Why not have the Vice President Deny that he Beats his Wife while he's at it?

[Tom Rinaldo]

When it reaches the point where the Vice President of the United States of America has to issue a public statement denying that he supports the use of torture, and then the President of the United States deems it necessary to underscore that denial with another denial of his own, the damage to America's standing in the world has taken hold. It really is that basic, and Karl Rove would be the first to admit it, if it weren't for the fact that Karl Rove never admits anything. Want to destroy an individual's reputation? It's not so hard. Rove does it all the time as a matter of fact. First come up with the nastiest, ugliest, most twisted rumor about someone, or tidbit of information twisted way out of context, you can possibly imagine. Then make sure to get some media outlet cover it, and then another, until it builds into a big enough distraction or problem that your target has to deny it in public:

"The vicious rumor that is now circulating, claiming that I had sexual relations with the Grandfather Clock in my Congressional Office, is an utter and complete fabrication, and below my dignity to comment on further, other than to point out that I don't even HAVE a Grandfather Clock in my Congressional Office", he said in a statement released today. Heh, heh, Gotcha.

Excuse us Mister Congressman, but the relevant question is DID you have a Grandfather Clock in your office at the time that this incident is alleged to have occurred, not do you have one there currently. Why was your answer so evasive in regards to the timing involved? Do you deny also that you had ANY clock in your Congressional Office during the period in question? Maybe one smaller than, and perhaps not as old as a Grandfather Clock? We are sorry to be so insistent Sir, but can you explain how such a serious allegation against you would come to light if there was nothing whatsoever regarding your personal behavior that could have raised suspicions along these lines? As you know, it is uncommon for a Congressman to be accused of engaging in sex with a Grandfather Clock, Sir. We will extend you the courtesy to explain your actions in this controversy tonight, on Larry King Live. We can fit you in right before the panel of distinguished experts who will join Larry for a lively and illuminating discussion on the fetish of timepiece erotica.

It works pretty much the same with a nation's reputation you know. There are certain accusations that one would rather not rise to the level of a Presidential denial. Until recently, until George W. Bush's Administration as a matter of fact, it was uncommon for the United States to be accused of condoning the torture on prisoners. How quickly we forget when it was US accusing the other guys of using torture, and THEM denying it. Guys like Saddam Hussein to be specific. So now we have both our Vice President and President officially reassuring the world that there is no truth to the allegations that they support the use of torture as a tool for interrogation. We might sometimes let a prisoner bob for apples, but use torture? Nope, absolutely not.

How do we expect the world to react to repeated denials by our President, Vice President, and Secretary of State, all their seemingly weekly proclamations that America doesn't use torture? What are the odds it will be like this:

"That's just great Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Madam Secretary. Thanks for clearing this Water Boarding thingie up so emphatically for all of us, because to the rest of the world out here, given those photos and stuff we saw of Americans torturing prisoners inside Iraq, and all those reports we heard about secret CIA detention centers, you had us a little worried there for a while. Can you imagine that we actually started believing America might torture people who you seize and detain? The United States of America? How silly of us. However now that you corrected our mistaken reaction to Vice President Cheney's "No Brainer" comment about using torture to save American lives, we promise not to even think about WATER BOARDING again. It's almost like we never even heard of WATER BOARDING. Consider WATER BOARDING forgotten. If any of our recently radicalized anti-American friends, neighbors, co-workers, religious and/or political leaders and/or loved ones bring up WATER BOARDING to explain how America tortures prisoners, we will explain that WATER BOARDING is un American. No doubt Americans can use water in creative ways, but we know WATER BOARDING is not one of them. Though a few more excitable people may still believe America uses WATER BOARDING to torture prisoners, hopefully they will hear your soothing clarification in time to cancel getting fitted for their suicide belts".

I suspect the actual world reaction to the Bush Administration's "how many torturers can dance on the head of a pin?" neocon theology is a tad less trusting than the one I hallucinated above. Though I have long known that the National Republican Party is incredibly adept at the art of Character Assassination, I admit to still being startled to see them so ruthlessly now assassinate the long standing character and international reputation of the nation whose government they so totally control; America, the country they supposedly "love" and want us to leave for them. I'm surprised because typically Republicans restrict their character assassination to out of favor foreign heads of State and people who they view as threats to their own domestic hold on power.

To quasi quote the G.O.P's hallowed Great Communicator; "There they go again". This time it's against James Webb, a distinguished Viet Nam War Hero who actually served with honor in Ronald Reagan's own Administration as Secretary of the Navy. No matter, James Webb is a G.O.P. enemy now, so the order went out to assassinate him. They thought they could give Webb enough words to hang himself. Six novels they figured ought to be enough. So what if the leading contender to head the Republican's 2008 effort to retain power, John McCain, is on record praising James Webb's fictional writing? This is about the 2006 Mid Term Elections. This is about keeping power now. Neither does it matter the acclaim James Webb has gotten for capturing hard truth with equally hard prose in his fictionalized accounts of War; a War in fact that Jim Webb personally saw and George Allen personally avoided. And now James Webb is looking at another war, a war which he sees devastating two nations in Iraq, their nation and our own, while George Allen sees the need to stay his cheerleading course.

So it comes to this again, Republicans twisting Webb's words on War into cut and paste pornography, forgetting that War itself is the real pornography. It is a war today, a malignant war left unattended by those who set it's course, that literally destroys the lives of America's Son's and Daughters. James Webb's words, his often stark depiction of a prior war and the chaos and degradation it rained down on those unfortunate enough to be caught in it's fury, those words destroy no one. Rather they wisely warn us of the true depravity that is War. Here is some of what critics said about James Webb's novel; "Fields of Fire":

Newsweek
"In swift flexible prose that does everything he asks of it....Webb gives us an extraordinary range of acutely observed people, not one a stereotype, and as many different ways of looking at that miserable war. . .Fields of Fire is a stunner. "

Time
"Webb's book has the unmistakable sound of truth acquired the hard way...."

James Webb used fiction to convey a deeper truth, now George Allen wants to obscure that truth by abusing that fiction. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a poison pen tells a mighty lie. Who in Virginia can trust George Allen now as he tries to pen Webb as a pornographer? Who in the world can trust George Bush now as he tries to claim America won't torture? Virginia, our Nation, and yes the world, have seen enough Republican lies, distortions, cover ups and hypocrisy to last a life time. And that was just in the last three weeks.

[flordehinojos]

1. ...

thank you for your brilliant piece.
:toast: :applause: :patriot:

[kentjay]

2. let me respond to torture in this way:

first it doesn`t work in getting info,everybody does it,pick a country,geneva doesn`t help,countries are going to torture no matter what.the problem is going to war in the first place,one should have just cause for doing just that,not deceiving,lying,falsehoods,make-ups.now once a country goes to war,there are no rules,from concord to lexington to ww2,to vietnam to this nutcase war today.torture is done, will be done as long as humans settle their problems in said ways,war.now during my 3 years in vietnam i had seen many instances of either torture or questionable tactics.if one is in a war one does not stop to think about the geneva convention,one is more concerned with staying alive,that basically is the objective in a nutshell.now example:taking a sniper team up the delta we stopped at a village that had been infiltrated by vc,the leader of the village a known vc sympathizer refuse to talk and it was evident that vc had just been in the village.one team member pull out his .45 and threatened the village leader,still he refused to talked,he was promptly knee capped,his knee cap blown off,the team leader pointed his weapon at the other knee cap and the vc began talking,so much so that the sniper team uncovered tunnels weapons,plans,etc.now morally is this justified,no,practically yes.i`m no suppored of any rethugs nor the cheneys,nor this war or any war,except maybe if we are attacked,such as the wtc,but in that case we failed to nab the culprit that did that.basically all this administration did was weaken a country,the usa.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. The cliche is True. War is Hell, but there is a however...

People do things while fighting in a war that they never, in three life times, would otherwise remotely consider let alone actually do. But even in the heat of war, different societies that field Armies in War adhere to different basic standards of acceptable behavior. Some will openly establish Rape Camps, some will not. Some will go out of their way to intentionally create terror in the civilian population, some will not. Some will literally decimate their enemy, and yes decimate has a literal meaning drawn from warfare; to kill every tenth person, cold methodical random executions sometimes conducted in order to, you guessed it, extract information.

So no, I do not accept that all peoples act the same in war, that all soldiers, regardless of the society they come from, will routinely behave like Storm Troopers or Al Quada fanatics in going about their business. There is a reason why the phrase "in the heat of battle" carries such a powerful meaning, but what George Bush and Dick Cheney are discussing has nothing to do the flames of War, they are talking about government sanctioned routine techniques practiced on men and women who in many cases are only suspected of being "enemy combatants", practiced on men and women who are far from any field of battle, housed in Poland or Cuba. They are talking about applied government policy, detailed in cold methodical descriptions in classified government memorandum cleared in advance by the United States Department of Justice.

I had the privilege of hearing General Clark speak in New Hampshire last weekend. He spoke of many important things, but this part is relevant here. Wes Clark explained that the United States learned Water Boarding from the North Koreans during the Korean War. He told of a very famous incident from those days, which now lies mostly forgotten by history. An American officer who the North Koreans captured, I believe he was a Colonel, signed a detailed 30 page confession stating that the United States fully intended to use weapons of mass destruction, including deadly biological agents, to kill every man women and child on the Korean peninsular. His confession was taken to and debated at the United Nations, and it was obtained through torture. That torture wasn't conducted on the field of battle, it was done during prolonged interrogations, and the Colonel in question told them whatever they wanted to hear to make them stop.

Systematic, government sanctioned, routine application of torture doesn't achieve the objective of obtaining quality intelligence, it achieves the unintentional objective of lowering the American people in the eyes of the world to the level of the terrorists who are trying to kill Americans. Torture breeds terror, and terror breeds fear, and fear breeds anger, and anger breeds enemies. As General Clark was very clear to point out, we are engaged in a war of ideas right now, that is what really lies behind "the War on Terror", and giving up the values that define us as a people disarms us of the most potent weapons we have to fight and win that war.

[tblue]

3. Darth did admit that we waterboard but it's not torture, and now

he's now backpedaling, saying he never said that, or some such BS.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003327472_cheney28.html

So do we or don't we? (Of course we do.) And what kind of MONSTER could say this is not torture????

[H2O]

4. A dunk in the water

Hmmm....

What else could that mean in regards to getting information?

If the water were ice cold, you might get info even if interrogatee never got his head wet, but he would also have a bad case of hypothermia.

[Quantess]

12. I recall reading about what nazis did:

They would submerge their human subjects in icy water and carefully noted how long it would take, on average, for each subject to die.

[demokitty]

6. Kick. I would recommend but I don't have enough posts. n/t

[newyawker99]

9. Hi demokitty!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[StraightDope]

7. K & R...

One more to go!

[tblue37]

8. Well, where Lynne Cheney is concerned,

I could understand a little wife-beating. In fact, I might volunteer to help.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. Um, only if she is officially declared an enemy combatent first,,,

...under the current rules of acceptable use of torture. But since I oppose those, I would rather she were legally detained with full rights, then put on trial for crimes against humanity.

[Straight Shooter]

11. I would rather Felix Allen deny that he beat his wife.

Divorce records sealed. There's a thread on DU about this subject.

If Allen is throwing mud at Webb, it's because he's in it, himself, up to his eyeballs.

By the way, excellent post, TR. :thumbsup: