WaPo Blasts Cheney for promoting torture

[LiberalEsto]

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the paper today. They sense Cheney is vulnerable now and have rallied to attack him. This editorial is long overdue but very welcome. The man is a monster.


Lead editorial in today's Washington Post:

"Vice President for Torture"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501388.html

"As for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered as the vice president who campaigned for torture."

[reality based]

1. A little late aren't they?

I refuse to celebrate cowardice or opportunism.

[politicaholic]

29. I agree, a zero hour tip of the hat on a known issue is spineless...

I knew about the torture, secret international prisons, and Geneva Convention violations since 2002 and I'm just some powerless dipshit sitting here in Seattle.

The Washington Post is a good rag, but this limp-wristed pseudo-outrage without a real story or doing the journalistic leg work to expose it is truly pathetic.

[Voltaire99]

38. Well said.

The worm has turned.

And now the worms are turning, too.

[zonkra]

40. Yeah--

The Washington Whore Post noticing Dick is a dick is like Courtney Love noticing that Kate Moss is on drugs. Is it possible for an entire media enterprise to remain in a comatose state for five years? Were they also comatose during Iran/Contra, which would mean they've been comatose for two DECADES? Everybody else knows Snarl made Smirk what he is today. Wake up, WaHoePo!

[HereSince1628]

2. Lucky him, he gets to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life

He'll never know when another country will make an indictment, or some whacked out family member of a torture victim pursues revenge.

I bet he'll be the only guy out pheasant hunting with 2 bus loads of body guards.

[LiberalEsto]

3. He'll have Secret Service protection for life

and all that money from Helliburton. Why would he worry?
I don't believe in Hell, but sometimes I wish there was one, exclusively for Ch*ney.

[grumpy old fart]

4. OMG, is WaPo growing a spine???

are they positioning to take over the disgraced NYT spot as the "paper of record", at least on the political front?

[LiberalEsto]

7. I don't think they've grown a spine

They've just gotten a bit bolder, like sharks that scent the blood of weakened prey in the water.

On the other hand, it's nice to see some of the MSM finally writing something critical, instead of doing stenography. I just hope they will develop the guts to keep it up.

[Stockholm]

8. Sacrifical lamb appointed? n/t

[depakid]

15. Well, there's certainly an opportunty

but we should all remember that the Post has fallen a lot further than the Times in terms of its credibility and willingness to ignore basic journalistic ethics and report false statements of fact.

One responsible editorial does not a rehabilitation make.

[pberq]

5. Better late than never

As late as this is, at least this shows that BushCo are not in complete control of the media.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501388.html

<snip>
His position is not just some abstract defense of presidential power. The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have "disappeared," like the victims of some dictatorships. The Justice Department and the White House are known to have approved harsh interrogation techniques for some of these people, including "waterboarding," or simulated drowning; mock execution; and the deliberate withholding of pain medication. CIA personnel have been implicated in the deaths during interrogation of at least four Afghan and Iraqi detainees. Official investigations have indicated that some aberrant practices by Army personnel in Iraq originated with the CIA. Yet no CIA personnel have been held accountable for this record, and there has never been a public report on the agency's performance.

[peacetalksforall]

6. They are just doing a cleansing thing - they'll be all gung ho again with

a new generataions if conservative evildoers and destroyers.

[KoKo]

9. Cheney must be on one of the Statin Drugs that has impaired his mind.

Brent Scowcroft said he's known Cheney for 30 years but doesn't know "This Cheney." Cheney has to be on one of the Statin Drugs and he should have been monitored. He's having side effects that are impairing his ability to think. Some of the Statins can cause some memory loss (reports of that have been cataloged in some studies) and that he keeps saying things like he never met John Edwards or that he doesn't know Joe Wilson are either lies or his memory has gone.

He has some serious problems with a personality change it seems. Not giving him an excuse here but it does seem that he should have been monitored more closely by the WH physicians for competency. I also wonder about the Chimp's "Meds," because as we all know he's been having incidents since he was "installed." :eyes:

[Blackthorn]

12. I have a feeling Bushs' "meds" go by the name of "Jack Daniels" n/t

[tinrobot]

13. Great... a drug addicted VP, an alchoholic POTUS

No wonder this administration has run amuck.

Somebody please hide the "football"

[Miss Chybil]

10. I hope there really is such a thing as karma. nt

[YDogg]

18. Me too.

[Arugula Latte]

11. Yes, Cheney is evil. But there is a word modifying his title. "VICE."

He's the frickin' VICE president. So,why isn't this editorial focused on the man who is ultimately responsible -- his boss. The Torture President.

[realisticphish]

45. no, no, no

Widdle old Georgie wouldn't do that! It's only mean old unka Dick!

[goodboy]

14. Since DICK is about to be indicted for treason, maybe we can accomodate

him in that way.

[centristo]

16. too little, too late

This should have been written two years ago. But I guess better late, than never.

(i'm all about the cliches today)

[LiberalEsto]

27. Better late than never

I don't want to see these monsters get away with this.

The problem with the issue of American government-sanctioned torture is that it is so enormous that people initially go through stages of denial before accepting that it exists, and becoming enraged.

This is certainly true in my case, and I'm somewhat of a hothead. I was shocked and horrified by the first set of photos from Abu Ghraib. So much so that I was petrified by it, unable to grasp what this information meant:

That my America, which had almost always been a source of pride and a beacon of hope and liberty, was permitting the same types of monstrous crimes against human beings that I had previously associated with Nazi Germany. Not by directly committing genocide, but by treating human life with depraved indifference and inflicting excruciating pain and abject humiliation on the helpless, who are held without accusation or trial.

I couldn't focus on the scope of it, or the evil of it. I kept hoping someone else would. Some international court, some group like Amnesty International, the media. Anybody else, so that I wouldn't have to be reminded that great evil is being done by my own country.

We need to come to a boiling point on this. I need to come to a boiling point on this. Torture is not acceptable in a civilized society. Torture is evil.

If America's government is permitting and encouraging torture, then it is evil and it must be stopped.

The question is, where do I go from here? Where do we as a nation go from here?

[wryter2000]

17. Yeah, and

...you guys will be known as the ones who let him get away with it for years. :mad:

[Ravenseye]

19. You know I'm sick of hearing about this

You want to indict these people on a law they've broken. ITS RIGHT THERE. These treaties we sign like the Geneva Conventions are LAW in this country. They have broken the law and bloodied our nation. They are criminals and should be procescuted.

How is this not at the forefront. They are breaking the law. Period. It's talked about openly. "Ah they chose to ignore the Geneva Conventions."

You can't CHOOSE to ignore a law. You can BREAK a law, or OBEY a law.

Which are they doing?

AAARRRRGHHH!!!!

[loudsue]

20. Notice how everyone is protecting George Bush.

Bush is EVERY BIT as guilty as Cheney in this, and Rumsfeld is right there with them. The thing is, the "Aspens" are all turning together, because they're connected at their roots.... and they've decided to whack the next-best-thing to the chimp in chief, at this stage.

People need to realize that the SAME press that put these guys in charge of the entire government, are the SAME press that are going to shoot the whole bunch in the foot.

The true and real problem is that this country desperately needs to get on a different track, altogether. The entire meme for world domination, and corporate ownership of governments, has to be addressed at the ROOTS, before we can ever hope to have a world that is going to support THE PEOPLE.

The revolution of the sixties, it turns out, was nothing more than a "fad", because no permanent reforms have held. We have two parties, whose members are all bought and paid for by corporate interests, controlling the government of the world's super power. None of them can become true LEADERS, because there is a media who can decide which way to spin anything they please...a media who IS the corporate ownership of the legislators, and who are supported (through advertising) by still MORE corporate interests.

THE PEOPLE are not properly educated on the true repercussions of what laws are being passed, and the outrageous mismanagement of our tax dollars, because there IS NO MEDIA that will truly take the time, and use their talents, to put across what the legislation and pork and corporate welfare does to our country and its citizens.

The bush government is being "shamed" now, by the press and certain powers of the intelligence agencies. But outing Cheney for being the monstrous freak that he is will not ultimately lead to the type of reforms -- PERMANENT reforms -- that the PEOPLE NEED. The Nazi, fascist meme needs to be destroyed once and for all. But, it won't be. I'm glad Cheney is being outed, but it's still a "game" being played by the powers that be. The monied powers still control our destinies and futures. The same monied powers that have destroyed our environment, and the lives of millions around the globe.

It's time that WE, THE PEOPLE started being "connected at our roots", like the Aspen groves. And we need to take power back from the corporations, and deny them personhood, and deny them greater rights than people have.

:kick::kick::kick:

[glitch]

23. I just hope Cheney fights back and they take each other out of the "game"

which is all this is to them.

I agree with everything you just said, perfectly.

We may represent pawns in a game to them but they represent the cancer on our planet to us. We need bush/cheney to take each other down so thoroughly that the corporations they represent don't recover.
Ever.

I hope our antibodies are waiting for their lowest point, and ready.

[oxbow]

26. Let them leave Bush in power

We've seen how incompetent he is without Rove micromanaging his presidency. With Cheney out of the picture, we'll see increasingly abberant behavior coming out of the WH. Maybe the fundies will finally turn on him when he withdraws Miers and appoints Laura to the SCOTUS. He's dead without his handlers.

[cassiepriam]

46. Yes. All alone, only a phone and a pad of blank paper.

All of his minders gone or too afraid to talk to him anymore. * will last about a week before he packs his bags and goes home to Crawford. Asks daddy to fix it all for him.

[ninkasi]

33. Exactly right, Loudsue

You say "It's time that WE, THE PEOPLE started being "connected at our roots", like the Aspen groves. And we need to take power back from the corporations, and deny them person-hood, and deny them greater rights than people have."

Until the issue of corporate person hood is addressed, and eliminated, we can make little progress. They pay the politicians, and the politicians are beholden to their corporate masters. Every single law should be examined with regard to who is benefitting...the people, or the corporations. As we know, every law passed, and every policy followed since Bush was foisted on us has been to benefit monied interests.

Your observation that we, the people, need to become connected at our roots, is central to regaining power now. Grassroots efforts, and reforms are desperately needed. Another issue which, in my opinion needs to be addressed is more clear separation of church and state. When the churches get into politics, then they lose their tax-free status.

The right wing takeover has resulted in this, that we are now a country who is openly insisting on the right to torture other human beings. Funny, but wasn't Saddam's brutality one of the many reasons given for our illegal invasion of Iraq? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice...they all belong behind bars, and out of politics forever.

[imouttahere]

41. You speak the truth, loudsue...

stay loud!

Only an FDR-style rescue will suffice to pull this country out of the abyss

Is their anyone out there with the cajones to take on that task? And the policies to go with it?

[IChing]

42. excellent points and my sentiments exactly-nice post loudsue n/t

[MADem]

47. For some reason, in the classroom that is this administration

Georgie gets treated like the special kid, who cannot keep up, who needs extra help, but who has been integrated into the class, so all of his classmates help him along, with his coloring, his kick ball, his craft projects. No one will stand up and say, hey, this asshole is the TEACHER, not the special needs kid.

It is just so absurd!!!

[katinmn]

21. Wow-that's hot!

I agree with other posters that Bush should have been included in their well-deserved "indictment."

I will always think of Junior as "The Torture President."

[Amonester]

24. "The Torture Disaster pResident" here. n/t

[Roland99]

22. 18 mos. after Abu Ghraib broke, the WaPo speaks up.

[IChing]

25. Come on, does this look like the face of a man that would

promote torture?



It reminds me of senator Palpatine,when his evil was destroying his body after the fight with
Mace Windu

[Gronk Groks]

28. They are sacrificing major pieces to protect the King...

...trouble is that Cheney is as mean a SOB as you can get. If he decides he doesn't want to be sacrificed you just KNOW he knows where all the skeletons are buried. Heck, he put most of them there himself.

If anybody has the dirt to bury shrub this is the guy...
...could we possibly turn him???

[DanCa]

30. Another member of the Gibson Cult of Torture outted

What do you expect from a man who proclaims his christianity at the same time denying his daughters civil rights and lying about meeting John Edwards at a "prayer breakfeast." Well if you ask me this crowd doesn't worship jesus but Mel Gibson.

[MrModerate]

31. Remember Spiro Agnew

Taking him out was the first clear sign that Nixon could fall, even though Agnew had nothing to do with Watergate.

It's gonna get lonely for Georgie standing up on that dais without his brigade of toadies. I don't think he can handle it. He'll break.

[Peace Patriot]

32. My first thought was, Hell HATH frozen over--WaPo is dissing torture.

It's a subject that touches me deeply, because I believe that, if there is anything worse than massively slaughtering innocents and massive thieving from the poor, it is deliberately degrading our common ethical agreements--bought at such pain and suffering over millenia-- destroying morale, hope, and our faith in justice, and spitting on those (military officers, for instance; honest police officers) who have sought courageously to uphold high standards.

In degrading ethics, and destroying hope, and spitting on justice, you kill the soul, not just the body.

Torture is something that other people do. Not us. That's our myth, anyway--our hope, our ideal (not to mention our law). America is where you get relief from torture; where torture is exposed; where the tortured people of the world can take refuge. "Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"!

Even if we are terribly imperfect; even if our government has sponsored torturers and trained death squads, they have had to sneak around to do it, using covert tactics and illegal funding, and they are always subject to exposure, because our COMMON AGREEMENT is that torture is unthinkable.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have spat upon our most cherished common agreements. They have degraded us. They have sullied us. They have assaulted our determination to be a good country, disheartened our best people and corrupted others.

The torture says it all. That we would deliberately, as a policy, permit a helpless person--a person in custody--to be tortured...

The mind reels. Some dank, medieval dungeon, is where they've taken us, where they keep that machine that stretches a human body until its limbs detach from their sockets...

So it was a bright morning, seeing the Washington Post, that fascist lapdog, even mentioning the torture policy, let alone raising an eyebrow at it, and pointing a finger.

I have to agree, though, that this article is without a doubt part of a strategy by the fascist elite to rebound from the exposure that this last remnant of democracy--the Grand Jury and its prosecutor--are subjecting it to. I'm quite certain now that the plan is to install a fresh face as VP, to replace Cheney, and Diebold that person into office in '08. I don't know if they'll get away with it. But that's the plan.

I thought we might have a 4 year interim, with a "selected" War Democrat, who might--because of a Democrats' need to pay at least lip service to good government, and, say, transparent elections--give us a window of opportunity to un-Diebold our election system. I still think we can do it, but it will have to be at the state/local level, not in Washington, if we have a Bush Cartel-selected/Diebolded Republican as president for four more years.

The fascist strategy of "selecting" a War Democrat--my thinking had gone--would be to shift some of the blame for the Bush regime's financial and foreign policy disasters onto the Democrat (with the forgetful lapdog press piling on, of course); to get a Draft (which Bush can't do); and to run the bread lines and put down the food riots, preparatory to installing Jeb (the real Nazi) in '12.

---------------------

Another dire thought: This article is protecting Rumsfeld, not Bush Jr. (I think Jr. is a basket case, for the most part, surrounded by deniability and fall guys (willing or forced); will probably not be named (one can always hope); will never see jail time--that just doesn't happen to Emperors of the World (i.e., US presidents)--and will be forced, if necessary, to relinquish power to the new VP and to...Rumsfeld, the one who lurks behind Treasongate like an unfunny Dr. Strangelove.

The torture policy is Rumsfeld's demonic spawn, more than anyone's--as is Treasongate itself. He is the one who is implementing the torture policy, among other things, by demoting and firing any honorable officers who support the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and rewarding toadies who don't care and who do his bidding. It is his sick, cold, psychotic culture of torture that infected Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

He is also the one who placed Judith Miller in Iraq, with a special "embed" contract to accompany the US troops "hunting" for the WMDs they all knew were not there. And he is the one who had the capability to plant those weapons there for Miller to "find" (in the WMD-planting theory of Treasongate, a plot that was foiled by the CIA, and that Treasongate sought to cover up--with a panicky, full court press by the regime, calling at least six reporters (journalist witnesses to treason) in one week, etc., to out Plame and Brewster-Jennings, and shut down all of its projects, putting all of its covert agents/contacts at great risk and perhaps intending to get them killed). (If any did get killed, the latter is a hanging offense.)

Rumsfeld. The lurker. The one who was so conspicuously (to my mind) AWOL during the hour, on 9/11, when the Air Force should have been defending the Pentagon and our nation's capital. The one who pulled NORAD decisions into his own hands three months before 9/11, and then was not available when those decisions had to be made. His name has barely been breathed in connection with Treasongate. You don't suppose HE is the VP-in-waiting, the ultimate "Aspen"?

God save us all.

-----------------------

Hope.

However slimey WaPo is, there are considerable signs that the real patriots in and near our government--the white hats, the good guys, the people who cherish things like the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law (not men)--loathe this criminal cabal with all their hearts and are determined to disempower them; and that a group of ordinary citizens in Washington DC, whom I heard were mostly black women, and at least one ferocious Irish prosecutor, Jesuit-educated, who believes that laws ought to apply equally to rich and poor, have the courage of Nathan Hale and Rosa Parks, and are hell-bent on recovering our democracy.

And I know--and I know it deeply, not just based on overwhelming evidence, but also on my feelings--that the majority of Americans, disempowered and disenfranchised as they are, long to be freed from this horrible government, and tried their damnedest to accomplish that, in 2004, and were foiled by crimes committed in the utterly non-transparent election system that Bush's Congress arranged for us (and that Democratic Party leaders were incomprehensibly silent about).

I know that the majority of Americans despise these criminals--and completely disagree with them on all issues (lots of solid evidence of this)--and desperately want their country back, but don't know how to do it--were severely demoralized by their apparent lack of success in 2004. And I know that the propaganda machine has succeeded with them in only one respect: convincing them that they are the minority.

We are not Nazi Germany. We are not Stalinist Russia. We are not yet a Banana Republic. We have a strong, sturdy democratic and progressive belief system, and history, and a celebrated and healthy diversity of people and cultures that give me hope that all that bad history will not repeat itself; that we will stop it in time, and maybe even become a better country because of it.

[flying_wahini]

49. wonderful post

agree with you on almost everything except I do believe there
will be a draft and Bush is just waiting until the "06 elections to make an announcement. Bush believes he will win because of his planned escalation in Syria and Iran. Rumsfeld wants a draft and so do the neo-cons. They can't push their agenda without fresh soldiers and a good cause.
That reason will be a domestic terrorist attack or a rupture
in the current quagmire in Iraq/Syria. All they have to do is what they are doing now........that is nothing or very little and the situation will unfold on it's own....
As far as his VP, whoever it is will have to be electable. Without an electable candidate the whole plan goes down the drain.
that's why I personally think it would be Condi. Black, female and tough. (not my opinion, but how they will market her....) plus she knows the ropes.
:-(
just MHO

[NoAmericanTaliban]

34. Condi as next VP?

Could be a plan to have Cheney resign & put Condi in his place as the next VP to give her a better chance at beating Hillary. Cheney is not going to run for office & what better way to help out Condi.

Maybe * will appoint Brownies old college roommate as the next secretary of state or promote the gardener:)

[emald]

35. torture should stop NOW

and these "leaders" of ours should be imprisoned for admonishing it's use. Better yet, lets waterboard the sob's. Chiney would be dead before a half hour is done. WTF have we become? Is the US really about torture? What about turn the other cheek? Despite our "christian" underpinnings we seem about as likely to turn the other cheek as osama been forgotten.
:grr: :grr: NO TORTURE IN MY NAME:grr: :grr: assholes.

[LiberalEsto]

48. My husband wants a bumper sticker saying:

Who Would Jesus Torture?

[ClusterFreak]

36. "...remembered as the Vice-President who campaigned for torture."

....yes, among other things.

[prescole]

37. What an asshole--makes me sick

The damage to our reputation across the world will be cemented by this brazen endorsement of torture. Words fail me--no, wait, "asshole" fits Dick just fine.

[Voltaire99]

39. Let us not forget the despicable Dershowitz, either

He of the "torture subpoena" idea.

Cheneyism does not stop with Cheney: liberals and former liberals have found it appealing, too.

[dwp6577]

43. I'm hopeful...

that these evil bastards will be removed from power (rendered powerless) and soon, but how long will it take for the USA to recover some respect from the rest of the world? At least another president or two before we're trusted IMO. It sucks being ashamed to be an american...

[Merrick]

44. Unfortunately for our troops what goes around...

comes around. Just ask any Red Army vet from WWII what being a POW without Geneva Accord protection is like.

[PurpleChez]

50. These people are filth.

As far as I'm concerned, when they die just get the janitor to dump the body by the road after dark.