"The CIA guys said, ‘We’re going to have some real difficulties getting actionable intelligence from detainees’" if interrogators confined themselves to humane techniques allowed by the Geneva Conventions.
Dick Cheney and his band of whatever·neoconservatives·are had a belief – a belief many of us see as false. They believed that America won the ‘Cold War.’ Actually, they thought something more than that. They believed that Ronald Reagan [and something called Reaganism] won the ‘Cold War’ by standing tough against the Russians – outspending them on the Military. It’s part of Wolfowitz’s old Defense Guidance [1992], revived as the Bush Doctrine [2002] – Strength Beyond Challenge. Most of the rest of us thought the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, World Communism, the Soviet Bloc all fell down because the U.S.S.R. was, at the core, a corrupt dictatorship – and falling down is what they do. We don’t question that The Arms Race and The Policy of Containment had something to do with what happened – but so did Rock and Roll and Conspicuous Consumerism. They envied what we had, and finally got around to getting it for themselves – it’s what people do.
Extending Democracy, Liberty, and Security to All Regions
"The only person in Washington who cares less about his public image than David Addington is Dick Cheney," said a former White House ally. "What both of them miss is that ….. in times of war, a prerequisite for success is people having confidence in their leadership. This is the great failure of the administration — a complete and total indifference to public opinion."
"Once he’s taken a position, I think that’s it," said James A. Baker III, who has shared a hunting tent with Cheney more than once and worked with him under three presidents.
| Principle | Success | Failure |
|
|
||
| Preemption |  |
 |
| Unilateralism | |
|
| Strength beyond challenge | |
|
| A policy of actively promoting American versions of democracy and freedom in all regions of the world. | |
|
This story we’re reading in the Washigton Post is a story about a Narcissistic [and very talented] man who has the political skill to parlay his own opinions into public policy – and he’s done that for six long years. Narcissistic people don’t believe in Democracy, they manipulate it. They believe in power. It takes power to get the masses moving down the right paths.
How do you turn a Narcissistic person into a Paranoid person? It’s a piece of cake. Osama Bin Laden did it in a morning. You confront him with the wrongness of his thoughts. In 2001, Dick Cheney was on top of his game. He wasn’t President, but he’d made it to the top. He could control the world from the background. Everyone knew Bush was a figurehead – everyone, even the people who voted for Bush that had good sense. Cheney had his Energy Conference – the big guys were in his corner. All that he needed was a reason to unseat Saddam Hussein, and he’d bring America the oil we needed to maintain our lifestyle and fill the coffers of the oil companies. He knew Iraq was his for the taking. He’d already done that once before. But 9/11 put a damper on all of that. So much for pre-emption. So much for unilaterality. So much for strength beyond challenge.
I expect Cheney really believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. In his mind, Hussein was the enemy. Bin Laden had to be being controlled and supported by Hussein. As Baker said, "Once he’s taken a position, I think that’s it." So, for five years, Cheney has spouted this delusion at any opportunity. He believed it. Paranoia’s like that – fixed false beliefs. The people he got to agree with him were in the Defense Department – Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith – the "likewise afflicted."
I would bet that what Cheney really wanted to get by torturing the prisoners is the same thing he wanted from the C.I.A. – confirmation the Iraq was behind everything. Hussein had pulled one on him, and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it. Cheney just knew he was right about that. Just like he just knew that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. So he tortured the prisoners [just like he tortured the C.I.A.] to get confirmation of what he knew was true – of what he still believes…
Am I right about this? Who the hell knows. It’s just what I think…
They talk about extending democracy, but all it takes is a simple look at the devastation they’ve created to our democracy and the wasteland of nothing that even remotely resembles democracy in Iraq you have to wonder. Power has corrupted absolutely in men who have only their own interests at heart. Democracy is not safe in such hands.
“Democracy is not safe in such hands.”
nor is it Democracy…
I just watched Countdown on MSNBC with Keith Olbermann tonight where he had pictures of Bush with the 50 Best and the Brightest kids in the country( 1 kid from every state was picked) they had a photo with Bush at the White House. The kids wrote a letter to Bush asking him to stop the torturing of people and to honor the Geneva Convention. Bush told them that the United States doesn’t torture people. Keith read the letter and then he applauded them on the air. It was a great moment. He called the kids his heroes and I do too. I thought we needed a good story about our country.
That also made it to ABC news (or was it NBC). I watched both last night.
In excerpts from the second installment of the series:
“The new Army field manual… said that interrogators were forbidden to employ a long list of techniques that had been used against suspected terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001 — including stripping, hooding, inflicting pain and forcing the performance of sex acts.
…
Australian …David Hicks… was beginning his sixth year at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay. …according to an affidavit…, Hicks was subjected to beatings, sodomy with a foreign object, sensory deprivation, disorienting drugs and prolonged shackling in painful positions.”
We’ve been doing these things since 9/11? No wonder America and Americans are so hated. Our leaders are disgraceful barbarians without conscience.
I believe that the people who are responsible for our methods of treatment to prisoners and say that we don’t torture should receive a sample of those methods we use, just to show the world that it’s not torture don’ t you?