Someone, Please, Tell Dick Cheney To Shut The F*ck Up

In a statement released Tuesday, former Vice-Presidentn Cheney once again lambasts President Obama for doing his job in a manner differently than he would have done. In its entirety, Mr. Cheney said,

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.


“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

Since the incident of Christmas Day, I have heard various right-wing pundits and politicians state that the perpetrator absolutely must be made to tell all that he knows about Al Qaeda; its locations, future plans, plots, and American targets. What they are refusing to say in so many words, is that this man must be tortured to release information that he obviously must have.

What is equally obvious to others - as by all reports, the individual arrested after the incident has freely claimed responsibility and given up all kinds of information - this young man is a disaffected, isolated, and angry young man who is unlikely to be in possession of any information useful to government intelligence services. Al Qaeda may not be very successful, but so far, they have not shown themselves to be stupid.

Mr. Cheney, however, forgets--as usual--that Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" was arrested, read his Miranda rights, tried in federal court, and is currently being held in a federal prison. Mr. Cheney seems to forget that it was the Bush Administration that released a number of Guantanamo detainees who then returned home and later engaged in terrorist activities (not that I am suggesting that we should keep Guantanamo open). Mr. Cheney forgets that it is his own Defense Department that has said that it is Guantanamo and "enhanced interrogation" techniques that have made us less safe from terrorists by creating terrorists. And finally, Mr. Cheney forgets that a majority of Americans replaced Congress with Democrats because they reject the social philosophy of the Republican Party, the practices of the Bush Administration, the exorbitant deficit that Bush created by starting two unnecessary wars,  a desire for reform on Wall Street, health care, and other social programs. America did not just vote for a Democratic president. We voted for a Democratic Congress.

Interesting how Mr. Cheney attempts to re-write history to make himself look good and is as usual, unable to accept even a scintilla of responsibility for any mistakes made during the previous eight years.

I wonder how long before we will have Liz inflicted on us? I would bet she will be on the Sunday talks if not before.

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George Will Tells Cheney He Should Have Dithered

I don't normally have much use for what George Will has to say, although his breaking ranks and saying that it was time to leave Afghanistan was much appreciated, but this morning on ABC's "This Week" he said: [emphasis added]

A bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction," Will said on ABC's "This Week. "For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action."

Unfortunately, regardless of the esteem in which he is normally held by the right-wing, George Will I am sure will now come under attack by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and the others in the right-wing hate machine.

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Cheney Rewrites History, Again

In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, Richard Clarke, national security coordinator and counterterrorism specialist under Presidents Clinton and G.W. Bush wrote in response to recent statements made by former Vice President Cheney.

Cheney has spoken of the necessity of going to war in Iraq, the need to use 'enhanced interrogation' techniques, and the need to develop a unique designation for 'enemy combatants' and separate facilities - Guantanamo, et. al., - in response to the horrors of 9/11. Cheney describes 9/11 as a defining moment and how the actions taken on 9/11 and after have kept America safe, going on to claim that only those actions kept us safe.

Richard Clarke has a somewhat different take. He states that:

“I believe this zeal stemmed in part from concerns about the 2004 presidential election. Many in the White House feared that their inaction prior to the attacks would be publicly detailed before the next vote -- which is why they resisted the 9/11 commission -- and that a second attack would eliminate any chance of a second Bush term. So they decided to leave no doubt that they had done everything imaginable.”

He also said, about Bush's core players, that,

“…when Bush's inner circle first really came to grips with the threat of terrorism, they did so in a state of shock -- a bad state in which to develop a coherent response. Fearful of new attacks, they authorized the most extreme measures available, without assessing whether they were really a good idea.“

He goes on to describe the scene at the White House on 9/11, and an attitude that developed then and that would continue:

“While the Pentagon was still burning, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld was in the White House suggesting an attack against Baghdad. Somehow the administration's leaders could not believe that al-Qaeda could have mounted such a devastating operation, so Iraqi involvement became the convenient explanation. Despite being told repeatedly that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, some, like Cheney, could not abandon the idea.”

Clarke lays out his argument against the need for the use of a Guantanamo, the 'enemy combatant' designations, or any of the extreme measures enacted under the Bush Administration.

“On detention, the Bush team leaped to the assumption that U.S. courts and prisons would not work. Before the terrorist attacks, the U.S. counterterrorism program of the 1990s had arrested al-Qaeda terrorists and others around the world and had a 100 percent conviction rate in the U.S. justice system. Yet the American system was abandoned, again as part of a pattern of immediately adopting the most extreme response available.”

Regarding the use of waterboarding and other 'enhanced interrogation' techniques, Clarke reports that:

“…there was the immediate and unwarranted assumption that extreme measures -- such as waterboarding one detainee 183 times -- would be the most effective.”

Clarke concluded by saying that:

"Yes, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice may have been surprised by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- but it was because they had not listened."

Dick Cheney was interviewed at the National Press Club on Monday. When asked about Richard Clarke's op-ed, he said:

"You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it. The fact is that we did what we felt we had to do, and if I had to do it all over again, I would do exactly the same thing."

When reminded of Clarke's stated warnings to the Bush Administration, Cheney then stated:

"That's not my recollection. But, I haven't read his book."

Maybe not. But you were aware of the briefings detailed in this article in TIME.

Everything is always somebody elses fault. Yet Dick Cheney is out on his speaking tour ranting at President Obama for making us less safe (even though no waterboarding has occurred in 5 years) and taking the credit for no attacks on American soil in 7 years (although the worst attack occurred under his watch). What a piece of work. Someone tell him to go away.

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Poor Dick, That Hole is Getting Deeper and Deeper

General Petraeus, the man the right has proclaimed the best hope for resolving the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the man that John McCain quoted extensively during his campaign, and the man that many Republicans are floating as a possible presidential candidate for 2012, was on Fox's Live Desk today. What he had to say will not please Dick Cheney. It isn't the first time he's come out against torture, but today he was a little firmer, and a little clearer.

General Petraus made it clear he supports President Obama's plan to close Guantanamo, agreeing that it "...has inflamed anti-US hostility." He added:

“When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those,” Gen. Petraeus said on Fox News Friday afternoon.

When asked about the disposition of the detainees currently being held at Guantanamo - a subject of much controversy and a massive NIMBY (not in my backyard) campaign, he said:

“I don’t think we should be afraid of our values we’re fighting for,” he added. “What we stand for and so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we’re doing on the battle field and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith I think in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.”

The interviewer asked him then if he was confident then that the detainees at Guantanamo would never go free, to which he replied:

"I certainly hope that's the case."

It was clear listening to General Petraeus that he is willing to take the risk, unlike the current and past administration, that like anyone else entering our judicial system, the detainees currently held at Guantanamo might be found not guilty and as a result, be required to be released.

Asked about the use of so-called enhanced interrogation during the previous administration, Petraeus said that, "...banning the more extreme techniques had taken away “a tool” employed by “our enemies” as a moral argument against the United States."

To continue the bad news for Dick Cheney, last night Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) spoke at the Foreign Policy Association. Senator Levin is Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee which recently released its 200-page bipartisan report of its 18-month investigation into Abu Ghraib. If you haven't yet read the report, it is very accessible, and damning.

In his speech last night, Levin responded specifically to Cheney's speech last week, stating that he had seen the memos Cheney had asked to be de-classified. The memos that would prove - according to Cheney - that what they did was right and necessary. The memos that would prove - according to Cheney - that what they did saved thousands of lives. Unfortunately (for Cheney), the memos show no such thing, says Senator Levin. In fact, Senator Levin said that Mr. Cheney lied.

Here's a clip from Countdown that shows clips from Senator Levin's speech.



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Halliburton Shareholders Sue Cheney and Other Principals

Hmmm. I wonder who will be at the top of the news cycle this weekend. It's been looking like Judge Sotomayor has move Dick Cheney out of top place, but thinks are percolating again, and this time, I'm not sure he wants the spotlight.

Let's see. There was the full-page ad in the New York Times on May 14, supposedly a "grassroots" effort that is looking more and more like the work of Lynn (Mrs.) Cheney.

TORTURE

Throughout the Entire World
The Word 'Torture' means Intense,
Lasting, Brutal Physical Agony

Why is the U.S. News Media Eagerly
Spreading An Incalculably Harmful Lie
That Can Only Motivate Terrorists To
Further Attacks On America?

A Grassroots Plea To
The U.S. News Media

Stop Misleading The World
That Our Country Condones Torture

* You now know as a result of the recent release of what you
choose to call "The Torture Memos" that these are the
14 interrogation techniques permitted by the United States:

* Sleep deprivation... Dietary manipulation... Abdominal
slaps... Facial slaps... Attention grasps... Facial holds...
Forced nudity... Water dousing... Stress positions not designed
to produce pain... Cramped confinement in a dark space...
Confinement with insects such as a caterpillar... Pushing
against a wall... Wall standing... Pouring water on a person's
face to induce the feeling of drowning (waterboarding).

* As you know, waterboarding has not been used for 5 years and
was used on only 3 detainees. Our own troops are subjected to
waterboarding as part of their training.

* By your continual use of the word 'Torture' to describe these
interrogation techniques you have been misleading the world that
the United States condone techniques of barbarous cruelty. The
consequences could be horrendous.

It's Time For The Truth

We are losing the goodwill of people across the
world and you are aiding al Qaida in recruiting
terrorists for future attack on America.

Torture Truth Project

A project of Accuracy in Media Inc., 4455 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008 / (202) 364-4401

Do I need to go line by line and explain the "inaccuracies" (lies)? Okay, I won't.

Then, the media blitz by daughter Liz, claiming that anyone who called Daddy Dick a torturer, was guilty of libel. (I'm still waiting for the lawsuits to be filed - I mean, if she's right, why haven't they filed suit?).

Now, it is becoming a little clearer why Dick is on his revisionist campaign. Remember Halliburton? KBR? Prior to becoming Vice President, Cheney was head of Halliburton. KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton. After the invasion of Iraq, Halliburton was given billions in contracts to re-build Iraq (no-bid contracts by the way). KBR is the company convicted of hiring unqualified electricians to do the wiring that resulted in the electrocutions of soldiers while they were taking showers. Despite being found guilty, KBR continues to operate in Iraq, water faucets in barracks are still "hot" (and I don't mean temperature), and recently, the shareholders of Halliburton are getting a teensy, tiny bit irate.

After having a few problems in Nigeria,

"Following a series of U.S. government investigations and lawsuits, Halliburton and KBR have paid more than $650 million in fines, penalties, and settlements — including the largest fine ever assessed by the U.S. Commerce Department and the largest settlement ever paid by U.S. companies for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

This past February, KBR pleaded guilty to bribing Nigerian officials and to violations of the FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act], while both KBR and Halliburton settled related civil suits with the Securities and Exchange Commission." KBR’s payment of some $579 million in criminal fines and penalties is believed to be the largest payment ever made by a U.S. company in settling an FCPA enforcement action.

[...]

"Former KBR Chairman Albert Stanley is serving seven years in prison for orchestrating the bribery scheme in Nigeria and receiving kickbacks. Other KBR employees pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks or attempting to defraud the U.S. government, as well as conspiracy and bribery, and several have served prison time."

"In 2006 KBR settled government contentions that it overcharged for services to peacekeeping troops in Kosovo and violated the U.S. False Claims Act by, among other things, double-billing and inflating prices of products and services."

So, a company with a long history of service to...well, it's officers? It's Board? continues to operate on government contracts. Did you notice that it was investigated for bookkeeping problems in Kosovo? And it still got contracts for Iraq? What a sweet deal. Once you get on the contractor list, apparently you're there for life.

The problem for Cheney? In a first, the Halliburton shareholders have taken action and filed suit against the company.

"In what is believed to be the first legal action brought by shareholders against oilfield services provider Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) and its one-time subsidiary KBR, Inc. (NYSE: KBR), a municipal pension fund has filed a lawsuit alleging that poor oversight and lack of internal controls at the two companies enabled a pervasive environment of misdeed and corruption, resulting in enforcement actions and substantial government penalties that have severely damaged investors’ holdings."

[...]

"Shareholders accuse Halliburton’s board of directors of breach of fiduciary duty in failing to rein in years of shoddy business practices and criminal activity that resulted in massive fines, penalties and settlements paid to the federal government."

"Named as defendants are 32 former and current directors of Halliburton and KBR — the majority of the companies’ two boards — including ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, and Robert Crandall, past president and chairman of American Airlines." [emphasis added]

"The complaint states, “As fiduciaries … the Halliburton defendants were required to exercise prudent supervision over the management, policies, practices, controls, and financial and corporate affairs of Halliburton and KBR, which Halliburton controlled.” The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial and intend to seek damages."

The FBI never was able to catch Al Capone, one of the most notorious gangsters of his time. It was his finances that finally brought him down. I'm not suggesting that Dick Cheney cheated on his taxes, but he certainly cheated in his business dealings. Making sure that your ex-company in which you retain a substantial financial interest - blind trust or not - receives billions in government no-bid contracts is cheating in my book.

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CIA Inspector General's Report

An article published today discusses a (hopefully) soon to be declassified report done by the CIA's Inspector General John Helgerson who investigated the agency's use of torture. According to this article, former Vice President Cheney tried to interfere in the preparation of this report, completed in May of 2004, that implicates CIA employees in the deaths of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq and included the referral of criminal cases to the Justice Department. Cases referred for possible prosecution included misconduct, abuse, and homicide. The article references the book, "The Dark Side," by Jane Mayer, which details detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan and other information gained from the report which she states is "as thick as two Manhattan phone books" and was "sickening."

"The behavior it described, another knowledgeable source said, raised concerns not just about the detainees but also about the Americans who had inflicted the abuse, one of whom seemed to have become frighteningly dehumanized," Mayer wrote. "The source said, 'You couldn't read the documents without wondering, "Why didn't someone say, 'Stop!'""Mayer added that Cheney routinely "summoned" Inspector General Helgerson to meet with him privately about his investigation, launched in 2003, and soon thereafter the probe "was stopped in its tracks." Mayer characterized Cheney's interaction with Helgerson as highly unusual.

Mayer goes on to describe Cheney's actions as unusual, noting that the Inspector General is supposed to be independent and apolitical, but "...Cheney summoned the CIA Inspector General more than once to his office," going on to say that, "Cheney loomed over everything," a former CIA officer told Mayer. "The whole IG's office was completely politicized. They were working hand in glove with the White House."

This interference by Cheney, said Mayer, shows that, as early as 2004, "the Vice President's office was fully aware that there were allegations of serious wrongdoing in the [torture] Program."

"In addition to showing the inconclusive nature of the value of intelligence gleaned through torture, the report will likely show that Helgerson warned top CIA officials that the interrogation techniques administered to detainees "might violate some provisions of the International Convention Against Torture." A November 9, 2005, report published in The New York Times said Helgerson's report "raised concern about whether the use of the [torture] techniques could expose agency officers to legal liability."

Every day that Cheney gives a speech, that daughter Liz makes another appearance to support him, another official reports his or her side. Another memorandum is released. There is a belief by many, that it is this report, that when released, that will be the one that will result in criminal prosecutions. We'll see.

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Liz, Give it up. The Fantasy Isn't Wilkerson's.

Oh Liz. I thought we cleared this up already. As a previous under-Secretary of State, you certainly know how to dance the dance. You cannot continue saying that we don't have all the facts just because you don't like the ones that we do have. You refer us to the Washington Post (citing anonymous sources no less), and your father's statements which are clearly self-serving, but now your resort to defaming those who disagree? Old Dick is delusional. The documents and witness statements, OCL reports, Senate reports, Red Cross reports, and individual statements are just to numerous to be ignored. We have plenty of facts.

During the run-up to the war, we all heard about dear old dad's pressuring CIA for answers - answers that supported going to war with Iraq. We all know about the manufactured yellowcake memo, the aluminum tubes, the regular visits to CIA headquarters that were unprecedented by a VP. Now we know that not only did he visit, but that he had a reading room set up for him at CIA Headquarters. Remember the 23 mistakes in Powell's speech to the UN? Again, plenty of facts.

Last week you went on the Sunday talks and said that 'we just didn't know much about al Qaeda' prior to 9/11, ignoring the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 2 African embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing, and the Aug. 6, 2001 daily briefing after which Bush so famously stated, "okay, you've covered your ass"? More facts.

Yesterday, on This Week with George Stephanopolous, he asked you about reports this week about pressure to find links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Evidence that a prisoner of war, an aide to Saddam Hussein was tortured to prove that link and thus justify the invasion as detailed by General Powell's Chief of Staff Colonel Wilkerson. You say:

"I think it's important for us to have all the facts out. And the first and most important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program...it saved American lives. Now, the way this policy worked internally was once the policy was determined and decided, the CIA, you know, made the judgments about how each individual detainee would be treated. And the Vice President would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA." [emphasis added]

Stephanopolous asked you if there was pressure then from anyone in the Vice President's office and you added:

"...three people were waterboarded. The people that are claims to be waterboarded in these articles are not any of those people. And I think, frankly, you've also got to look at the source of some of these allegations, and one of the big sources is you know, Colonel Wilkerson..[who] gets coverage because of his association with Colonel Powell...and has made a cottage industry out of, you know, fantasies about the vice president since he left office."

Fantasy? Judgment? "The vice-president supported the program?" I believe it was a about 2 weeks after President Obama's inauguration when your father began his infamous media blitz. He broke with all tradition and began to attack the new president's policies and decisions when past practices have been for one administration to fade quietly away and not criticize for at least a couple of years after leaving office. What is remarkable, is that President Obama has been clear from day one that he does not want to prosecute torture regardless of public will, yet the more your father stamps his feet and demands the rightness of his cause, the more likely it is that at the very least a Truth Commission will be appointed if not a Special Prosecutor.

Your father has admitted that what we did is torture, that it was necessary, and that it was successful. Forget law and convention. Forget the advice of numerous experts in the military, intelligence, and psychological communities. Your father did not "support" this program. He created it. He demanded it. He went on tour to promote it. He exhibited extremely poor judgment to not only support it, but to continue to boast that it is still necessary, forgetting that it was used briefly and not at all during the last term of his administration.

It is your father who has exhibited poor judgment and fantasy. When he did not get the answers he wanted through normal, evidence-based means from detainees and prisoners of war, he created a program using methods that are illegal, immoral, and unnecessary. Methods that are designed to produce lies. Methods designed to produce fantasy. But, that's what he wanted, isn't it? A reason to go to war.

Evidence shows that our use of torture has improved the recruitment of al Qaeda, that detainees released from Guantanamo by the Bush Administration who were not terrorists when detained, returned to their homes and became terrorists. A direct response to their treatment in a program created by your father. It was on your father's watch that the worst terrorist attack on American soil occurred.

Fantasy? Colonel Wilkerson defended his boss and himself and his country. Your father? Not so much.

Read more about Liz Cheney's interview here

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