want

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

I'm just asking why Gibbs/O/white house don't refute what he said instead of taking it in another direction.

On O's assertion that they did nothing for 7 years--
--someone might remind him that fighting/winning war in Iraq simultaneously is much tougher than waving whte flag and saying we lost/surrender.

Truth of matter is O has only one war to fight--we'll see how he does.

Personally I think he has found worst possible time to be floundering.
You got Pakistan that has finally got in agressive mode--and they got be be reconsidering sticking their necks out now as well as afgan.

Put yourself in these peoples shoes--despite hating taliban would you stick your neck out for someone who is wishy washy and may pull out tomorrow.
One thing about GW--he proved to them in 8 years he could be trusted and wouldn't run-They already know O would have ran in Iraq--
-school still out on afgan --:0corn

Its insane how you warhawks think.

 

[THE KOD]

DTB is excited that the wars continue.

I guess I do understand the warhawk mentality now.

they want war plain and simple

 

[Chadman]

I'm just asking why Gibbs/O/white house don't refute what he said instead of taking it in another direction.

What good would it do? Seriously? Cheney has said plenty, in and out of office, plenty of it has been proven to have been outright falsehoods. And, I ask you, is/was Cheney ever forthright with questions or insinuations about what he was a part of? Please! He destroyed COMPUTERS and rewrote accepted behaviors of what White House communication and record keeping was up until they got in power. You're using CHENEY as the model for addressing complaints? Good lord, Wayne... I give you more credit than that.

On O's assertion that they did nothing for 7 years--
--someone might remind him that fighting/winning war in Iraq simultaneously is much tougher than waving whte flag and saying we lost/surrender.

Truth of matter is O has only one war to fight--we'll see how he does.

This is complete hogwash. Someone might remind YOU that the war in Iraq was completely a choice based on nothing that threatened our country, unlike Pakistan or Afghanistan. Had Bush/Cheney stayed on the cause the world agreed with, we might not be fighting any of these wars right now. We didn't have to fight in Iraq, Cheney wanted to for whatever reasons he could manufacture - NONE of which had ONE thing to do with Bin Laden or terrorism. They had one war to fight - the one they specifically named (terrorism/Bin Laden), and they pulled our troops away from it. End of story.

Personally I think he has found worst possible time to be floundering.
You got Pakistan that has finally got in agressive mode--and they got be be reconsidering sticking their necks out now as well as afgan.

So, now that Obama is in office, Pakistan is FINALLY getting in aggressive mode? Thanks for pointing that out. Just think, had Cheney/Bush not pulled all our troops away from there to begin with, Pakistan might not have to be aggressive at all. We would have dealt with the threat, and quite possibly defeated it. Congratulations, Obama, on finally getting something aggressive done in Pakistan.

Put yourself in these peoples shoes--despite hating taliban would you stick your neck out for someone who is wishy washy and may pull out tomorrow.
One thing about GW--he proved to them in 8 years he could be trusted and wouldn't run-They already know O would have ran in Iraq--
-school still out on afgan --:0corn

The only thing Bush proved to people fighting the Taliban is that he WOULD pull out of the fight against them and start a war with someone unrelated to the Taliban and terrorism. He pulled out. He ran. Afghan is still ongoing, as is Pakistan, and finally, thanks to Obama, we may focus on that - the terrorists, and whether we have the money to do it, or whether it's worth fighting for, considering what we hope to accomplish at home.

 

[THE KOD]

One man reigns supreme in the land of hypocrites. His majesty is Richard ?Dick? Cheney. Servicing the crowd at a recent neo-con think tank, he accused Barack Obama of indecisiveness on Afghanistan; emboldening our enemies, imperiling our troops and insulting our allies, etc.


This after Cheney?s administration (yes- his administration) spent close-on eight years dithering in Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to regroup in a more virulent form after its initial drubbing while he attempted a democratization of the Middle East with a preemptive, deadly and distractive war in Iraq. His policies have exhausted, distended and endangered our military forces- those not killed or greviously wounded- and the region is less stable than ever before as militant Islamic fundamentalism has had time to adapt.

For Cheney to blame Obama for the former VP's extensive folly is nauseating and doesn?t pass the most casual scrutiny. Responsibility will indeed lie with President Obama in whatever decision he makes regarding Afghanistan
////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

What good would it do? Seriously? What good would it do? Seriously? Cheney has said plenty, in and out of office, plenty of it has been proven to have been outright falsehoods. And, I ask you, is/was Cheney ever forthright with questions or insinuations about what he was a part of? Please! He destroyed COMPUTERS and rewrote accepted behaviors of what White House communication and record keeping was up until they got in power. You're using CHENEY as the model for addressing complaints? Good lord, Wayne... I give you more credit than that.



This is complete hogwash. Someone might remind YOU that the war in Iraq was completely a choice based on nothing that threatened our country, unlike Pakistan or Afghanistan. Had Bush/Cheney stayed on the cause the world agreed with, we might not be fighting any of these wars right now. We didn't have to fight in Iraq, Cheney wanted to for whatever reasons he could manufacture - NONE of which had ONE thing to do with Bin Laden or terrorism. They had one war to fight - the one they specifically named (terrorism/Bin Laden), and they pulled our troops away from it. End of story.



So, now that Obama is in office, Pakistan is FINALLY getting in aggressive mode? Thanks for pointing that out. Just think, had Cheney/Bush not pulled all our troops away from there to begin with, Pakistan might not have to be aggressive at all. We would have dealt with the threat, and quite possibly defeated it. Congratulations, Obama, on finally getting something aggressive done in Pakistan.



The only thing Bush proved to people fighting the Taliban is that he WOULD pull out of the fight against them and start a war with someone unrelated to the Taliban and terrorism. He pulled out. He ran. Afghan is still ongoing, as is Pakistan, and finally, thanks to Obama, we may focus on that - the terrorists, and whether we have the money to do it, or whether it's worth fighting for, considering what we hope to accomplish at home.

I'll ask you same question again--which statements were false?

You can go back to any statements Cheney has made on this admin that you think are false and we'll look at them-- which ones have been "proven" false?

-to be fair how many statements would you like me to put up on The Grifter that have been proven false--

Lets narrow it down a bit--
pick a catagory--
-campaign fianace
-pork/no lobbyist
-transparency
--fiscal responsibilty
--the war Afgan or Iraq--take your pick
-economy

--or on this situation in particular who lied
--Emanual when he stated this last admin left them nothing on Afgan
--or Cheney when he said they did--
:0corn

 

[THE KOD]

1) On the supposed legality of unauthorized wiretapping

Asked what he thought about suggestions from Barack Obama's transition team that the Bush administration's homeland security policy "has basically been torture and illegal wiretapping, and that they want to undo the central tenets of your anti-terrorist policy," Cheney replied, "They're wrong. On the question of terrorist surveillance, this was always a policy to intercept communications between terrorists, or known terrorists, or so-called 'dirty numbers,' and folks inside the United States, to capture those international communications. It's worked. It's been successful. It's now embodied in the FISA statute that we passed last year, and that Barack Obama voted for, which I think was a good decision on his part. It's a very, very important capability. It is legal. It was legal from the very beginning. It is constitutional, and to claim that it isn't I think is just wrong."

THE LIE: Although the Bush administration secured Congressional approval for the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in the week after the 9/11 attacks (the founding document of the "War on Terror," which granted the President seemingly open-ended powers "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001"), the approval for the warrantless surveillance of communications to and from the United States that followed on September 25 was neither "legal" nor "constitutional."

In a series on Dick Cheney in the Washington Post last summer, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker explained how, on the day of the 9/11 attacks, Cheney and David Addington swiftly assembled a team that included Timothy Flanigan and John Yoo to begin "contemplating the founding question of the legal revolution to come: What extraordinary powers will the President need for his response?" Gellman and Becker described how Flanigan, with advice from Yoo, drafted the AUMF, and Yoo explained that "they used the broadest possible language because 'this war was so different, you can't predict what might come up'."

In fact, as the authors point out, they "knew very well what would come next: the interception -- without a warrant -- of communications to and from the United States." Although warrantless communications intercepts had been forbidden by federal law since 1978, the administration claimed that they were "justified, in secret, as 'incident to' the authority Congress had just granted" the President, in a memorandum that Yoo finalized on 25 September. Far from being "legal" and "constitutional," therefore, the secret memorandum was the first brazen attempt by the key policy-makers (in the Office of the Vice President and the Pentagon) to use the AUMF as cover for an unprecedented expansion of presidential power that was intended to cut Congress, the judiciary, and all other government departments out of the loop.

2) On the definition of torture

Moving on to the allegations of torture, Cheney said, "On the question of so-called 'torture,' we don't do torture, we never have. It's not something that this administration subscribes to. Again, we proceeded very cautiously; we checked, we had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross. The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful, wouldn't do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong."

THE LIE: The claim, "we don't do torture," which President Bush has also peddled on numerous occasions, is an outright lie. The definition of torture, as laid down in the UN Convention Against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person." However, in the summer of 2002 (obviously with Cheney's knowledge), John Yoo, with input from Addington, Gonzales and Flanigan, drafted another secret memorandum, issued on August 1 (PDF), which has become known as the "Torture Memo." This extraordinary document -- one of the most legally manipulative in the whole of the "War on Terror" -- drew creatively on historical rulings about torture in countries including Northern Ireland and Bosnia, and attempted to claim that, for the pain inflicted to count as torture, it "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

Last summer, Yoo confirmed that Addington was responsible for another of the memo's radical claims -- that, as Commander in Chief, the President could authorize torture if he felt that it was necessary -- and also confirmed that a second opinion was signed off on August 1, 2002, which, unlike the first (leaked after the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004) has never been made public. An unnamed source cited by Gellman and Becker explained that this second memo contained a long list of techniques approved for use by the CIA, which included waterboarding, but apparently drew the line at threatening to bury a prisoner alive.

As a result, all Cheney's talk of "careful" and "cautious" legal advice is nothing more than a failed attempt to justify redefining torture. Outside of the White House and the Pentagon, it has always been abundantly clear that the SERE techniques (let alone the more extreme methods approved for use by the CIA) are torture, pure and simple, and the Senate Committee's recent report quotes extensively from a number of bodies -- the Air Force, the Defense Department's Criminal Investigative Task Force, the Army's International and Operational Law Division, the Navy and the Marine Corps -- who were opposed to their implementation for this very reason. Others, who took their complaints to the highest levels, were Alberto J. Mora, the head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the FBI.

3) On intelligence obtained through torture

Following his defense of the interrogation techniques authorized by the administration, Cheney continued: "Did it produce the desired results? I think it did. I think, for example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the number three man in al-Qaeda, the man who planned the attacks of 9/11, provided us with a wealth of information. There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al-Qaeda came from that one source."

THE LIE: With exquisite timing, Cheney's bombastic pronouncements about the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and its supposed value coincided with the publication, in Vanity Fair, of an article by David Rose, in which a number of senior officials from both the FBI and the CIA directly refuted Cheney's claims. The article, which is worth reading in its entirety, focused primarily on the torture of Abu Zubaydah, Binyam Mohamed and Jose Padilla (which I have discussed at length before), but there were also key insights into the torture of KSM. Although President Bush claimed that KSM had provided "many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans," a former senior CIA official, who read all the interrogation reports from KSM's torture in secret CIA custody, explained that "90 percent of it was total fucking bullshit," and a former Pentagon analyst added, "KSM produced no actionable intelligence. He was trying to tell us how stupid we were."

In addition, Cheney's claims about KSM were directly contradicted by Jack Cloonan, a senior FBI operative whose torture-free interrogation of al-Qaeda operatives in the years before 9/11 provides an object lesson in how the administration should have operated afterwards. Disputing the unspecified claims that, as Cheney put it, the interrogation of KSM had produced "a wealth of information," Cloonan said, "The proponents of torture say, 'Look at the body of information that has been obtained by these methods.' But if KSM and Abu Zubaydah did give up stuff, we would have heard the details." Rose added that a former CIA officer asked, "Why can't they say what the good stuff from Abu Zubaydah or KSM is? It's not as if this is sensitive material from a secret, vulnerable source. You're not blowing your source but validating your program. They say they can't do this, even though five or six years have passed, because it's a 'continuing operation.' But has it really taken so long to check it all out?"

However, what was probably the most damning opinion was offered by FBI director Robert Mueller:

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls "enhanced techniques"?
"I'm really reluctant to answer that," Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: "I don't believe that has been the case."


4) On approval for the use of torture on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

The key elements of Cheney's admission that waterboarding was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that Cheney believed that this was "appropriate," are as follows:

Jonathan Karl: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Dick Cheney: I was aware of the program certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do, and I supported it. Jonathan Karl: In hindsight, do you think any of those tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others went too far? Dick Cheney: I don't. Jonathan Karl: And on KSM, one of those tactics, of course, widely reported was waterboarding, and that seems to be a tactic we no longer use. Even that you think was appropriate? Dick Cheney: I do.
THE LIE: Cheney's explanation of how he came to "support" the CIA program that was responsible for the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (and numerous other "high-value detainees") suggests that he was little more than an adviser for a preconceived project. Yet again, nothing could be further from the truth.

To understand why, it is necessary to examine how the "Torture Memos" of August 2002 came about, by looking at the events of November 13, 2001, when, under the cover of his regular weekly meeting with the President, Cheney played the leading role in circulating and gaining approval for a presidential order that authorized the President to seize "terror suspects" anywhere in the world and imprison them as "enemy combatants" without charge or trial, (or, if required, to try them in Military Commissions, which were empowered to accept secret evidence and evidence obtained through torture).

Approved within an hour by only two other figures in the White House -- associate counsel Bradford Berenson, and deputy staff secretary Stuart Bowen, whose objections that it had to be seen by other presidential advisors were only dropped after "rapid, urgent persuasion" that the President "was standing by to sign and that the order was too sensitive to delay" -- the order was the first move in a deliberate ploy to strip prisoners of rights, so that they could be interrogated as the administration saw fit.

This was confirmed the following day, when Cheney told the US Chamber of Commerce that terrorists do not "deserve to be treated as prisoners of war." It took him another ten weeks to persuade the President to agree with him, but in the meantime the pressure to approve the use of torture increased when, shortly after Guant?namo opened, a CIA delegation came to the White House to explain, as John Yoo described it, that they were "going to have some real difficulties getting actionable intelligence from detainees," if interrogators were obliged to confine themselves to treatment permitted by the Geneva Conventions.

.............................................................

DTB

I cant even believe that you would go there.

:0corn

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

--and I can't believe you'd go here--
http://www.antiwar.com/worthington/?articleid=13952

Opinion from Andy Worthington is far from fact.

We been thru the torture before--and as I told you I'd MUCH rather be waterboarded than submitted to rap music for 24 hours. Seriously!

 

[THE KOD]

you cant explain anything you just want to say its not facts.

well thats easy.

anything you say about Obama that is a lie

I can just say , its not fact and let it go like that

thats like pissing in the wind