Because you would have seen the speech Dick Cheney gave at AEI late this morning.
What an amazing speech - clearly defending the actions of his Administration and the dangers of Obama's.
The two speeches given today by the President and former VP are as close as we could hope for a debate between the two. How the mainstream media depicts each will be interesting to watch. Yes, you have reason to be pessimistic, but the mere fact Cheney has been given the opportunity to share his vision is nothing but a positive for those that want to keep America safe.
Now I just wonder how quickly we'll see a Draft Cheney for President group on facebook...
UPDATE: Check out Obama messing up the name of his own Defense Secretary. Sorta frightening.
a great article on the Obama and Cheney speechs:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/id/2218762/
Baaa. Baaaaa.
ReplyDeleteno?
ReplyDeleteok, how about this one?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090521/pl_mcclatchy/3237981
"Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative," Cheney said. "In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists."
ReplyDeleteOk, two points:
ReplyDelete1. you're clearly not reading these great articles that I'm suggesting for you. Your loss.
2. I cannot speak for anyone else but my indignation is neither contrived nor my moral concerns phony. Yes, we're talking about "methods" used on a few prisoners. But what this speaks to is a more profound and fundamental question:
Are we a nation of laws or not?
These interrogation techniques were against the law. The OLC memos that said they were ok were unconscionable, so much so that they were discredited and revoked by later Bush administration appointees. And that notwithstanding, no contrived notion of a "unitary executive" gives the President the power to unilaterally breach treaty provisions that were ratified by the Senate (in this case the Geneva Convention), or the ability to deny those under his power either substantive or procedural due process. (both of which were denied in these instances)
Laws exist for a reason. Once we start making exceptions for people we assume are terrorists, then what is to stop us from making exceptions for those we assume are just regular murderers are rapists, and then after that, people we assume are thieves, and the slippery slope gets steeper and steeper.
Do I personally care about KSM? Of course not. The man is clearly evil, and I hope he burns in hell for eternity. However, if we aren't a nation of laws, then what are we? Without the rule of law, American Liberty would be bull****, and American Freedom would be bull****, and we couldn't be anything close to the exceptional nation that we all aspire for the U.S. to be, what I believe Reagan referred to it as "the last best hope of man on earth."
I cannot bear the thought of an America without law. It goes against every ideal upon which this country was founded, and for which this country has struggled in toil and blood for nearly two and a half centuries.
It's why you might hear some more outrage from my corner of town, but Mr. Vice President, please don't presume to suggest that its feigned.
But it IS legal.
ReplyDeleteSee link to Holder's testimony and legal referencing.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjAwY2M0ZjljYjAzYzFiYzljZjNkNDY1YTE1YmVhMDU=
ok. I just read your post. It does NOT support the conclusion that these techniques are legal.
ReplyDeleteHolder doesn't say it's legal in his testimony. And if his justice department is saying that water boarding is legal, then it too is wrong.
(for the record, the reason its ok to waterboard navy seals in training, is because Seals subject themselves to it voluntarily! And they stop it anytime by quitting the program.)
Furthermore, the whole purpose of CIA waterboarding IS TO INDUCE SEVERE PAIN AND SUFFERING SO THAT prisoners are induced to talk. Pain isn't a by-product of the technique, it's the main point, without which the technique serves no purpose. Spanish inquisitors didn't use torture techniques to inflict pain, they did it to get people to recant heresy. But it was still torture!!
And even the NRO poster is not suggesting that waterboarding doesn't arise to torture in some instances.
Regardless, this only (rather weakly, I might suggest) argues my Geneva convention point. It says the nothing about violation of due process of law. (And don't even start with how foreigners are entitled to due process. The United States Supreme Court would beg to differ.)
This whole line of argument is a red hearring
I meant to write: "Don't even start on how foreigner's are NOT entitled to due process)"
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced you actually read the link.
ReplyDeleteJust finished reading it for the seventh time. I stand by my point
ReplyDelete