I may be the last one to figure this out, but it finally occurred to me on Wednesday why dick Cheney is everywhere defending his position on "enhanced interrogation" and waterboarding.
It's identical to what Holocaust deniers do -- they seek to draw you into debate because the very act of debating legitimizes their position regardless of the content of their words.
Unlike other parts of the world, our First Amendment grants Holocaust deniers the right to say whatever they want. On the other hand, it does not force the opposition to debate them. If and when that debate occurs, the fact that the deniers appear on the same stage as legitimate historians gives them a credibility that they have not earned.
So when Cheney calls it "enhanced interrogation," when he contends that it yielded "valuable information," when he says they "only" used it on three "detainees," it's all beside the point. The very act of appearing on multiple media outlets at every turn -- regardless of how absurd he sounds -- grants him enormously valuable credibility and stature, while simultaneously corroding the opposition with uncertainty and doubt. In reality, he's also poisoning the potential jury pool should he ever be brought to trial. But that is a minor by-product compared to the stature he gains by gaining equal footing with law-abiding citizens.
Make no mistake: Cheney has every right to say what he will. But by engaging him on the issue, by giving him on equal stature with respected legal and historical experts, you grant him enormous credibility that his position has not earned because the simple facts are this:
- Waterboarding is torture and a war crime;
- His administration waterboarded (by his own admission);
- Therefore he is guilty of a war crime.
Whether the current administration chooses to prosecute him is part of a discussion that we'll have at another time. But it does not take away from what Cheney -- and Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzalez, Yoo, Addington, Bybee, et. al. -- did.
You can debate him all you want, but in so doing you will not defeat him. You will only make him stronger.