In an interview with Politico yesterday, the secretive lout that is Richard Cheney slithered out of hiding to threaten a terrorist attack if Obama reinstated the Constitution and rule of law. This quote was the focus of considerable attention in the media and blogs in which Cheney all but guaranteed a nuclear or biological mass casualty attack:
“I think there’s a high probability of such an attempt. Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”
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Although this is a standard neooconservative attempt to terrorize the American people into giving up their rights and freedoms under our constitutional democracy, it was not particularly new or surprising. It is the same broken record we have heard since 9/11. However, in the context of the Politico interview, Cheney did manage to make some interesting points that deserve more attention.
Starting at the 0:32 mark in the tape that accompanies the Politico story, Cheney makes the following statement.
I think there is a challenge for the Obama administration whether or not they take the time to understand what we did, why we did it, and how we did it before they run off and start taking down programs that I think are essential to the security of the nation.
I hate to admit ever agreeing with a single word that slides off the tongue of Cheney, but I will make an exception in this case. Cheney is basically calling for the Obama administration to thoroughly investigate all of the Bush administration's practices. Like Cheney, I hope the Obama administration does take the time to understand what they did and how they did it to fullest extent possible. He specifically cites the domestic surveillance programs (which he likes to euphemistically call "terrorist surveillance"), torture ("enhanced interrogation techniques"), and the pathetic excuse to apply advanced data mining techniques on the personal information of American citizens known as the Patriot Act(s). Of course, if any domestic or international laws were broken as part of these procedures, then it will be important for the Obama administration to not be content with simply changing policy. If Cheney and friends broke the law, they need to be prosecuted.
The rhetoric of this man reminds me of a serial killer taunting the police. The bodies are plain sight, but the killer thinks they are far too clever to ever get caught. In Cheney's case, he seems to believe that ends justify the means, which is why he mentioned the importance of understanding "why we did what we did." Virtually every criminal has a justification for their actions no matter how convoluted the reasoning.
“If it hadn’t been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again,” he said. “Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”
The Obama administration should not stop at Cheney's role in circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) or orchestrating torture of people claimed to be "high-value" targets. I can think of several other areas that need further scrutiny. Cheney's statements and actions to facilitate the Iraq war is one such prime target. Cheney's role in getting his former company Halliburton no-bid and no-accountability contracts to plunder Iraq is another. By all means, Mr. President, Cheney deserves to have his actions understood and be held accountable in a court of law.
Apparently Cheney thinks he is beyond prosecution.
Not content to wait for a historical verdict, Cheney said he is set to plunge into his own memoirs, feeling liberated to describe behind-the-scenes roles over several decades in government now that the “statute of limitations has expired” on many of the most sensitive episodes.
I was not aware that there was a statute of limitations for crimes against humanity. Many World War II era war criminals were successfully prosecuted decades after the war.
The interview appears to contain a tacit admission of his role in torture, including waterboarding.
He expressed confidence that files will some day be publicly accessible offering specific evidence that waterboarding and other policies he promoted — over sharp internal dissent from colleagues and harsh public criticism — were directly responsible for averting new Sept. 11-style attacks.
Politico should be faulted for failing to state the obvious. Within a hierarchical structure, only people at the same level are colleagues or peers. Cheney not only promoted torture, he had the authority to overrule all but the President. Moreover, it is interesting that Cheney raised the issue of the actual evidence of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" practices. The tapes of these torture-assisted intelligence gathering operations have been destroyed. This we know from the testimony of Michael Hayden in December of 2007.
In the statement to agency employees, CIA director Hayden revealed that the agency destroyed all copies of the video in 2005. While the official agency statement does not mention waterboarding, officials tell NBC News the videos included the waterboarding of Zubaydah.
...
Hayden said that a secondary reason for the taped interrogations was to have backup documentation of the information gathered.
"The agency soon determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes. Indeed, videotaping stopped in 2002," Hayden said.
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With only a "transcript" produced by military intelligence personnel and vetted only by the CIA, I can understand some of pure bravado in Cheney's statements.
Beyond the statute of limitations, some Democrats seem willing to accept an insanity defense on the part of Cheney.
But many of the top Democratic legal and national security players have long viewed Cheney as a man who became unhinged by his fears, responsible for major misjudgments in Iraq and Afghanistan, willing to bend or break legal precedents and constitutional principles to advance his aims.
As a psychologist, I see nothing in his behavior, actions, or demeanor over the past eight years that is remotely consistent with an anxiety disorder. He did not arrange for the invasion of Iraq because he was afraid of Saddam Hussein. He knew full well that Iraq lacked the ability to even defend itself, much less pose a credible risk to the people of the United States. You do not carefully review geological and other data on Iraq's oil fields if you are overwhelmed by a supposed threat. That sounds like the kind of reconnaissance that goes into planning a major heist or confidence game. In case you have any doubt, consider the following description of Cheney during the Politico interview.
While Cheney’s words were dire, his own mood was relaxed, even loquacious. He was not on crutches — much less the wheelchair he rode to Obama’s Inauguration — from an injury while moving a box of books into his new home.
I found another Cheney nugget with a ring of truth.
“The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected."
No civilized country respects us for torture, kidnapping, assassinations, wars of aggression, and subverting democracy. I suspect Cheney wanted to say that the United States needs to be feared, but chose "respected" as a coded buzzword that the lunatic fringe lead by Limbaugh would clearly understand.
As for what Cheney is planning in his memoirs, he may be considering some bizarre invocation of Abraham Lincoln.
Suddenly a man of leisure, Cheney has a Kindle, Amazon’s wireless reading device, and said he used it recently to read James M. McPherson’s new “Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief.”
Only a complete psychopath would attempt to draw some parallel between Lincoln during the Civil War and the Bush administration after a single terrorist attack that did not threaten the territorial integrity of the United States or dissolve its union.
Politico also mentioned in passing that former VP Cheney is being handled by his daughter Liz.
His daughter, Liz Cheney, the former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, supervised the interview and at one point was looking for a tape recorder.
Liz was the one dutifully pushing her poor injured father in a wheelchair during the inauguration of Barack Obama. And the same Liz Cheney that funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to unnamed groups in the Middle East that did our bidding in her capacity as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. So, the puppet master is having his lawyer daughter help create a more palatable context for crimes against humanity and disregard of the U.S. Constitution. How touching.
[Just as I was getting ready to post this, Keith Olbermann posted this diary as his special commentary on Cheney.]