I was half asleep, (and still a little drunk), when I first watched this Sunday's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer but even I didn't miss the lyrics for the music when Dick Cheney actually said, "(Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) did not cooperate fully in terms of interrogations until after waterboarding. Once we went through that process he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about al-Qaeda."
This was after Dick justified his refusal to abide by the common protocol of refraining from immediate public discourse after leaving office by accusing President Obama of upholding campaign promises: "They campaigned against these policies, across the country, and then they came in now and they have tried, very hard, to undertake actions that I just fundamentally disagree with."
And it was also after Dick inferred that it is only proper to have all the information concerning a controversial issue available to the public: "If we are gonna have this debate, it ought to be a complete debate, and those memos oughta be out there for people to look at, and journalists, like yourself, to evaluate in terms of what we were able to accomplish..."
(Seriously? Dick Cheney? "A complete debate"? Involving the media...and dissenters should have access to classified information? Seriously? The "Valerie Plame" Dick Cheney? The "fourth branch of government" Dick Cheney? That guy? The Dick Cheney that drafted a memo suggesting using the Justice Department in order to exact revenge on New York Times reporter, Seymour Hersh, because Hersh exposed the government's cover up of the My Lai Massacre? That Dick Cheney? Seriously?)
And it was right after Dick confirmed that KSM was captured in March of '03.
Immediately, (and ad nauseam all week), I screamed at my TV, "How much time was devoted to other interrogation techniques if KSM could be captured in March and still be waterboarded 183 times within the month of March?"
Mathematically Dick, how the hell is it possible to use other forms of interrogation and still start waterboarding right away? Or was "time travel" also a "legalized" "Enhanced Interrogation" tactic?
And did waterboarding lead KSM to give up "vast quantities of invaluable information about al-Qaeda" or did it prevent an imminent threat?
I apologize if my posts regarding "Enhanced Interrogations" are redundant, but this issue just keeps gnawing at me because every argument endorsing waterboarding can be ceded and the point that the Bush Administration's behavior was reprehensible and criminal can still be made apparent with a few, very simple, and obvious questions that nobody seems to be asking!
If waterboarding and "walling" and "Enhanced Interrogations" are a "means to an end" and SHOULD be used in "ticking time-bomb" situations, if KSM was waterboarded so ferociously because he did not corroborate what Abu Zubaydah revealed during waterboarding, isn't that proof that "Enhanced Interrogations" didn't work, weren't used to avert an imminent threat, and that the Bush Administration SHOULD be punished?
If "Enhanced Interrogations" are a "means to an end" and SHOULD be used in "ticking time-bomb" situations, if KSM was waterboarded in order to attain information that would justify the invasion of Iraq, isn't that proof that "Enhanced Interrogations" didn't work, weren't used to avert an imminent threat, and that the Bush Administration SHOULD be punished?
And if "Enhanced Interrogations" are a "means to an end" and SHOULD be used in "ticking time-bomb" situations, isn't the fact that there were more al-Qaeda attacks after "Enhanced Interrogations" were used than there were before, (e.g. Tunisia, Karachi, Yemen, Bali, Riyadh, Casablanca, Mombasa, Mumbai, Jakarta, Istanbul, Madrid, (and that's just between 4/02 and 3/04), proof that "Enhanced Interrogations" didn't work, didn't avert an imminent threat, and that the Bush Administration merely created more "terror" and made the world less safe?
In all fairness to Bob Schieffer, it may simply be that Dick speaks and hears a language other than our popularly accepted version of English.
When explaining that he has formally requested that memos be declassified Dick said, "I started that process, as I say, 6 weeks ago – I haven't heard anything from it yet..."
Bob Schieffer then interjected: "They haven't responded to you as yet?"
And Dick responded: "No. That's right. Up 'til now I've got a letter of notification saying they've started the process..."
To most of us fluent in communicating via English, a "letter of notification" constitutes a "response," but apparently not in Dick's head because if so, Dick would have basically just said, "You're absolutely right, no, they haven't, because yes, they did..."
And this wasn't the only response that left me wondering if there is a Rosetta Stone for "War Criminal."
Later Bob Schieffer prodded: "...I'm not asking you to violate any rules of classification but is there anything you can tell us specifically...some fact that we got that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise?"
And Dick immediately replied: "That's what's in those memos – It talks specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped. It talks about how the volume of intelligence reports that were produced from that."
Then Bob asked: "Does it talk about planning for attacks or attacks that were actually stopped?"
And Dick stammered: "Umm, well I need to be careful here, Bob, because it's still classified..."
So let me get this straight, Dick, there is nothing wrong with saying the memos talk "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped" but explaining that the memos talk "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped" is too specific?
On the surface it appears that Dick no comprende the Ingles, but the truth may be that he is communicating more sophisticatedly than any of us have assumed. Every time Dick says "what we did was honorable" he may really be saying "you should have pardoned Scooter." Maybe Dick realizes that he was being set up to be the Bush Administration's scapegoat/sacrificial lamb, (ironic that goat and lamb are the main meats in Middle-Eastern dishes?), and his refusal to go away is simply the political-legacy equivalent of the Bush Doctrine. (I'll explain it to you later, Sarah.)
But it is far too rare that someone sifts through the emotional rhetoric and asks the Bush Administration defenders the practical questions that force them to explain how the enemy is the reason that the United States either does or does not torture prisoners of war; and thus, into the corner where the "we were really, really, scared" defense is their only excuse.
The "we were really, really, scared" defense may be the only retribution that we are going to be able to extract from this administration, and the Bush Administration should be forced to keep reminding us just how frightened they were because there are only so many times that someone can say "we were really, really, scared" before the public rightfully starts hearing "we were inept, incompetent, and totally unqualified for the jobs that we had."
I am not morally opposed to torture, but I am patriotically opposed to our nation's government-sanctioned torture, (as, I believe, the majority of the country is). But, "if we are gonna have this debate, it ought to be a complete debate," and the people need to look at, and "evaluate, ["Enhanced Interrogations"] in terms of what we were [really trying, and] able to accomplish."
-Rocky
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Hey there... I'm fixin' to lay down a heavy-duty reply... I hope my comment will be received in the same spirit as your post, which was well-contemplated and deeply felt.
One of the harsh realities of being in charge of the nation with the greatest military might known to mankind is sometimes, the weight of the lives of millions of citizens is what sinks the scale favoring a choice while the human rights of a self-professed ultra-lethal individual non-citizen will just have to be weightless, comparatively.
I am not here to defend Dick Cheney. I have a whole separate set of long standing issues with him. His speaking out against BO (hey, the Dems had "Dubya") bothers me a little less than it might otherwise largely thanks to the carpings of Carter. And Gore. And Clinton. And Clinton. And MoveOn (insulting GEN Petraeus). And the harridans of Code Pink. And the anarchist shitting on my flag. I remember all of that, and more.
Most of all, I want someone, anyone to come to the defense of my soldiers, to the defense of the other civil servants who signed on to make sure my country never, ever, gets attacked like that again. All those people, humans just like me and you, who have families in cities like New York and LA, too. Seriously, I consider it my duty to defend my warriors.
I used to work in the Library Tower, when it was called the Bank Tower. The days following 9-11 were filled with barely subsurface anxiety. The city moved in cement street barriers in front of it. We had to evacuate every time some sick fukk would call in a fake bomb threat. We lived like incipient zombies. We dreaded the clear, blue sky. We watched every single jumbo jet from the moment it poked around the edge of the building until it fully left our view.
People like me demanded, without reservation, that the monsters responsible be found and made to pay and to give up anything and anyone to further our search for the top monster, UBL. Every time I softened that demand inside myself, thinking of the pictures of caught men being roughed up, messed up, fukked up, I'd remember the people who jumped rather than incinerate in jet fuel. I remember the woman fully engulfed in flame who walked into the lobby of one of those buildings and endured as she was beheld in horror by the others escaping and firemen rushing in. I remember the hard hats carefully, earnestly, cleaning the gaping wound of 16 acres.
And any feelings of mercy or pity for Khalid Sheik Muhammed and the others would instantly evaporate. His rights meant absolutely nothing. And they still mean absolutely nothing. And they always will. That's just how it is... and that is just how it always will be. For me. And, likely, there are millions like me.
I will not resort to putting myself in his place in order to help me remember the higher purpose of the American-style democracy aspiring to ideals that soar in our hearts. That would be cowardice. We want to pull up during a stall, because it just feels wrong to point the bird down. And that's how it feels to me, the urgings and promptings to identify with the enemy feels like wanting to pull up.
How better to retreat, pre-surrending for our enemy's convenience, than to identify with him as our prisoner? I do not think that he is no different from me, or better put, that I am no different from he, but for our positions in space and time. My good fortune as an American citizen does not mean I must throw out the value of it as the highest score, and toss out his lower score because he's not an
American, in order to achieve a mean balance.
So while Dick Cheney does not resemble the intercessor I'd like to speak up on the behalf of those fellow citizens who work to find those responsible, he'll do. And thank goodness. For if no one stands up to an unchallenged ACLU, our soldiers, while still in combat, could expect to be stabbed in the back. By us. Us. No... no... no.
I think Dick Cheney would have preferred to not be discussing the interrogations, or the memos, or the briefings, or the photos or any of it at all. He is a cagey sonofabitch, no doubt. I'm pretty sure, he does not see himself as the fall guy for Bush. That doesn't fit his persona. I get the sense that he told the people he commanded that he would do whatever it took to cover their backs. I think that's what he's doing.
What I'm about to add is, and likely always be, something we will agree to disagree on. Reality demands that I acknowledge some shit works. We might not like how it works, but it does work.
Waterboarding did work. So, some of it will be dirty and images without context will outrage the immature, the unfamiliar, the uncritical and weak-minded. But what if some of what is revealed is success? Can we handle good news delivered even by someone we're pretty sure we hate?
I do not agree that waterboarding is torture. While some legal minds and decisions have deemed it so, that doesn't persuade me to agree. Humans often make, shall we say, interesting laws that we later determine to be mistakes. One of the grave concerns I have about BO is that he is a lawyer. I used to work for lawyers.
I certainly don't want anything released to me, a member of the Ungrateful Public, that will endanger the security of our soldiers. But some people do. I don't understand the animus of people who want to punish the actors of the previous administration, demonizing them all, especially if they're agents and warriors who acted in good faith. The lunacy that attends them makes me want them to drop dead. I see their lips moving but I don't care what they're saying. You ever feel that way?
I wish there was something I could say that would relieve that gnawing in your craw about America using waterboarding on our enemies. I think that will have to come to you at your pace, in due time, if at all. But I find myself unbothered by that because, well, I keep remembering the suffering of all the people on 9-11. Their voices, saying goodbye to their loved ones, knowing they were about to die in a field is what haunts me. Not the cries of Khalid.
We were really scared it would happen again... we were very scared. Any frightened beast, human or otherwise, will bring to bear all weapons and all resources to get out alive and in one piece. And when the fear lasts long enough, it converts to anger. You need your anger to keep the energy, the heat, right there, on the tips of your fingers, to stay focused, to settle for nothing less than victory. I've been there. And when the raw animal edge of me demanded I stop at nothing to survive... that's exactly what I did.
To borrow another Spanish slogan, "si se puede... asi es que, por supuesto, si se quiere." It is a truth about humans that, as devoted masters of our destinies and captains of our souls (or so I keep hearing), we will make it up as we go and we will see it our way until and unless we don't. This is an inalienable right... and a skill. We will not stop improvising clear up until the pupils fix. Nor should we. And if I have to lie to make you think I will, when I most certainly will not, then... ok.
Half of us detest the voting habits of the other half of America. Not just dislike, but detest. So to that has the odor of America's politics in recent generations degenerated. That smell does not signal an improvement of our republic.
I sensed you'd at least hear me out about this. Maybe even want to discuss it civilly. I'm hoping you won't judge me an apologist or a defender of the indefensible, at least, not without trying to talk some sense into me. ;) I genuinely fear the state of political discourse these days, particularly when conducted across the interwebs. This binary language... it really does tempt us to be more barbaric, rather than less. Ain't that a kick in the head....
Anyway, I hope that all made sense.
-alexa
Post a Comment