Dick Cheney

Husband hits security guard
in face, as his wife makes off
with a package of diapers.

Dick the Slimy, Prince of Darkness and Secrecy, has embarked on a strange campaign to have more torture memos released. He has been appearing on as many talk shows as he can, arguing that the release of more memos would prove their enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) worked. I think he is running scared and is now flailing about for anything that might save him from arrest or worse. I believe you can even see it in his facial expressions these days. I also doubt very seriously that any memos will demonstrate that their torture “worked,” unless he has a different definition of worked. If they worked so well why was it necessary to waterboard one prisoner 183 times in one month? Does that mean that it only worked on time 183? Another prisoner was waterboarded some 90 or more times. I find this puzzling in the extreme. Part of the reason I find it puzzling is that at least one lawyer who worked for Condi Rice wrote a memo questioning the legal reasoning behind the torture memos. He was not only ignored, copies of his memo were gathered up and (presumably) destroyed. But they were obviously aware that waterboarding was considered torture and went ahead with it anyway. I guess they did not want any dissenting opinions about their disgusting behavior. Another thing I learned is that at least on one occasion the torturers sent a message saying they thought they already had all the information the prisoner could provide and did not want to continue the “enhanced interrogation.” They were instructed to continue. This suggests to me what I mentioned previously, I think there must have been a real element of sadism involved. Another thing that puzzles me about this has to do with the 183 instances of waterboarding in one month. This would indicate to me that the technique does not work as well as Dick the Slimy wants us to believe it did. It could, on the other hand, indicate that it is nowhere near as traumatic as it is said to be. But as waterboarding has been condemned as torture for an extremely long time, and as those who have undergone it say it is torture, and as we hanged Japanese for using it, I have to continue to believe that it is, indeed, torture. Perhaps the people who were performing it were just not very competent. And remember, waterboarding was only one of the tortures inflicted.

Cheney wants us to believe that these tortures “worked.” So what if they did work? Does that mean that torture, widely defined as a war crime, ceases to be a war crime because it “worked?” This would seem to be the age-old argument that the ends justify the means. But if the means is a war crime in the first place, how could it be used to justify anything? It should not have been used. Anyway, I’d like to see the memos that Cheney seems to think prove that it worked. So far he has offered no evidence of his claim, no example, no proof, nothing but unverified claims. Cheney’s insistence that more memos should be released so the public can see them is completely contradictory to all of his previous behavior. All his appearances allow him to attack Obama as being “soft” or making us more vulnerable to attack, and so on. Yet here again he offers no proof of these wild accusations, none at all. As he has been wrong virtually 100% of the time I don’t understand who it is that listens to him, or why they do so. The MSM certainly feature him every chance they get.

Obama has done just what I thought he would do, he’s left it up to the Attorney General to decide whether or not to investigate war criminals. I do not see how Holder can possibly not name an independent investigator, nor do I see how it will be possible for him to just let bygones be bygones. If there is an independent investigator, truly neutral, and if he and Holder stick closely to the laws of our country, this cannot then be seen as simply revenge or a partisan attack on those responsible for these atrocities. Let us all make certain that Holder is aware that we want some action, and soon.

LKBIQ:
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber

TILT:
Billy Eckstein was the first romantic black male singer in popular music.