For the record. For history and posterity and future reference.
Transcript: Cheney Defends Hard Line Tactics In Exclusive Interview With ABC News
Dick Cheney openly admits authorizing the US torture policy, a torture policy that has lead to the deaths of “detainees.”
“”There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths,”” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU.
The Vice President of the United States has openly admitted to what any sane person, any sane world would call murder. On national (now planetary) television.
“I was aware of the program certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared”
All that is left now is the legal parsing. The only question left is will the American people and the world consent that Dick Cheney and George Bush….and now any American President….have the right to order torture that results in death. Is this murder? Or is it legal and legitimate for heads of state to snatch people off of the streets and torture them to death? Without trial.
With no “presumption of innocence.”
With no evidence except the secret evidence provided by the intelligence agencies which told us …wrongly… that Iraq had “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” That ….massively wrongly… led us to invade Iraq and kill tens of thousands of innocent people. On their word alone, and with no due process of law, The President can order death by torture. Of anyone, anywhere, at any time. With no recourse.
Who decides if this will be allowed, if this is now the reality of our new world.
For the answer, see below the fold.
As Turley says…………….WE do. And pragmatically, only we do. The politicians and lawyers will attempt to negotiate a new reality around this, in order to excuse it and to avoid “unpleasantness.” They will attempt to create a reality where this is ….normal. Will we let them?
I think we need to rethink the petition in light of this. I think we need to get very specific. And I think we need to find a way to up the ante, somehow….to make it bigger somehow. To make it unignorable, to force some sort of confrontation.
What do you think?
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this just got more serious. There is no longer a question of guilt.
with Cheney’s admission….he basically is daring us to do something. He is saying in effect what Nixon said…If I do it, it is legal. But he adds, by admitting it publicly, a spit in the eye and the challenge….
“what are you going to do about it?”
It is this public admission, this dare…. that raises the stakes.
He is literally trying to change reality, to change our world into somewhere where state sanctioned torture and murder is part of everyday life.
(huh….I should have put that in the essay! Still not on top of my game, lol.)
I don’t care if Pelosi & Reid are put on trial right next to BushCo. They all must be held to account.
to pursue both agendas
I am not sure that there is enough
it will already take more than we have just to move forward
I fear we will end up in congressional gridlock
yet there is no true way forward without justice
Notice how Cheney speaks of it all as “normal” in our needs. A kinda’ psychological undermining of what WE truly know to BE wrong is actually RIGHT! In fact, these are the kinds of psychological manipulations we have been subject to for the past eight years and more now! These are the kinds of manipulations that got us where we are now!
Think about it — because Cheney says something (with all the conviction of a psychopathic killer) — does what he says make it truly so? If Americans had been thinking right down the line, they would have seen (through the lines) these psychological manipulations.
And, it looks like, seems like, he’s pushing the same shit again right in front of our faces as he is on the way out. By now, everyone should be able to say to themselves, “this is truly the face of evil, who has no conscience or sense of wrongdoing even now.”
Curiously, in this last “hour” — Bush and Cheney are trying so hard to convince us ALL of the good that they have done for this country. They are ALL, ALL delusional! We MUST NOT fall prey to this thinking now or ever again. Caveat emptor!
I hope that Bob Fertik is not acquiescing in measure — none of us can acquiesce to that which we know is RIGHT!