Monday's Installment of cheney

[illinoisprogressive]

Shortly after the first accused terrorists reached the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002, a delegation from CIA headquarters arrived in the Situation Room. The agency presented a delicate problem to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, a man with next to no experience on the subject. Vice President Cheney's lawyer, who had a great deal of experience, sat nearby. The meeting marked "the first time that the issue of interrogations comes up" among top-ranking White House officials, recalled John C. Yoo, who represented the Justice Department. "The CIA guys said, 'We're going to have some real difficulties getting actionable intelligence from detainees'" if interrogators confined themselves to humane techniques allowed by the Geneva Conventions.

From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials.

Enlarge Photo
The vice president's office pushed a policy of robust interrogation that made its way to the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, above, and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. More Cheney photos...

Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden "torture" and permitted use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" methods of questioning. They did not originate every idea to rewrite or reinterpret the law, but fresh accounts from participants show that they translated muscular theories, from Yoo and others, into the operational language of government.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. From the end of the article: 'His [Cheney] Great Virtue and His Weakness'

Fucked up way to end this article using apathy and oblique acceptance as a form of praise. :wtf:


If Cheney advocates a return to waterboarding, they said, they have not heard him say so. But his office has fought fiercely against an executive order or CIA directive that would make the technique illegal.

"That's just the vice president," said Gerson, Bush's longtime chief speechwriter, referring to Cheney's October remark that "a dunk in the water" for terrorists -- a radio interviewer's term -- is "a no-brainer for me."

Gerson added: "It's principled. He's deeply conscious that this is a dangerous world, and he wants this president and future presidents to be able to deal with that. He feels very strongly about these things, and it's his great virtue and his weakness."

"Principled" my fucking ass! :kick: :grr: :mad:

[magellan]

2. "PRINCIPLED"?

How's this, DICK. I accuse your daughter of a crime, haul her off without a trial and give her a little "dunk in the water" and do other things to her that you and your people call "enhanced interrogation techniques". Then several months or years later I say, "Oops, wrong Mary Cheney", and send her back home.

I'd be pushing up daisies, right?

[illinoisprogressive]

3. It is scary to think Cheney was really president and you wonder

what George would have been like if he picked a different vp. Would he have been a different president?
and how much power is in cheney's control?

[KT2000]

4. Don't forget that Cheney

was in charge of vetting the VP candidates and he picked himself.
pissypants didn't make the choice, Cheney did.

[Lasher]

5. The Bush league lapdog GOP Congress did nothing to control this evil.

They went on and on about the 2006 Torture Bill, then threw in language that says the unitary executive can do whatever they want.

I like the idea of defunding the office of the VP, and not just because Lord Vader thinks he's his own branch of government. The only thing the VP needs to do is serve as President of the Senate and be first in line if something happens to the President. Cheney has an office at the Senate. That's all he needs. No staff, no Air Force Two, no office of the VP, nada. He shouldn't even have a secretary because it's clear he's had way too much time on his hands.

It's hard to read through this WaPo article and not think of what a weak little man Junior really is.