Without the unitary theory of the executive to protect him anymore from the vagaries of public opinion, Dick Cheney's incessant tour to sell the virtues of the Bush torture policy baffles the mind. So far, no mature adult has stood up among Republicans and cried,"Silencio!" More troubling is to see Liz Cheney reappear as an apologist for the torture policy and prisoner abuse. Our corporate media loves the show but haven't asked Liz what she knows about torture, water-boarding or even interrogation. The answer is "Nothing." Treating Cheney's appearances as if they are serious, the media neglect to discuss that this may be a man who cried "Wolf" once too often. He assured the American public that Saddam Hussein was partners with Al Qaeda, had restarted his nuclear program and was certain to possess weapons of mass destruction. Almost as looney, Cheney offered his opinions on the Employee Free Choice Act during a Fox news program with Neil Cavuto.
The Hill reports that Republicans believe they can gain traction on national security issues by exploiting Obama's commitment to close Guatanamo within a year. The RNC surfaced an ad that Obama will be releasing detainees into your neighborhood, neglecting to mention our max prisons hold 150 or more Muslim terrorists already convicted in courts of law. Perhaps, this will pan out for the Republican Party, who have been banking on fear as their ticket to ride back into political power.
The Republican embrace of torture and secret prisons is curious in light of the fact that Cheney lost the bureaucratic fight during the Bush Administration. George W. Bush and Condi Rice planned on closing Gitmo in 2006 over Cheney's objections. The process was started then by the release of detainees and repatriation of some to European and Arab countries. Republican candidate John McCain agreed with President Obama that Gitmo should be closed because almost all informed sources agreed that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were the primary recruiting tools for foreign insurgents in Iraq.
The pathological appearances of Dick Cheney on all the networks and even obscure radio shows in North Dakota defending torture counter the Bush Administration's own policies in the second term, a period when Cheney's star was diminished. The CIA Inspecter General's report of 2004 ,which reviewed the torture program was blunt in calling it what it was and suggested that no impending attacks on the United States were broken up as a result. So-called enhanced interrogation techniques were at least overtly suspended in 2005 and the Bush Justice Department ended up revoking the original legal opinions justifying the program as legally sloppy--to say the least. Dick Cheney is in effect re-arguing a bureaucratic battle which he ingloriously lost.
The Republican full metal embrace of the torture policy is reckless. Dick Cheney's serial interviews reveal a series of moving benchmarks in his defense of the program. First, he asserted that it prevented the planned attack on Library Tower in Los Angeles. Within 24 hours of the remark, this was refuted by a timeline that showed the alleged sources for this plot had not been detained for six months the plot was disrupted. Secondly, he suggested within the last two days that a dirty bomb plot by Al Qaeda was disrupted using these methods. The known plot so far is the shoe-bomber who was picked up when the FBI received information from a detainees without any "enhanced interrogation". Four other alleged plots uncovered by these methods were analyzed in a December issue of Vanity Fair. The former head of British counter-intelligence said one plot was a complete fabrication and the other three were uncovered through local police work. Finally, Dick Cheney claims that Al Qaeda was basically unknown prior to 9-11 and that torture produced a detailed view of the Al Qaeda operations.
These assertions by Cheney and his demands for the declassification of documents are now triggering events which the Obama Administration wanted to avoid, the Democrats are cringing because of their own compliance in acknowledging these programs and Republicans should run for the hills from. The Obama Administration is now declassifying the "Holy Grail" document, the CIA's Inspector General's report on the torture program. As the Cheney deadenders keep hollering, more documents will be declassified. There is nothing coming down the pike which will make the torture program more appealing to the public. In fact, Republicans are just shooting themselves in the foot. As long as attention was focused on three Al Qaeda terrorists, the public has shown a frightening tolerance of the use of torture. But further documents show hundreds of homicides occurred because of the abuse of these methods.
Strangely, no Republican is aware at the degree to which Obama has been protecting them and the various intelligence agencies from exposure and prosecution. From a legal point of view, it is a not all that clear that Obama can in fact guarantee impunity as the CIA Inspector General report states clearly that the interrogators violated the Torture Convention and all federal laws covering war crimes. The latest Republican gambit of blaming the Democrats Nancy Pelosi in going along with this program is going to backfire as House Democrats agreed to investigate this. By trying to portray this as a partisan struggle, Republicans are only pushing the torture issue into the realm of the special prosecutor so that the Obama Administration "de-politicizes" it.
If I were Eric Holder, I would appoint Republican Patrick Fitzgerald as the special prosecutor so that Cheney-ites heads explode.
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