Cheney repeats lie about Abu Ghraib

[Phokus]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlan...ontradiction.html#more

Cheney speech at AEI last week:

In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.

"Conclusion 19" of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report:

The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld?s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

Note, this is substantial especially to this forum where conservatives will often repeat the cheney lie that torture prevented attacks in the USA and was generally useful, disregarding that Cheney has lied about almost every facet of the conduct of the war. How can you believe Cheney on waterboarding when he hasn't been honest about Abu Ghraib? He is even still parroting old lies about the Iraq war to this day. If the right cannot see Cheney for what he is (a pathological liar), then you have no hope for yourselves or your party.

 

[nageov3t]

wow, Cheney misrepresented the truth?

news at 11.

/yawn

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: loki8481
wow, Cheney misrepresented the truth?

news at 11.

/yawn

And yet the conservative P&N crew expects us to believe Cheney when he tells us that waterboarding was useful?

 

[NeoV]

Cheney says you are all out of the loop anyway

 

[Mani]

Cheney is lying = water is wet.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Cheney should step down as VP immediately... oh wait.

 

[Lemon law]

I don't think Cheney even expect to be believed by most of his audience, but for the very few sheeple who think he is credible, a periodic booster shot of more lies helps Cheney retain them.

There is just something in the low key Cheney voice that implies credibility, but at the end of the day, the rational either have to believe Cheney or discard all the evidence that proves Cheney is a serial liar.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Cheney should step down as VP immediately... oh wait.

Yet the ATPN conservatives still quote him as a reliable source on torture and the iraq war

 

[techs]

If we asked for donations from all Americans to see Cheney waterboarded for 5 minutes we would not only have a surplus this year, but we could wipe out the national debt.

C'mon, Dick. Do it for your country.

 

[retrospooty]

Cheney lie? Noooo I cant believe it!!!!

but seriously... When could we ever believe one word from his mouth.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: techs
If we asked for donations from all Americans to see Cheney waterboarded for 5 minutes we would not only have a surplus this year, but we could wipe out the national debt.

C'mon, Dick. Do it for your country.

With that little black piece of grisle he has for a heart waterboarding would be a death sentence for him. I wish he'd shut the fuck up but not die prematurely..well at least not until his deal with the Devil is over.

 

[umbrella39]

Dick is of the school that if you repeat lies enough they become the truth. Sadly, much of conservative America is weak enough to fall for this tactic.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: umbrella39
Dick is of the school that if you repeat lies enough they become the truth. Sadly, much of conservative America is weak enough to fall for this tactic.

Conservatives for the most part aren't stupid, they know he lies every time his llps move. They just don't seem to care because he's their guy. You don't hear the Left condemning Pelosi for her lies regarding n=being misled about Waterboarding. Same thing.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: umbrella39
Dick is of the school that if you repeat lies enough they become the truth. Sadly, much of conservative America is weak enough to fall for this tactic.

Conservatives for the most part aren't stupid, they know he lies every time his llps move. They just don't seem to care because he's their guy. You don't hear the Left condemning Pelosi for her lies regarding n=being misled about Waterboarding. Same thing.

Cheney is the Pelosi of the right. :laugh:

Unfortunately for Cheney, most of what he claims cannot be backed up by any solid data whatsoever. He can claim that waterboarding saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but it's all pure speculation on his part. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together realizes this.

 

[OCGuy]

Impeach!

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Impeach!

Throw Kobe out of the NBA for being a douchebag too

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Conservatives for the most part aren't stupid, they know he lies every time his llps move. They just don't seem to care because he's their guy. You don't hear the Left condemning Pelosi for her lies regarding n=being misled about Waterboarding. Same thing.

The jury's still out on whether Pelosi "lied" when she said the CIA mislead her., Other Democrats who were "briefed" are now stating that they were NOT told waterboarding was being used, and Republicans have stated the CIA has lied.

Pelosi's not the only Democrat who says the CIA lied to Congress.

Another Democrat Says CIA Records On Briefings Were Not Accurate

First Posted: 05-19-09 11:30 AM | Updated: 05-19-09 06:11 PM

Yet another Democrat in Congress is alleging that the CIA included incorrect information in its records about past congressional briefings on interrogation policies.

Rep. David Obey sent a letter to CIA Director Leon Panetta on Tuesday saying that "in light of current controversy about CIA briefing practices," he was "surprised to learn that the agency erroneously listed an appropriations staffer as being in a key briefing on September 19, 2006, when in fact he was not."

Writes the Wisconsin Democrat: "The list the agency released entitled 'Member Briefings on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs)', shows that House Appropriations Committee defense appropriations staffer Paul Juola was in that briefing on that date. In fact, Mr. Juola recollects that he walked members to the briefing room, met General Hayden and Mr. Walker, who were the briefers, and was told that he could not attend the briefing. We request that you immediately correct this record."

The letter makes Obey the fourth Democrat to allege that the CIA's record of which members of Congress were briefed on the Bush administration's enhanced interrogation techniques contained factual errors. Former Sen. Bob Graham, in an interview with the Huffington Post, noted that the agency's records initially had him being briefed four times in 2002 about the interrogation techniques. Upon contacting officials with the CIA, it was determined that he had only attended one such briefing. Similarly, Sen. Jay Rockefeller has said that the records kept by the agency and made public on May 7 contained errors in regards to his briefings.

All told, the testimonies of these three Democratic officials bolster the case made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the agency's own account of those now-controversial briefings is misleading. Pelosi -- like Graham -- has insisted that members of Congress were kept in the dark in the fall of 2002 about the Bush administration's use of waterboarding on terrorist suspects.
.
.
(continues)

Democrats aren't the only ones:

Last year, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committe, Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, he said this in response to a case he was watching very closely -- An American citizen who was killed in a plane crash -- A cover up he alleged involving the CIA -- He said these words:

"We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress."

The only time Republicans say they don't think the CIA would lie to Congress is when they lie to Democrats.

 

[AFMatt]

Without sounding like I am defending Cheney, because I am not, I think his point was the people at Abu Ghraib were not using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" (and more) to actually interrogate anyone. These techniques were only authorized for specific people, and required specific authorization.

The soldiers weren't interrogators, they were just your average every day soldiers performing guard duty who decided to have some sick fun abusing detainees. They took he techniques they knew were authorized for other interrogators and went to town, on all of the detainees. It should also be noted that much of what they did went well beyond what methods were authorized for the real interrogators. Almost all of them were prosecuted, with many sent to prison or confinement, demoted, discharged, and fined.

So, Cheney is correct in saying it isn't fair to link what happened there to the actions of actual trained interrogators. CIA interrogators arent covering the detainees in shit, making them stand in a line and masturbate, sodomizing them with chem lights and batons, pissing on them, beating them up so bad they need med attention, setting up photo ops, etc, just because they are there. They are using other methods of controlled enhanced (though still brutal) techniques to extract info from a select few. Still wrong, in the eyes of most people, but not the same.

 

[Budmantom]

Obama repeats lies...... or he's still confused or both.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: loki8481
wow, Cheney misrepresented the truth?

news at 11.

/yawn

And yet the conservative P&N crew expects us to believe Cheney when he tells us that waterboarding was useful?

I must have missed the AG photos of that chick waterboarding anyone.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: AFMatt
Without sounding like I am defending Cheney, because I am not, I think his point was the people at Abu Ghraib were not using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" (and more) to actually interrogate anyone. These techniques were only authorized for specific people, and required specific authorization.

The soldiers weren't interrogators, they were just your average every day soldiers performing guard duty who decided to have some sick fun abusing detainees. They took he techniques they knew were authorized for other interrogators and went to town, on all of the detainees. It should also be noted that much of what they did went well beyond what methods were authorized for the real interrogators. Almost all of them were prosecuted, with many sent to prison or confinement, demoted, discharged, and fined.

So, Cheney is correct in saying it isn't fair to link what happened there to the actions of actual trained interrogators. CIA interrogators arent covering the detainees in shit, making them stand in a line and masturbate, sodomizing them with chem lights and batons, pissing on them, beating them up so bad they need med attention, setting up photo ops, etc, just because they are there. They are using other methods of controlled enhanced (though still brutal) techniques to extract info from a select few. Still wrong, in the eyes of most people, but not the same.

Except this is the line that Cheney used: "At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice."

He makes it sound like Abu Ghraib was an isolated event with only low level people involved and THEY were the ones who violated 'american law, military regulations, and simple decency' when in fact it was the people at the top who encouraged this behaviour. The Senate armed services report directly contradicts Cheney's assertion:

The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld?s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

It was not JUST Abu Ghraib and it was not JUST low level employees... it was the people at the top (INCLUDING Cheney) who violated "American law, military regulations, and simple decency."

This behavior was systemic throughout the military AND the CIA and NOT isolated in the least.

 

[trenchfoot]

I really feel sorry for the fella's at CIA.

They were "persuaded" by the Bush Admin via (among others) "Kiss up Kick down" Bolton to provide false intel that supported the Bush Admin's agenda to take over the oil fields of Iraq and then when those lies that the Bush Admin cooked up for the CIA to put their seal of approval on backfired, the CIA got blamed for providing those very lies that Bush and Cheney planted and cultivated there.

Both Cheney and Bush blamed the CIA over and over and over for providing "misleading" intel that compelled them to invade Iraq. How pathetic is that?

Thus started the Bush/Cheney merry-go-round of lies that had to be covered up by even bigger lies, ad infinitum.

Chronic, unrepentant blatant liars, the both of them.

And let's not even get into the lies these two guys cooked up to get themselves elected......twice.

Zero sum credibility. NADA.

Every time Cheney opens his sewer pipe mouth he just incriminates himself and the people that put him into power more and more and more.

But it's really good that he does keep up with the blatant cover-up lies because he keeps fresh in everyone's mind (well, MOST everyone) why the repub's got bitch slapped into minority status back in '06 and then so convincingly in '08.

Naughty, naughty foolish boys. Unrepentant to the very end.

So be it.

 

[WHAMPOM]

The Cheney mantra: Lie big, lie about lying, lie often, then repeat.

 

[IGBT]

Originally posted by: techs
If we asked for donations from all Americans to see Cheney waterboarded for 5 minutes we would not only have a surplus this year, but we could wipe out the national debt.

C'mon, Dick. Do it for your country.

mabe we could water board the obama and find out why so much of his past is court sealed including his activities at school.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: IGBT

Originally posted by: techs
If we asked for donations from all Americans to see Cheney waterboarded for 5 minutes we would not only have a surplus this year, but we could wipe out the national debt.

C'mon, Dick. Do it for your country.

mabe we could water board the obama and find out why so much of his past is court sealed including his activities at school.

And maybe we could find out how he and the eco-KOOKS plan to enslave us all, right?