The killing of Bin Laden brings an awareness of some of the changes brought about by 9/11 that we have lived with for almost ten years .They span from the minor, we now commonly refer to the USA as our “homeland” to the major and horrifying; we torture[d] people.
Not surprisingly Dick Cheney is still worried and wants his waterboard back.
"I'm still concerned that a lot of the techniques we used to keep the country safe for seven years have been taken off the table," Cheney said. "It's not clear to me today that we have an interrogation program that we could put a high-value terrorist through."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, never one to miss an opportunity to lobby for traveling the dark side* and suffering no moral qualms made an appearance on Fox News Sunday to support and promote torture or as he prefers “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
Obama’s NSA advisor says these methods are:
"not consistent with our values, not consistent and not necessary in terms of getting the kind of intelligence that we need."
However Cheney claims waterboarding and harsh methods of interrogating played a role in capturing Bin Laden two years since Obama banned the use of waterboarding and tens years after 9/11.
Asked whether the methods should be reinstated if the United States were to capture a new high-value target, Cheney replied: "I certainly would advocate it. I'd be a strong supporter of it."
The former Vice President still clings to his legal fig leaf and claim that waterboarding isn’t torture because, well I guess because he says it isn’t.
Cheney also dismissed the notion that waterboarding, or simulated drowning, amounted to torture, saying he and the rest of the Bush team had gone to great lengths to ensure what they did was legal.
*Cheney Sept. 16 2001 interviewed by NBC’s Tim Russert ,
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.
Such a big deal was made over the waterboarding of KSM. Such a big deal was made over the picture of a detainee being led by a dog collar. But hardly anyone is questioning the apparently illegal assassination of Osama.
First we hear Osama resisted. We hear there was a firefight. Then we hear Osama wasn’t armed, and nobody in the room was. Then we hear he was going for an AK-47. (Not sure why he wouldn’t have gone for it when he first heard the shooting.) Then we hear that only one person had been shooting downstairs and was quickly taken out — hardly a “firefight.” The rest of the time the hit team spent murdering people and grabbing computers?
The media gives Obama, once again, a free pass.
…Is what allows Dick Cheney to even suggest that it’s an option to consider.
And by tacit support I mean the fact that no-one has been prosecuted for years of clear, government-sanctioned violations of the Geneva Convention under Bush. More disturbingly, nothing substantially changed under Obama. While you can argue that Osama genuinely was an enemy combatant, and therefore could be killed on sight, Obama has been quite okay with the abhorrent notion of extra-judicial killings (viz. his explicit call for a hit on an American citizen abroad in the name of the war on terror).
He also seemed perfectly content with the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning — at least until the PR stench from the disgraceful conduct of his military started to get problematic.
Indeed, Obama’s continued enthusiasm for the blessings of the Patriot Act (outrageous executive powers, minimal oversight and accountability) and assorted questionable decisions in the realm of basic respect for human rights and the rule of law makes it quite hard to argue (although it should be quite easy) that it’s Cheney who is off his rocker when he argues in favor of waterboarding.
Yes, the GOP finally won the Civil War, after 150 years, but the Republican Leadership doesn’t want to wait that long to finally win WWII.
The strategy of the Republicans seems to be to adopt the tactics from the 1930s of the Germans and Japanese and to reverse the tactics of America from the same time period.
I’m almost surprised that Cheney hasn’t formally apologized to the Japanese officers we hung for solely having waterboarded American GIs.
Years ago (early 1990s) some New Age trance-channeler said something to the effect that the powers behind Germany in the 1930s were taking control of US politics to ‘bend the timeline’ and bring the world to where we would have been if Germany had won. At the time I scoffed at such a notion, but after the overt fascism of GWBush and the Obama-era attacks on America’s First World status just for the sake of attacking American values, I find that to be more believable.