The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

– Hermann Goering Dick Cheyney

no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things

We’re all gonna die if we don’t torture people. I do wish someone would tell him to Shut. The. Fuck. Up. What a demented wimp he is.

Thanks, BT.

Cheney still believes he can torture from the netherworld.

Be afraid – very, very afraid.

There seems to be a lot of discontent among Rs about Cheney talking constantly but no one has the courage to step up and tell him to shut up because he is hurting the party. Why are they still afraid of him and will any of them try to stop him?

Well, Truman was a left-wing liberal pantywaist Democrat, doncha know. Supporting the Bill of Rights, what a wuss…

The former vice president’s mental health was dislodged by the trauma of 911. He fed his mental illness with raw intelligence about terror that would drive anyone not experienced in processing this information mad. Finally, his medications for heart disease and implant rejection have likely distorted his brain chemistry.

In short, this is a person who should have been removed from a decision-making capacity a long time ago. He is someone who should not be given credence now.

What I find truly disturbing is not only does cheney say these insane things, but that there are vocal people, quite vocal, who agree with him.

And does he not realize that in a democracy, when the next administration comes along, you are no longer in charge? he is no longer a head of state. period.

notice my bold;

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

errr
they WEREN’T “terrorists”, YOU called them terrorists, and you DIDN’T “torture them to save lives”, you tortured them to get confessions for data you KNEW as a fact was false

cheney is in “leo strauss” mode;

Noble Lies (lies/secrecy as “virtue” – > 4,10,13)

Perpetual War (war as “virtue” -> 5, 6, 8, 13)

Fear of the masses and democracy (-> 4, 9)

Government by an elite (covert rule of “the wise” -> 1,10)

Instilling a sense of superiority in a nation (-> 8, 13)

Stability/Unity via FEAR of an external threat (->13)

Exploiting moral issues/religion’s hold on the people (->1,13)

National survival – supersedes the well-being of others (->2,5)

Contempt for dissenters (->10,13)

Those in power make the rules and call it justice (->1,13)

Combination of religion and nationalism (->7,13)

Fear – greatest ally of tyranny (->1,6,13

and he is doing it again, lying to us because that is what he does, therap does a great job tying it all together so please be sure to read that page, she concludes;

Hopefully, by now, you see how all of this interrelates, how fanatical and dangerous this group of disciples and conspirators is, how deceitful, machiavellian, and traitorous they are, and how tenaciously and deceptively they will fight – against any effort to unearth all the damage they have done to our nation.

dick cheney, a leo strauss graduate

I disagree. I would say most of the wingers secretly want him to keep pounding Obama and the Dems on the national security issue. It’s what kept them in power for eight years. They’re counting on draft-dodger Cheney to turn the Dems into the Mommy party again-weak on national security.

Why do you think they’re going after Nancy, too?

And if the Dems aren’t careful, it’s going to work.

Yeah: that line jumped out at me too. I was already physically ill from the speech so far before that part. It was completely awful. He really believes all that crap. It’s quite pathetic.

the next thing I find truly disturbing is that Obama is moving ahead on incarcerating people indefinitely, just as Bush/Cheney did. If I learn how to shoot a gun, that makes me dangerous. I cannot unlearn how to shoot it, so I pose a permanent danger to my neighbor and therefore must be imprisoned, even though I haven’t done anything but I could do it. This is the same argument Bush was pushing about Iran–they know how to create nuclear weapons.

Obama is morphing right before our very eyes.

“This seems to be lost on the former Vice President.”; no, it’s entirely consistent with his perspective of ‘Executive Privilege’.

You know, the Furher knows best.

Unleash Biden! Remember when he said to Andrea Mitchell (iirc) during last year’s campaign that no one paid any attention to Dick Cheney anymore, because he’s been consistently wrong about everything?

It makes me ill too. I couldn’t listen to it. Toxic.

As for Cheney, I don’t know if he believes “it” as content but he believes in what he is doing and has done as a tactic that produces results of keeping him in power. And keeping the American people in line. “keeping us safe” is keeping us in line and letting him do what he wants.

Froomkin said (paraphrasing), In an astonishing bit of political theater, cable networks cut straight from Pres. Obama’s speech to Cheney’s.

I can almost understand cable networks doing this. Please tell me the prime time networks didn’t.

Read the other day that some elected Rs in the Congress were very nervous about Cheney and would not go on the record with it. They felt that their party needed to look forward and that Cheney keeps their past in the news constantly. They all know how their party looks now and are trying to flee the Bush/Cheney cabal.

no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things

1) When after 9/11 has there ever been a ticking time bomb scenario?
2) When you torture people to prove a link between Saddam and Ossama you are not protecting Americans you are trying to justify an illegal war with a war crime? Thats like trying to put out a fire by throwing gas on it.
3) Cheney You! stopped looking for Ossama so why did you keep torturing people if you gave up looking for Ossama?
4) Just how many billions in Tribute did you give Pakistan knowing that their intelligence service created him ?
Sure the cover story for your embarrassing Tribute is that Pakistan was going to hunt Ossama for us and after 7,8 years Ossama is still free.
One wonders if Bush filtered Tribute to Ossama through Pakistanni Intelligence.

perris @ 9

He’s got the ”contempt for dissenters” down to an art. He was contemptuous throughout the speech, dishing it out left and right. As in the part about sparing ”terrorists from unpleasant things.”

Hay, Cheneykins, ever hear of George Washington? He was against torture. He’d be against you, too.

The obvious flaw in Cheney’s logic is that he thinks he could as VP tell who was innocent and who was a terrorist. If this were true, we would have no need for a court system at all. But it isn’t true. Cheney for all his pomposity and paranoia can’t distinguish the innocent from the guilty, and that is why we have a court system.

no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things

This isn’t about moral values. It is about the law, the law that Cheney broke repeatedly. If Cheney can’t see his own guilt, how can he see anyone else’s?

Harry Truman was right. What Cheney is espousing is the same old fascist claptrap straight out of the 1930s: leaders know better than the laws and so should not be bound by them.

Yeah, and the conversation is going to revolve around “who made their points best?” and let’s talk about style (if I hear Chris Matthews call Cheney avuncular one more time….) vs. the very real danger of Obama embracing war crimes and taking the country further down into Dante’s inferno.

Agree. It’s time for someone to go after him.

My husband watched the speeches on MSNBC. Said even Andrea Mitchell was critical of Cheney.

MSM response will be interesting (or not).

unfortunately, Mr. Cheney will be just fine in the next life. Once he goes down to the hot and toasty place, the bosses down there will want him on their team. He’ll be gainfully employed at his favorite activity, forever.

Unfortunately, Obama is proposing that we continue to detain those who continue to “pose a danger to the US”. And what about those we haven’t “captured” yet?

This kinda flies in the face of habeus corpus, doesn’t it?

Glennzilla is rather alarmed by the slippery slope that Obama is skating on.

I know that it would be easier to catch and jail criminals if we did not have a Bill of Rights in our Federal and State constitutions. But I thank God every day that it is there, that that Bill of Rights is a fundamental law. That is what distinguishes us from the totalitarian powers.

Nope its easy to jail people without the Bill of Rights but are they criminals is the question? Or just poor people the police don’t like African Americans, Hispanics are still over represented in our prisons and not one bank CEO has gone to jail yet despite loosing billions.

The Republican party is incredibly fractured these days. The Colin Powell wing of the party surely wishes Cheney would STFU. The Limbaugh wing surely worship Cheney.

But instead of hoping for the Republican party to self-destruct, I’m counting on Obama, and the Dems, to remain strong on the national security issue while respecting the letter, and spirit, of the law. Heh, that’s not asking much, is it?

Before I became physically ill (and still am) I was wondering how many already-debunked lies Cheney was spouting. I couldn’t count. It was a catalogue of every single lie he’s ever told. ALL the freaking talking points. All assembled into a mishmash that became nonsense.

How long before all this implodes, I was wondering. People don’t want to see this awful person anymore, do they? It was embarrassing: the classroom lecturn, the small room, the scattered applause.

Over at the Obamacon, he got lots of applause for ruling out torture.

At Cheneycon, torture is ok because innocent people are not sacrificed for terrorists’ rights.

At the beginning of Cheney’s speech I kept wondering when are people going to catch on. My first reaction was: ”YOU. YOU ignored the warnings. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. And your excuses are legion. There are no excuses.”

Cheney’s ratings going up according to CNN. Yeah, sure, now that he’s out on tour. Fuck me.

perris, thank you for this – the link (and subsequent links) was a great read.

Obama is morphing right before our very eyes.

That is the worst of all possibilities. Jack and Bobby experimented with playing mobsters, going along with the CIA’s adventures in Cuba. To their mortal, peril, they became enmeshed in a fetid web in which they did not belong.

Strauss was another University of Chicago Finest! Between Milton Friedman’s boys backing Pinochet in Chile and Strauss mentoring the NeoCons I wonder which Teacher has more students guilty of war crimes?
I wonder if any school outside the School for the America’s can beat the University of Chicago in War Crimes Alumni?

I’ll bet on Yale?

I hope I’m wrong. But the bloom is off the rose now what with the quite disappointing legal decisions IRT plame, wiretap case, etc.

I’ve never wished for a world disaster before but please let something happen to take the spot light off this Cheney Jerk. Where is Susan Boyle when you need her?

i’ve been off trying to find the en pointe remarks/rant of the reporter on msnbc after ‘the dick cheney’ speech and before ‘the lizard cheney’ clean-up act…..

that reporter/commentator was incredible.

i can’t find the clip anywhere. and i can’ tremember his name….i hate that, i know his name, it left my brain….lawrence something?

chuck todd was hosting and andrea mitchell was at the desk, and they let him go-ooooo, and he was pizzed. and he was right. and he said all of the things i wish i could say on national television about cheney, about the machinizations of what is happening….transcripts take 24 hours and don’t know if it will show up in the ’special reports’section of their transcript page tomorrow….if anyone finds it, post it, it was rare.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3719710/

can’t remember his name to look on youtube.

Quoeth St. Dominic the Torturer, speaking to the Catharite heretics, in justifying his order for their torture (an argument used subsequently to provide the legal and ethical rationalization of medieval torture by the Roman, French and Spanish inquisitions):

“For many years I have exhorted you in vain, with gentleness, preaching, praying, weeping. But according to the proverb of my country, ‘Where blessing can accompish nothing, blows may avail.’”

By this sophistry, any institution, no matter how democratic and just, is justified in torturing its opponents whenever the usual processes fail to convince them to behave in the desired manner. In other words, the rule of law should only go so far before it can be legitimately ignored.. always the argument of torturers. There’s nothing new here. Cheney’s arguments are at least a thousand years old.

They might beat UC Bush Father and Son certainly as the people in charge gave the order for war crimes.

Is it Lawrence O’Donnell?? My husband mentioned him too. I think that’s his name, not sure.

FOUND IT!!!!
should have known, TPM posted it on youtube….

watch this and feel better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7YuB6O1BAU

yep, thanks!

The You Tube is at TPM right now.

There are tons of yalies promoting the cause but I have not compiled their names. I just noticed that the Yale thing comes up quite a bit, fwiw.

We need more people in public life with the courage to say what O’Donnell did.

Really, when has Cheney ever been right about anything? Why are we subjected to his continued idiocy? He is hurting America.

to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things

People need to focus on these two words Cheney repeats: “captured terrorists”

But he consistently forgets two words when he speaks of “American values”: Due process

What will it take to indict?

And that POS Pat Buchanan had the nerve to say that O’Donnell’s reaction proves that Cheney’s speech worked??? SPIT.

Yes, thanks perris, for taking us to theraP’s post. very good. I notice a lot of similarities to Cult practices here. Jim Jones would tell the detainees the EITs were for their own good.

If terorism is defined as

Terrorism, the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear for bringing about political change. All terrorist acts involve violence or—equally important – the threat of violence.

Encarta
If Cheney is constantly evoking fear is he a terrorist?

I sure noticed the increased use of the word “terrorist” over “detainee”. These humans are not even soldiers, or citizens.

That’s another thing that grates on my last nerve: whenever Cheney claims these humans do not deserve what American citizens deserve. In one swoop, Charlie Manson and Jeffrey Dalmer and Ted Bundy are more deserving because they are American!!!

I’ll Take “Torture” with my coffee please!! /s

O’Donnell was so angry I think his blood pressure went up. That’s what we need – some good old fashioned anger and pounding the table (not Nancy’s, of course, that wouldn’t be polite).

It’s really just a fancied up argument of all abusers and dominators. You are not doing what I want you to do or don’t believe what I believe or you simply are not me and therefore I am doing this for your own good, to make you into me.

I control you. I need you to exist and to beat down in order to feel alive.

Total codependent sick behavior.

This seems to be lost on the former Vice President

I don’t think it’s lost on him; he just prefers plain vanilla fascism. The real question is why so many Democratic senators and congressmen seem tacitly to agree with him.

the use of the word “terrorist” by the regime portrayed in the somewhat prophetic movie “Brazil” comes to mind – anyone that upsets the ruling regime’s status quo in that film is called a ‘rrorist and is automatically sent to the secret police for torture, even the aircondition repair man who refuses to work for the aircon repair megacorp monopoly. Remember the scene when the heroine asks the hero, who was sitting in mortal fear of terrorists: “Have you ever actually met a terrorist before?”

One just never would’ve thought that Gilliam’s 1985 satirical dystopia would, by 2002, become the operative model for governance of the United States.

Can’t put the petals back on the rose. Too bad Obama hadn’t studied the Kennedy story more closely, in order to avoid the same fate.

you guys want to tie it all together then add

strauss + pnac + the koch industries

the koch industries read that oxdown, excellant stuff there too

I’d say the Republican party of Rush and Hannity is a cult. Yup.

Cheney’s speech ”worked” because it keeps a finished debate ”alive.”

It’s over. Cheney keeps it going.

Obama is fighting back. Keeping Cheney waiting was a stroke of genius. And Cheney was petty about it. Obama is President now. Cheney was NEVER even President. It’s amazing.

I CANNOT WAIT to see how this plays out when the general public becomes aware that EVERYHTING Cheney is saying is a lie.

Dick, Dick, Dick. Detained persons are alleged criminals or terrorists. Before you, the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, in open court and according to fair and reasonable rules, that the allegation was true. You substituted rule by fear, rule by whim, and threw away the rule of law that the Founding Fathers went to war over in order to make a part of the American political system.

Pity that your replacement is stepping exactly into your footprints. Sometimes elections do not have consequences.

I haven’t seen that one. I will check it out. thanks.

For some reason the jail scene from Trading Places is in my head (for comic relief). Eddie Murphy is bragging about how tough he is to two young kids. Then these two other really big bad tough guys decide they’ve heard enough. “Hey, when you came in here you were crying like a baby” “yeah!”

My point being that I bet We’re Number One! when it comes to creating big scary killers that could hurt us. How come our senators are not keeping us safe by improving rehabilitation and keeping the gangs from operating from inside prison????

IF Cheney makes some people mad we might start getting somewhere. I’m mad and physically ill.

He’s undermining a President who (whatever else you think) is having to clean up the mess that Cheney created. Obama has no good choices because of Cheney.

I am proud to report that I actually was able to cut through some major Fox BS during a family gathering when I mentioned PNAC and all the names I could remember that were listed on it. It’s quite the smoking gun when asserting that the war on Iraq was planned before 9/11.

thanks, twain! just barely beat ya…ha…

i posted it as a diary, absolutely a must watch…i still can’t believe it.
am watching it again. and again.

What is most dis-heartening to me is that everyone has focussed on waterboarding, insects, etc. when in reality all of the abuses at the prisons were part of the EIT program. The fact that when they got caught they hung out to dry a few low-level soldiers and whitewashed their IG report allowed them to focus the debate on a few selective EIT methods that are more amorphous in concept to many Americans than what the photos at the time showed was occurring. All of it was torture and all of it was part of a highly formalized interrogation program implemented by our government (not some rogues). They’ve been able to separate Abu G. and Bagrhrain (sp?) from the rest of the program of water-boarding and the like.

Another thing I forgot, til now.

Cheney’s speech was threatening. He was threatening Obama. He was threatening us. He was bullying anyone who dares to disagree with him. And he will continue until stopped. He told us so: ”it’s my duty to present the other side and defend our policies.”

Cheney (2009/05/21): ”A few bad apples” were responsible for abuses.

AGAIN!!!

Therefore, their mission is accomplished. Cheney is clever and I suspect that the Rs knew they were not going to win in 2008 and decided to make it almost impossible for Obama (or Clinton) to climb out of the muck. They are horrible people and willingly screw up the country for their own gain.

When Cheney is indicted he will claim that it is a political effort to shut him up.

Cheney (2009/05/21): ”A few bad apples” were responsible for abuses.

nice referance on that, we need to get that up on youtube and pronto

When Cheney is indicted he will claim that it is a political effort to shut him up.

you are far more optimistic then I

Jeebus. I couldn’t stomach listening to him but now I guess I should.

Yeah, it’s more important to defend “policies” than defend democracy and the constitution. !!!!!!!

I really want to continue the discussion but gtg. I’ll just add I really really really do not want to be a “good German”. I am pro EVERYBODY’s life. hurray for the human race. Hurray for our constitution. Hurray for my opportunity to say that.

peace.

Hitler was belligerent up to his final hours in the bunker as the Russian troops were approaching the outskirts of Berlin. Read Trevor-Roper’s The Last Days of Hitler.

dosido @ 59: you go girl!!!!!

70 comments in and no one has said it … Cheney is a Dick !

perris @ 66: the speech was full of retreads like that … including a reference to the report in the NYT today about recidivism (which I believe he had some hand in planting). That’s a play that goes back to Iraq & the Libby trial!!!!!

What’s Cheney going to say about the ”bad apples” appealing their sentences based on the torture memos. ”It’s Political?” HUH? Say What, FOOL?”

Talk to the hand, Dick.

Dick’s a REAL Dick.

It’s so much more obvious from up here, eh ? *g*

I know a REAL DICK when I see one.

Sanchez on CNN leading with Obama: ”every fibre of my being” we cannot lose ourselves to protect ourselves.

definitely worth checking out. “Brazil” is basically American under shrubco, without the slapstick funnyness – the militaristic bureaucracy, the crony capitalism, the wealthy but tasteless elite, the unaccountable security agencies, the well-intentioned petty tyrants, the ubiquitous fear of terrorism, and the use of torture as the ultimate right-wing panacea to all social problems.

I think the film was intended as a comment on Thatcherism run amok, a generation forward, but instead captured Bushism.

Sorry.. I tried to link the wiki page but as usual i cannot get links to work on FDL. Just search under wikipedia for the 1985 film Brazil.

all ya gotta do is ‘copy’ your link and ‘paste’ it in your comment box–i make sure it’s on its own ‘line’ so it doesn’t get mistakenly attached to text after it….

it’s not the fancy word-over-the-link way, but it’ll paste the link as a link.

copy and paste.

“And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.”

The countries that have been the victims of American-style terrorism and aggression will be very happy to apply this same logic to us.

Noam Chomsky:

Creating Terrorists

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information — the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified. By the same argument, when Nicaragua captured U.S. pilot Eugene Hasenfuss in 1986, after shooting down his plane delivering aid to U.S.-supported Contra forces, they should not have tried him, found him guilty, and then sent him back to the U.S., as they did. Instead, they should have applied the CIA torture paradigm to try to extract information about other terrorist atrocities being planned and implemented in Washington, no small matter for a tiny, impoverished country under terrorist attack by the global superpower.

By the same standards, if the Nicaraguans had been able to capture the chief terrorism coordinator, John Negroponte, then U.S. ambassador in Honduras (later appointed as the first Director of National Intelligence, essentially counterterrorism czar, without eliciting a murmur), they should have done the same. Cuba would have been justified in acting similarly, had the Castro government been able to lay hands on the Kennedy brothers. There is no need to bring up what their victims should have done to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and other leading terrorist commanders, whose exploits leave al-Qaeda in the dust, and who doubtless had ample information that could have prevented further “ticking bomb” attacks.

Such considerations never seem to arise in public discussion.

http://www.alternet.org/rights…..mmit_them/

Reader, I wondered if anyone else picked up on this. Hearing the word “libel” started it for me.

Yeah, not that we couldn’t spend some of the $500 Billion that goes to the Pentagon on social programs to help those desperately in need before they do something horrible: Schultz described Toribio as a transient who was kicked out of her mother’s home on May 7 because of the way she treated her son. A few days later she was kicked out of a friend’s house for the same reason, he said.

Toribio had no history of substance or alcohol abuse and only a traffic citation on her record.

“What makes this story especially sad was when asked the reason why she took Ty’s life, Tiffany said that she did not want him to grow up with no one caring about him the same way that she had grown up with no one caring about her,” Schultz said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..round_body

Showing compassion and empathy and offering a hand with child care, parenting classes, homeless shelters and support, you know “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”…that’s commie, socialist, fascist crapolla….reach down and grab those boot straps and give a good pull….that’s the American Way….and torture.

If Cheney and the Republicans really believed that the American people wanted to eviscerate the Constitution…then why didn’t he propose a Constitutional Amendment getting rid of“revising” Habeas Corpus, the 5th and 14th Amendments, etc. He knows damn well that if it was put up front before the American people they would say NO!

In fact, the Republicans can do this NOW! The could put up a Constitutional Amendment giving Presidents the right to wire-tap domestic and international insurgents, torture terror “suspects” and those that might have information regarding their acts, groups that form militia groups that state they are intent or motivated on overthrowing the government, etc.

And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

Yes, we need to stop them- Cheney and all fearmongering torturers

Has anyone told Cheney that the MOST VALUABLE INFORMATION OBTAINED BY “HIS” PRISONERS was obtained WITHOUT USING TORTURE? Someone ought to.

Dick Cheney is fearful and that’s what it is
Cowards and preemptive strikes are in the same business!

All of Dick Cheney’s speeches sound better in the original German. They sound so much more verschaerfte.

Why should Cheney shut up? He’s winning the debate easily. It helps that President Obama agrees with him.

It is pretty obvious Cheney just wanted to be another Mormon Billionaire like Simplot, Alberts, England, Pennys what have you. Like his Tea-Pot dome intermountain state he got involved with oil, and was a typical afluent 60’s draft dodger. If he couldn’t come away with as much power as say Orin Hatchet or, ( see senator from Nevada in Godfather II ) he could make it with those Texas (Energy) men. Just like that George Bush in the CIA, you know ol’ Jerry Fords buddy, he could hob-nob it up with Kissenger etc, and make his mark in the NWO with real gazillionaires. But, oh-oh why can’t we still find out how they decided to push the Master Reset Button that summer of 2001 at Dick’s little (Enronergy) meeting.