Among the ways Dick Cheney defended "enhanced interrogation" on Meet the Press today was by saying that it's categorically impossible to imagine our enemies doing what we did, as the Free Beacon reports:
While being interviewed by Chuck Todd Sunday, former Vice President Dick Cheney fervently defended the CIA's enhanced interrogation program, particularly waterboarding.
"So if an American citizen is waterboarded by ISIS, are we going to try and prosecute them for war crimes?" Todd asked.
Cheney responded bluntly, "he is not going to be waterboarded, he is going to have his head cut off. It's not a close call."
Todd put forward another scenario in which the Iranian regime captured an American and planned on waterboarding him, to which Cheney responded swiftly.
"Chuck, you are trying to come up with hypotheticals, but waterboarding, they way we did it was in fact not torture, Cheney said. "When you dealing with terrorists the likes of Al Qaeda or the likes of ISIS, I haven't seen them waterboard anybody. What they do is cut their heads off and what they did to three thousand Americans on 9/11, that was brutal bloody murder. It absolutely can't be compared with what we did in the enhanced interrogation program."
Is Cheney right? Well, I saw this a few days ago:
EXCLUSIVE: There are reports ISIS is now planning to use methods described in #TortureReport & tape it, UN Rapporteur Ben Emmerson tells me.
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) December 11, 2014I have no idea if this is true. But what if it happens? What if ISIS waterboards or rectally feeds a U.S. hostage -- and then just holds on to the hostage instead of killing him, the way we have?
Oh, but it wouldn't matter -- if ISIS tortures a U.S. or other Western hostage following the script of the Senate report, right-wingers and centrists, including those in the mainstream media, will agree that Dianne Feinstein and the other Intelligence Committee Democrats deserve 100% of the blame, for telling the world that we did this (as if the world didn't already know the truth, at least in broad outline). The Americans who actually did the torturing and who ordered it will avoid all blame. And no one will remember this Cheney clip.
And if the waterboarder or rectal feeder is somehow captured alive by Americans, the right will say that he should go to Gitmo and be waterboarded -- the virtuous, humane, appropriate response to the non-torture act of waterboarding.
9 comments:
I refused to watch that evil monster being interviewed by UpChuck "Milquetoast" Toad.
We Americans are "exceptional," and so, by definition, if anyone else does the same things, by virtue of them being non-exceptional, they are guilty of torture.
When we do it, it's just Enhanced Interrogation.
Wholesome, and as American as apple pie - shoved up past your sphincter; ala mode to follow.
Hey Dick! Whatever you think of us is totally irrelevant. We are the future, you are the past, pay you dues and get out of the way, because we’re not the way you used to be, when you were very young. Worthless fucking animal.
Cheney is certifiably insane. It's almost sad to watch if you didn't know what a monster he is.
Are you suggesting some sort of moral equivalence between ISIS and the US?
How about the cops and the kidnapper in Sydney?
If the cops use force to take him down it is NOT a crime. If he uses force against them YOU BET it is.
Why yes, racist asshole, there is a moral equivilance between the US and IS. You are no different than they.
Any time you'd care to step outside.
"When you dealing with terrorists the likes of Al Qaeda or the likes of ISIS, I haven't seen them waterboard anybody. What they do is cut their heads off
I believe that reports showed that ISIS tortured and waterboarded James Foley and THEN cut his head off.
Dick Cheney is not only the world's most vile, soul-less monster, he's also factually wrong.
It's such bullshit, by the way, in that the ISIS villains use torture all the time, for the good old fashioned purpose of extracting confessions. Then they behead them to frighten us, because they're terrorists as well. But then so are the shock-and-awe invaders of Iraq.
Well, Cheney is just lying, which is to be expected. There have been lots of reports from Syria that ISIS applied the same forms of torture as the U.S. to their prisoners, especially U.S. and U.K. prisoners. The forms of torture we used have been well known for years. Waterboarding, of course, but also the "stress positions," which used to be known as strappado and bastinado since the days os the Spanish Inquisition. They have tortured a lot more than they hve beheaded. As repugnant as Cheney is, I have to admire his skill as a sophist. Same as a used car salesman.
@Roger. Interesting you raise the Saleman angle with Cheney. I was told that salesmen are the easiest people to fall for a scam because they're quite ready to beleive things without critical thinking. It seems to be good at sales it's best to believe in your product, no matter how cr@p it is. And so it would appear to be with our snarling friend..
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