Obama gave more credence to his speech by scheduling his speech to offset Cheney's. All the business channels were on that shit. This motherfucker still wield a lot of power. The fact that he still strongly support his underlings and will stand up for them and what he believes makes the people in those services strongly support him and align with him. This is the kind of personality you want on your team when you need somebody to stand up with and for you.
Cheney No Backing Down.
- Thread starter kjxxxx
- Start date
Provided you believe or give a fuck about that bullshit the guy introducing Cheney said. Which I don't for either.
That bitch has never wore a uniform and had 5 deferments to military service. So he doesn't speak to anything but fear.
-VG
Yep. His legacy is all but shot in the history books. Ruined an entire nation. Actually 2 nations. Ours and Iraq. Just keep talking Chaney. Eventually he'll say something that speaks more specifically to how we got into Iraq. It's coming.
-VG
Wait till Obama finishes his first before you write them off. They will get credit for the foiled plot yesterday also. They will get credit for the good old days. The story is not done bro.
Cheney's Speech Ignored Some Inconvenient Truths
by Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
May 21, 2009
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/v-print/story/68643.html
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.
In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."
He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."
In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."
A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.
_ Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.
However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."
_ Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."
The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban.
There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan.
_ Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."
However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees."
_ Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.
He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.
The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida," Soufan said. Former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who in 2005 was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an internal fight to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies, joined Soufan in his criticism.
_ Cheney said that "the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence," but the Bush administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.
Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri, who's known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi, whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002. While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq's links with al Qaida, which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.
A state-run Libyan newspaper said Libi committed suicide recently in a Libyan jail.
_ Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.
"I've formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained," Cheney said. "Last week, that request was formally rejected."
However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.
_ Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.
A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.
In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005, that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri, from Macedonia in January 2004.
Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania.
In January 2007, the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Masri.
_ Cheney slammed Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and criticized his effort to persuade other countries to accept some of the detainees.
The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush's second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
"One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back," Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007, interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "So we need help in closing Guantanamo."
_ Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account "dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."
Cheney didn't explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida, a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.
The late Iraqi dictator's association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.
The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam's regime "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President (George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait."
A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad, at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no "direct operational link" with al Qaida.
The author is biased. The points the author is trying to make is clearly one against torturing and not an unbiased report. It is clear that the author is anti cheney and Bush. He did not prove cheney was wrong. He proved that Cheney gave the side of the argument that fits his case. Just like the other side gave the side of the argument that fits their case. The author is making the case against Cheney and the Bush administration, the war in Iraq and not about what Cheney was talking about.
Cheney's Speech Ignored Some Inconvenient Truths
by Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
May 21, 2009
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/v-print/story/68643.html
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.
In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."
He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."
In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."
A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.
_ Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.
However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."
_ Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."
The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban.
There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan.
_ Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."
However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees."
_ Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.
He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.
The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida," Soufan said. Former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who in 2005 was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an internal fight to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies, joined Soufan in his criticism.
_ Cheney said that "the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence," but the Bush administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.
Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri, who's known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi, whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002. While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq's links with al Qaida, which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.
A state-run Libyan newspaper said Libi committed suicide recently in a Libyan jail.
_ Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.
"I've formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained," Cheney said. "Last week, that request was formally rejected."
However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.
_ Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.
A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.
In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005, that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri, from Macedonia in January 2004.
Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania.
In January 2007, the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Masri.
_ Cheney slammed Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and criticized his effort to persuade other countries to accept some of the detainees.
The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush's second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
"One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back," Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007, interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "So we need help in closing Guantanamo."
_ Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account "dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."
Cheney didn't explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida, a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.
The late Iraqi dictator's association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.
The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam's regime "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President (George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait."
A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad, at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no "direct operational link" with al Qaida.
He's standing up for them because he knows that if they go down he's going down with them. If there was a way for him to distance himself and avoid punishment regardless of what happened to his underlings he would.
You're not admitting this is torture are you?
What is really disingenuous to me is that the only reason why you are saying it's not torture is because your party elected to keep this lie going to protect a criminal.
Because if this was ordered by Clinton and democrats was calling this an equivalent to standing in front of a fan sprinkler, you guys would launch 7 new right wing radio shows.
Have you been interrogated by waterboard yet?
-VG
Cheney is fighting for his ass to stay out of jail. Despite what the media projects, the public wants the events that led up to the Iraqi invasion investigate. Obama ran on it and that was one of the reason he got elected. Cheney has to plead his case on any media outlet he can find. It’s not like the republicans don’t control most of the main stream media so he doesn’t have too much trouble finding source. Cheney’s strategy is to try and poison the jury pool, so this why he is trying to counter any negative news that arises about him. Of course the inept democratically controlled congress and senate isn’t hurt Cheney.
Regardless on what Cheney says, 911, happened because of the Enron investigation. Buidling 7 was fell or "Pull" without being touched. No way should anyone believe that complex of steal graded building just fell.
It overted all the attention from the Cheney's Enron scandal to a war that empowered his regime and oil interest.
I believe they don't want these terrorist tried because they know how Cheney made alliances to fund or attack 911.
As you say Cheney is trying to save his ass from Jail or being tried as a criminal.
The Enron scandal is mere peanuts compared to the corporate bailouts now occurring.
This thread went from bad to delete status by the last two posts.
Smh at you thinking anyone is going to suffer because of enhanced interrogations. Btw cheneys speech was on point.
Smh at you thinking anyone is going to suffer because of enhanced interrogations. Btw cheneys speech was on point.
I know some boys that would kick the living shit out of you with a baseball bat. They'll beat you within an inch of your life and you'll bleed like a fountain but you won't die. We'll call it an enhanced skeletal realignment. Cheney can to a speech on that.
-VG
I know some boys that would kick the living shit out of you with a baseball bat. They'll beat you within an inch of your life and you'll bleed like a fountain but you won't die. We'll call it an enhanced skeletal realignment. Cheney can to a speech on that.
-VG
coming up with alternative words for things doesn't change the core meaning of intention.
yup. BTW atheist, gun toter. i would love to see them try.
this is a war right? i dont know about you have no interest in compromising with someone who wants me dead.
Wonder why most military authorities (and I don't know of one that disagrees) oppose these same torturous tactics ? ? ? One would think that they would really go for some good ole fun, right ???
QueEx
click link below for full story
Will the right wing attack Gen. Petraeus because he believes in closing Gitmo and hates torture too?
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<div class="clmedia-itemObject" id="clembed-8429992a5"><embed src="http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/players/player.swf?ver=4000" background="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="dp=2009/05&mid=8429&movieLength=936.275&mediatitle=Petraeus-Gitmo-close&nodelink=http://crooksandliars.com/node/28447&lup=1243373084&ar=0.75&image=http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/movieimages&sk=b656c&flvloader=http://crooksandliars.com/medialoader&base=http://&embed=http://embed.crooksandliars.com&logo=2&col1=C93033" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="400" height="341">
</div>
Will the right wing attack Gen. Petraeus because he believes in closing Gitmo and hates torture too?
<div class="content" style="clear: both;">
<div class="clmedia-wrapper">
<div class="clmedia-itemObject" id="clembed-8429992a5"><embed src="http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/players/player.swf?ver=4000" background="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="dp=2009/05&mid=8429&movieLength=936.275&mediatitle=Petraeus-Gitmo-close&nodelink=http://crooksandliars.com/node/28447&lup=1243373084&ar=0.75&image=http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/movieimages&sk=b656c&flvloader=http://crooksandliars.com/medialoader&base=http://&embed=http://embed.crooksandliars.com&logo=2&col1=C93033" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="400" height="341">
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Doesn't matter.
As the right wing loves to toss out every other statement, we are a nation of laws, not of men. And as you should know, absent the law is a nation of chaos.
Notice the state this nation is in today as a result of republican lawless behavior and criminal activity.
Then you have a nerve to get indignant when nations like North Korea test fires a nuke and launch a missile. "and they did it on Memorial day..."
So what you bunch of pansies.
What moral ground do we have to stand on as a nation when you got those torture memos and pictures from Abu Ghraib out there in our name? Perpetrated by those in the highest office doing the dirt. And I hear the pictures that the president decided not to release are show Iraqi children being stripped and some show children being raped in front their parents by United States soldiers to get information but those are [not yet substantiated] rumors.
I know we haven't talked about North Korea but I know how wingnuts think about shit. But I digress.
The bottom line is, you can be as pissed as you want to be. Nobody cares less than a fuck than I do.
But if you are an elected official and choose to perform illegal acts in my name we got to assume you are wiping your ass with the constitution, a document you swore to protect and defend, and you've decided to either leave the country which you clearly hate, or go to jail.
-VG
"Being on the wrong side of Dick Cheney
is to be on the right side of history"
- Senator Harry Reid, commenting on the "architects of the Iraq war
who are now so eager to offer their expert analysis, I say . . . thanks but no thanks."
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/...ing-on.html?sp=/99/104/244/112/#storylink=cpy
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qW6dWbbaylo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Colbare weighs in on the Iraq Pack:
<div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><iframe src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:arc:video:colbertnation.com:8edecbf0-031a-4169-9526-3c7788f561b9" width="512" height="288" frameborder="0"></iframe><p style="text-align:left;background-color:#FFFFFF;padding:4px;margin-top:4px;margin-bottom:0px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><b><a href="http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/">The Colbert Report</a></b><br/>Get More: <a href="http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/full-episodes">Colbert Report Full Episodes</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/thecolbertreport">The Colbert Report on Facebook</a>,<a href="http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos">Video Archive</a></p></div></div>
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