The good, the bad and the ugly...

With several SFS graduates in the family (0.00 / 0)

I have high regard for the State Department. It was the first Cabinet position established, hence Sec. Clinton is right behind Speaker Pelosi in the line of succession.

I watched the Whitehouse hearings in Judiciary yesterday. Huckleberry was the designated attack dog, and he definitely badgered one witness. Zelikow was seated next to a contrariness I don't think I had encountered to that depth, US v Lee not withstanding.

This expands on RBC's influence as vice president and what is the truth. Remember, only the State Department intelligence had Iraq correct, both on WMD and the population reaction to the initial invasiona nd occupation.

First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney's watch than on any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact.

Ashcroft's emphasis on pornography prosecutions, demoting Clarke to outside the working group, Rice's emphasis on Russia and Star Wars. They do not get to redefine time.

Second, the fact no attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11--much touted by Cheney--is due almost entirely to the nation's having deployed over 200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and not to "the Cheney method of interrogation."

Lawrence Wilkerson has had nothing but disdain for Richard Bruce Cheney and his "other priorities" during the Vietnam War. And I thought they told us that counterinsurgency and the surge worked.

Third--and here comes the blistering fact--when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

Stevewvu, pay attention.

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

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by: CA Berkeley WV @ Thu May 14, 2009 at 16:46:14 PM UTC

well (0.00 / 0)

i am paying atttention...

first paragraph--of course during a war in iraq fighting terrorist americans will be killed..but none here in the states

second paragraph---cant cherry pick the reasons no attack on us soil. the reason is multifaceted including EIT's

third paragraph---all that means is that we didnt need to utilized EIT's during the second term because we had got the info we needed during the and there was no need to use EIT during that term...BUT EIT's WERE AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES and that we didnt have to use them is a good thing and obama changing that will very well put America at risk...so there really is nothing to say about cheney endangering the nation...the evidence proves otherwise...

and berkeley that you have famly members who were at the state dept or in the military or guards at the vatican for that matter  is of no relevance to anything

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by: stevewvu @ Thu May 14, 2009 at 18:43:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

listen to you, EIT, a rose by any other name is TORTURE (0.00 / 0)

1. We were not fighting terrorists in Iraq. It was a war of choice. Let me repeat what Col. Wilkerson said, WHILE DICK WAS VP MORE AMERICANS WERE KILLED BY TERRORISTS THAN UNDER ANY OTHER ADMINISTRATION. The Electoral College met in December 2000, not on September 12, 2001. I got five good grades doesn't work for me as a parent when it's report card time. Does it for you?

2. TORTURE has increased the desire for personal revenge, and it is taken out with suicide bombers with a belt. They don't work on drones. TORTURE is not interrogation. THE ONLY REASON FOR TORTURE IS TORTURE.

3. TORTURE has been available throughout human history, that's no justification. Operating OUTSIDE THE LAW is not enhanced anything. Everything of value from al-Libi, undercover FBI agent Soufan learned before TORTURE. You will have to give up the lie sometime.

Pelosi and Goss and Graham and Rockefeller are all disputing the very fact you keep bringing up, that they were told about TORTURE. And Cheney was so hell bent making the Saddam-9/11 connection that after the CIA backed off, DICK BROUGHT IN CONTRACT INTERROGATORS TO CONTINUE THE TORTURE. I blame him for every American GI's death after the fall of Baghdad.

The family background of former and current State Department employees was admitting to my own bias. The barnacle is suffering from power withdrawal.

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

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by: CA Berkeley WV @ Thu May 14, 2009 at 22:15:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Soufan interrogated Zubaydah, my bad (0.00 / 0)

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

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by: CA Berkeley WV @ Thu May 14, 2009 at 23:36:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

MTR is NOT an act of God! (0.00 / 0)

I can see many parallels between the practice of MTR mining with wiretapping and torture and engaging in an illegal war in Iraq.  They are all NOT an act of God, they are all against the law of the land, and they are all reprehensible.  In order for our civilization to improve and thrive we must not continue to do the things that we have deemed uncivilized, when are we gonna get serious about our past so we can hope to have a future?

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by: JBdem4usa @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 12:27:05 PM UTC