Blogs and Stories
Cheney's Big Torture Speech
)
Karin Cooper, CBS / AP Photo
As the former vice president takes the stage Thursday morning—at the same time as Obama—The Daily Beast's John Sifton on what to look out for, from defending interrogations to rehashing dubious claims about how they kept us safe.
At Dick Cheney’s big national-security speech Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute, expect the former vice president to criticize the Obama administration’s closure of the CIA detention and interrogation program. He’ll also attempt to give a defense of Bush administration counterterrorism tactics, including the use of torture on suspected terrorists.
Of course, Cheney won’t call the CIA techniques “torture.” He’ll defend interrogations as “aggressive” but legal—or at least thought to be legal at the time they were used. Cheney’s also likely to make some arguments about the necessities of using the aggressive techniques and claim that terrorist plots were disrupted because of the CIA’s actions. (Yet he will not explain why, if the techniques were legal, it is so vital that they be justified by claims about their effectiveness.)
A particular lie Cheney is likely to get caught up on is the timeline. If you hope to talk your way out of something, it’s important to make sure your storyline somehow matches known facts.
Cheney will also say he can’t talk about the details of how those plots were disrupted, though he may rehash President Bush’s dubious claims about the disruption of a plot to destroy the Los Angeles Library Tower, claims that have been debunked—thoroughly. He’ll likely make a sardonic comment about how he, like the American Civil Liberties Union, is seeking to have documents declassified that will vindicate Bush-era policies.
Therein is the silver lining to President Obama’s foot-dragging on seeking accountability for detainee abuse. In the absence of the threat of prosecution, at least some Bush-era perpetrators seem to be singing like canaries. Cheney continues to make incriminating statements about torture and his role in facilitating its use and approval. With hope, today’s appearance at AEI will be no different.
Ironically, if this were a typical criminal investigation and Cheney a suspected criminal, his status as a suspect would be a secret, and the government would be happy not to indict him, and keep its suspicions secret, for as long as he continued to make self-incriminating statements. As former prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega has already argued, in some respects a criminal investigation is the last thing anyone seeking accountability would want right now. Let them keep talking: Let them hang themselves with their own rope.
Of course, not everything Cheney will say will be self-implicating. Like any criminal talking about his crimes, Cheney is likely to mix fact and fiction. He will not make a full admission as Jack Nicholson did in A Few Good Men, when asked by Tom Cruise, “Did you order the code red?” (“You're goddamn right I did!”)
He’ll gently try to justify his actions, or minimize his role, yet he’ll only dig himself in deeper.
A particular lie Cheney is likely to get caught up on is the timeline. If you hope to talk your way out of something, it’s important to make sure your storyline somehow matches known facts. Yet at some point in Cheney’s speech today, he is likely to repeat the claim that CIA interrogation techniques were thoroughly vetted by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel—and suggest that the White House and CIA only proceeded with torture once officials were certain that their actions were legal and had obtained memos from OLC saying so.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
The Torture Loophole
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
What's Missing from the CIA Docs
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
The Bush Administration Homicides
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
This user is no longer registered.
n--Y--charles116Adamska
It's amazing, the Republican party has so many bright, eager minds ready to lead a reformed party to victory; yet the GOP continues to exhibit the messages of characters like Cheney and Limbaugh, while they would be better off as exhibits at the Smithsonian
n2chat
How true, and I love that explanation!
baptox
I am starting a new movement..."Castrate Dick"... Yes, let's whack it off, y'all! He can't seem to keep it zipped. He has to share it will all, especially those of us who don't want to see it...It's gotta go...
Yes, let's do it, folks...It's not torture and it's not to shut him up.... (Okay, it is to shut him up, but is that wrong?)
"Castrate Dick" is not about his penis, folks... (though he thinks it is...)
"Castrate Dick" is about taking Dickie-boy's power to be heard away from him. Let's make him as relevant as George Wallace and Idi Amin, his brothers in psychic paranoia land.
Let's render him to the garbage bin of "whatever happened to him" humanity by demanding less and less of him.
Let's be kind...Let's be thorough...but let's get it done. "Castrate Dick" now.
JackJack
Right on.. let's castriate Obama! He's not a leader. He's got no balls!
"Let's be kind...Let's be thorough...but let's get it done. "Castrate Obama" now.
baptox
Castriate Obama? Oh my, JackJack.. You really should learn how th spell before you attempt humor...
PeorgieTirebiter
You're right, after Cheney spoke up, it suddenly became open mic night at the Club Hague. Amazingly, Dubya' is the one not comporting himself like a moron. Maybe he was the brains of the outfit.
Bunx05
As more insight is made public, I'm finding that while Bush was spineless and a follower of people he thought were his betters, he wasn't a complete idiot. He knew what he should have been doing, but he didn't have the balls to stand up to Cheney or Rummy or Rove.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
fk4711
If media don't hold on to every utterance by Cheney and his daughter Liz and make it a big deal, then it's not a big deal. But media wants a fight and Cheney gleefully provide the fight. That is the only reason he is on front page and surviving the talk show circle. The Daily Beast is as guilty, perhaps more so, than any other outlet I know.
bcaldwell
Please stop being pussies. So we got a little rough with some of the scummiest of the scummiest "people" on the planet....good. Wusswads... this is a war and nasty dirty things happen in a war. My only regret is that with KSM and Abu Zubaydah and bin al Shibh is that we don't have a daily ritual whereby someone shoves a big pineapple up their asses.
Also please don't tell me that the enhanced interrogation and Gitmo have been recruiting tools for our enemies... newsflash to all of you Castrotti... the best way to recruit people is through success. If you get caught, and sent to Gitmo, you failed.
Please people grow a set and please stop comparing Cheney to some sort of dark overlord. he and the rest of the Bushies at least had the cajones to do what the rest of the world would like to do to these- and Iuse the word loosely, "people"
It's a street fight in case all of you honeys did not know,I would suggest to you enhanced interrogation or no enhanced interrogation, many over there would still hate us. So I say deal with them brutally and settle it the old navy way. First one to die or cry...LOSES.
Please don't give me this crap that this is a nation of laws,it wears thin. You use that because you hate the guy because he is a smug Republican and you would hate him even if he had followed the Geneva Convention to the letter.
It's a war and its a lawlwess thing, the Geneva Convention is folly. This is a war of cultures and civilization and ultimately survival. You do what it takes. Notice there have been NO attacks on American soil for almost 8 years....
intercede007
While were pissing on the Constitution, would you please turn in your guns at the nearest National Guard armory? We'd appreciate it; the Government would hate to have to come take them from you.
You'll also be quartering soldiers just home from Iraq in your spare bedroom. After all, we did manage to carpet bomb the economy while they were away. It's not their fault they can't find jobs.
Your Due Process rights have also been revoked. Enjoy Gitmo!
Progressive2
pussies are the ones saying torture him because I'm scared!!
cowards the fear that you eat makes you pathetic.
baptox
Progressive2, See the instructions I left for bcaldwell above. Y'all make sure you take thos meds before you post again, ya hear?
Munodi
Did you ever stop to think that ther have been no attacks because Al Queda ISN'T all that powerful and does NOT have the capacity to attack us? 911 was a lucky strike carried out with......box cutters. If they were all that fierce why didn't they immediately attack again? Why didn't they just send sucide bombers into Ameircan malls? It's because they have NEVER had the capacity to do so. It's only Bush/Cheney who dialed up the FEAR so that they could retain POWER.
gordon
bcaldwell aren't you the big macho man. It's war and its a lawless thing you sound like one of those pussies that use to get your lunch money taken from them. P.S. the lame navy reference was a dead giveaway tuff guy.
baptox
bcalwell, Didn't i see you down on Market St. heading toward the Tenderloin tonight? I swear it was you, dude! An old grizzled alcoholic geezer mumbling and cursing incoherently...Honey, the mental health satellite clinic is just a few blocks up. Go up there, get your meds and see if you don't feel a little better in the morning.
Redhead5050
We are less safe, we have more enemies, torture is illegal...when someone breaks the law in America he faces the repercussions of his actions.. we are a nation of laws. This guy belongs in jail.
JackJack
Enhanced interrogation is NOT illegal. These techniques were researched and modified based on US laws and War.
cbeenthere
BS
cbeenthere
You are damn right tho that the laws were modified on the sayso of the lawyer gallery Yoo et al. The ones who should pay for this.
Tango121
When Mr. Sifton says the claims plot to destroy the Los Angeles Library Tower have been debunked-thoroughly. I didn't know Slade Magazine was official arm of the CIA
As it is until the memo's are released we don't know what happen. This story should have started with once upon a time in a land far away
Progressive2
SO tell me Tango how does Torturing someone in 2003 saves lives in 2002 please entertain me?
cuppajo
I would like to see a fair article about this issue on "The Daily Beast". A lot of this information is opinion. There is more than one view. it would be nice if people could get both sides and decide for themselves instead of constantly hurling hate and insults. This should be a serious debate, not a politicized one.
Progressive2
There is only one view on the law. it's pretty clear and simple, no such thing as to two sides when breaking the law.
cuppajo
It is not as cut and dry as you wish it to be.
Progressive2
Torture is illegal always was.
Waterboarding is and always will be torture (since WW2 Jeps,Reagon DOJ prosecuted Texas sheriff who did it etc.)
Torture is a warcrime.
No one in the US can make torture legal, no matter how hard they try.
Jesse Ventura vs Neocons basically hit all points on this issue this week.
cuppajo
You can cry torture and war crimes all you want, but not everyone agrees with you.
Progressive2
Like I said what your opinion is doesn't matter.
Fact is it's torture and a Warcrime that's all that matters you have no argument to trow at me except "not everyone agrees with me" no shi* not everyone agrees on laws doesn't mean prosecutors will ignore them or give them a pass.
isabella
There are many views on every law. One way to form a view is to read the Fed legislation, the CAT and the memoranda, which neither you nor Sefton appear to have done. Sefton,like most media hacks is so biased he cannot be taken seriously except by equally biased (and uninformed) readers.
For those who insist on equating US enhanced interrogation techniques with Japanese waterboard torture in WW2 please, do a bit of research. Torture is a matter of degree. Jesse Ventura made an abject fool of himself on this issue.
Munodi
It's also only opinion that the people held in Guantanemo are terrorists. What proof do you have that they have commited any crime? You have none because they haven't been put on trial. Just because Bush/Cheney said they're terrorists does NOT make it true.
Issywise
I was disposed to go along with Obama's perspective. The torture that undoubtedly occurred under the last administration was to be renounced as violations of American values and left to be a historical aberration. Wasting time, national focus and political capital was not necessary if the policy is just changed.
But Cheney has changed my mind. He's saying that what he did was alright--consistent with our values and prudent.
Cheney, Rummy and Wolfie all picked up their muscular, militarist nationalism as underlings in earlier administrations--where their viewpoint was a tolerated minority perspective. When the partisan wheel spun and their party regained power, they were promoted to top policy making slots and the damage done the nation is now history.
The point is that policy in one administration tends to have echos in later administrations--when underlings get promoted into policy makers.
On torture, I think we have to go further now then just ending, repudiating and moving on. We have to educate ourselves and make a firm and informed national commitment to what our national values are on torture. It should be done under forced of law, with the power to compel testimony and the means to punish violators if found.
Cheney's aggressive "I was right" campaign compels us to look harder into this national practice and ensure that we conduct ourselves consistent with basic values in the future.
His very campaign of self-vindicating denial is the problem now. Let that stand and some Cheneyite in the future will repeat the violations.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Progressive2
Might be because they can kill our soldiers at Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11 without costing them a thing to come to our home.
JackJack
ah.. I see you, like me didn't like the writers "dubious" story of personal opinion rather than facts.
I'm with you Sarastro and like millions of Americans, the former adminstration kept us safe.
It's Obama's war now.. he needs to focus on his adminstration and stop blaming the past admins.
Munodi
And the irony that is Cheney is that he was to big a COWARD to ever serve in the military. A man who took 5 determents so he would not have to test his courage. So tell me now who is the real Chicken Shit?
JackJack
"rehashing dubious claims about how they kept us safe."
This writer needs to do research and speak the facts not just personal opinion.
Cheney is a man of honor, unlike the dude in office claiming to be president.
Progressive2
"Cheney is a man of honor"
LOL please see Colin Powel or Jesse Ventura opinion of Cheney for some man of honor
intercede007
"..Cheney is a man of honor, unlike the dude in office claiming to be president."
Coincidentally enough, that's a personal opinion too.
jtnsr159
couldn't agree more
who starts an article with an outrageous comment like that
For all their faults- they kept us safe. No easy task in these times.
No dubious claims necessary.
Time will tell what happens with the War on Terror. Can this and future admins keep us safe.
altlic
What are you talking about! Fact: 911 happened on Cheney's watch. Fact: the Bush administration underplayed the threat of Al Qaeda before 911 and turned them into the equivalent of Nazi Germany after 911. Fact: more soldiers have been killed in an unnecessary and counter-productive war than were killed during 911.
Fact: you bought into the neocon propaganda
altlic
Cheney is a political operator of Machiavellian proportions. Cheney believes in power over truth. Cheney believes the ends justify the means. Fighting dirty is the name of the game. What is motivating Cheney, after years of stonewalling and claiming executive privilege, to suddenly have verbal diarrhea? Why doesn't he trust, like W, that history will vindicate him? Because he is the ultimate neocon power player.
Cheney is a man of such strong convictions that he will do almost anything to win. But conviction does not make you honorable. Or if it does, then all religious and political zealots are honorable.
If Cheney is a man of honor, why is he a fan of trash-talking Rush Limbaugh and not a fan of a military statesman like Colin Powell?
baptox
No, Cheney is a man of horror, not honor. Around 100,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq as a result of the war Cheney, Bush and the CIA lied about to get our government engaged in!
Their newest pitch, I see, is to move us from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
angst7
One can see that ole John will not be reporting anything good on Dick Cheney. Some of these local yokels on Daily Beast may as well be writing for the NYT or whats left of it. Hell, they may even plagiarize someone else.
n2chat
I have seen nothing but facts on the Daily Beast. If you are a Cheney lover, naturally you will "accuse" the writers of lying..l.hey, guess what, Cheney is a liar. There are none so blind as those who will not see...and maybe you will never see.
junkie
What's with all the talk about cajones? When we stop listening, replacing ears with balls, then we sit on our heads, talk out our ass and wind up dicks.
Isn't the point to gather INTELLIGENCE?
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.