The really perplexing thing about the torture/blackops stuff from the Cheney administration is how ineffective it is, and more amazingly, how little focu these criminals had on actually producing verifiable high quality intelligence.

No, the focus was on all these violations of human values specifically for the ability to say that they had the authority to do it. It was the authority they craved, the very proof that if they wanted to, they could abduct someone, spirit them across the world, break them, and parade them through the streets as criminals. Obviously, the long years of revelation and disavowal in the late 70's and 80's really stung these guys. They have been waiting for decades to say "See? We can do these things!"

What is not surprising is how much these crimes emulate all the regimes and cultures that American long ago decided it didn't want to be like - the USSR, South American dictatorships, the Nazis, etc. Obviously, Cheney has always wanted to say "Well, we need these methods to fight back against these bad guys (actually not ALL these bad guys, since Nixon and Kissinger supported the disappearances, torture and murders in South American in the 70s, and Reagan/Bush/Abram/Negroponte supported them in Central America in the 80s)."

So this "violation for violation's sake" is really about authoritarianism - an assertion of the unaccountable exercise of exercise of government power over the individual, for the sole purpose of reinforcing that strong authority. How satisfying it must be for Cheney to see himself as vindicated after all these years.

And how satisfying it will be to see him die in prison.

Amen

Just a question: Will anyone in the White House ever be held accountable? Or will we have to wait 50 years for the first historical reading on the Bush administration.

I'm convinced that if you truly believe what you wrote, and I'm sure you do, there is no reasoning with you on this topic. The fact that you believe you have your finger on the pulse of American forgein policy and there is no other answer but authoritarianism is the epitome of narrow mindedness.

But you might consider these thoughts anyway. Until you can eliminate wickedness and evil people from the face of the earth, war is a reality of humanity (history supports me on this). Your line of thinking, that this war is "violation for violations sake" and that our President and Vice President somehow find great reward in waging war is paranoid and perverted. Your thinking would serve as an indictment on every peaceful nation throughout history that had to defend itself against evil and wickedness.

So the question is, are we like them? Because we choose to respond to the brutality of war with brutal measures are we like the evil minded people who initiate war? I can hear you say already, "well who started the war in the first place." More evidence of your paranoia. The answer is in this question. If we decided to lay down our weapons and cease fighting to bring about peace, would our enemy do the same thing. The obvious answer is no, our enemy is not a rational enemy and this point is proven over and over by their brutal actions. The enemy has repeatedly crossed a critical threshhold that can only be dealt with through force and brutality. This is called war. This is a fact of human history and Dick Cheney did not invent it.

Therefore, the fact is that peaceful people decide after much effort and measured response that there is no reasoning with a brutal, irrational enemy. We cross a threshhold as well, and decide we must defend ourselves with equally brutal measures. Our response to evil does not and will not make us like them (history supports me on this too).

You obviously don't believe this and I caution you, because the last line of your rambling statement declares your desire to see the Vice President of the United States of America dead. You are on a slippery slope my friend. Take a deep breath and think it through.

Now I can see why people like gturner07 who
obviously support torture would really like
a show like "24". What I don't understand
are people who are against torture yet who
are fans of (and thus support) the pro-torture
show "24".

The big response is "it's just a TV show",
yet the movie "The Birth of a Nation" where
the Ku Klux Klan is depicted as heroic is
roundly condemned.

<link>

Somehow a Ku Klux Klan member as hero is bad,
but a torturer as hero is somehow excused.

It's pretty incomprehensible that Americans
are so apathetic about the torture being
done in their name. The popularity of
"24" does help explain.

In your dreams. For Dick Cheney to go to jail, we'd need a foreign power to invade the USA, shock and awe our troops (do we actually HAVE any on US soil?), storm Washington D.C. and find Dick Cheney hiding in a spiderhole in Cody, Wyoming. When that happens please do NOT show me prison pictures of him in his underwear.

gturner I'm sure you believe what you wrote also. You seem like a sincere and thoughtful person. Just like the sincere and thoughtful Germans of the late 1930's. They didn't like war and killing either but..of course they understood there really was no choice. They HAD to invade Poland, didn't they? It was self defense. Combating evil is a tough job but Adolph had to do it.

The truth is that invading other nations and torturing prisoners is never necessary nor self-defense. They are choices and you and Bush and Cheney should have the guts to admit you are making those choices. They are not forced upon you by the enemy, they don't control you. Every "evil" dictator in history (including Saddam) say the same as you, "the enemy FORCED us to do it". At least be self-honest enough to admit your own choices.

The USA would not have disappeared if it had never invaded Iraq or tortured prisoners. Do you think (like jack nicholson in A Few Good Men) that we are "saving lives" through invasion and torture? How many lives? We've lost the lives of one thousand US soldiers each year in Iraq. Can you guarantee that invasion and torture have prevented an equal number of US civilian deaths? Admit it, you are willing to commit atrocities with no guarantee you will prevent atrocities.

I'm happy to reason with you on this - in fact, I think reason will help you understand that you need to change your mind on several points:

1. Start with the simple one: I don't wish Dick Cheney dead. Note that I never said that, and your rhetorical flourish calls into question your honesty. (Interesting thought: if we do brutal acts to save lives, shouldn't we save tens of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of US citizens, and the dozens who have died while they were our responsibility in prison in our black sites, by killing this one man? But you see, I don't advocate brutal actions to save lives). No, I said I wish he would end his days in prison.

Cheney is 65, with a long history of heart trouble. He long ago crossed the line between vigorous advocacy of his view of the law and actual, explicit violation of the law, in his torture directives and his implementation of illegal spying. His very guilt is shown by his attempts to ex post facto immunize his actions in the Military Commissions Act. In addition, his participation in the AG scandal indicates that he also is complicit in the voter caging actions, which violation the Civil Rights Act. Finally, he has willfully violated the Presidential Records Act, and admits to those violations.

Cheney swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes an obligation to obey all laws enacted under the Constitution. Impeachment is a first step; his violations of our Constitution and the law, with the explicit intent to implement the Unitary Executive and to implement Karl Rove's One Party Rule, are actual and intentional subversions of our form of government. This is treason, pure and simple, even if it is done with the trappings of lawyers and bureaucrats. A twenty year prison would be just, considering the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the years of progress lost in civil rights, foreign policy, and energy security. That is why I suggest he may die in prison. I do not wish him well, but I do not wish him dead. I just wish him justice, and let nature take its course.

Reason with me on this: Can you justify Cheney's actions? If you agree with him on torture, do you agree with him on One Party Rule and the Unitary Executive, so forcefully advocated by Cheney's personal counsel, David Addington? How do those "positions" defend our country?

2. Now, let's talk about brutal actions in the war on terror: If we agreed that we did not need these brutal actions in WWII, or in the Cold War, why do we need them now? Reason with me: if we did not need them to protect against existential threats like the USSR, Communist China, Japan or Germany, why do we need them now? Isn't the very fact that we refuse to resort to illegal actions to protect ourselves one of the key things that make us different and better? I always thought so - maybe I was just naive, like Dwight Eisenhower or Barry Goldwater.

And reason with me on one more point: what have they accomplished? Do those benefits outweigh our loss of international goodwill and intelligence cooperation, not to mention the propaganda benefit they have conferred on our enemies?

3. Finally, the one point that for me rises above all the others: What makes us different is the rule of law. If having power is more important than all the laws that Cheney and Bush and Gonzalez have broken, then what distinguishes us from Pervez Musharraf? Agusto Pinochet? Joseph Stalin? Cheney has publicly refused to obey the law. He must be held accountable. That is the essence of English/American democracy. Reason with me: Am I wrong?

I look forward to your response.

Certainly,

as the vice president has no official duties other than presiding over the senate and keeping a daily eye on the president's health and well being, are you sure he is guilty of misusing his office? I could be wrong but aren't all of his actions, aside from casting a tie-breaker vote, purely of an advisory function? Seems to me he can't really be violating the Constitution when all of his actions can be interpreted as merely offering advice to those who do actually have de jure power.