Tag: cheney

Most of It Bad (but keep walking!)

Lord Cheney of Darkside (Fourthbranch! to his friends) begins our story with this pronouncement on FOXnews (no, I’m not linking to them; trust me or find it your-own-self):

“I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country,” Cheney said. “I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was.”

Ah, yes. The old “totally secret documents that will never, ever come out absolutely absolve me of authorizing, née positively cheerleading in favor of torture, whether it works or not. I mean, if torturing people also happens to generate some useful, actionable intelligence, it’s a win/win. But if it doesn’t, well, we’ll still torture ‘em. Right? I mean, who in the room can’t enjoy, er, I mean ’approve with my heart full of sadness’ some of that there torture stuff?”

And, hey, what do you know? The government actually went ahead and released said documents. A bit on the [redacted] side, but the essence seems to be there. For instance, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (aka KSM) was waterboarded over 180 times within the span of a month. What did we get out of that:

In response to questions about [al-Qaeda’s] efforts to acquire [weapons of mass destruction], [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] revealed that he had met three individuals involved in [al-Qaeda’s] program to produce anthrax. He appears to have calculated, incorrectly, that we had this information already, given that one of the three — Yazid Sufaat — had been in foreign custody for several months.

Of course, it seems he gave that stuff up pretty easily. Somewhere into the torture phase he, surprise surprise, just started making shit up to get the torture to stop:

“I make up stories,” Mohammed said, describing in broken English an interrogation probably administered by the CIA concerning the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. “Where is he? I don’t know. Then, he torture me,” Mohammed said of his interrogator. “Then I said, ‘Yes, he is in this area.’ “

Unsurprisingly, the documents make the case that good-old, traditional “policework” style investigations gave us the most voluminous and best information:

For example, lists of names found on the computer [REDACTED] — a key [al-Qaeda] financial operative and facilitator for the 11 September attacks — seized in March 2003 represented [al-Qaeda] members who were to receive funds. Debriefers questioned detainees extensively on the names to determine who they were and how important they were to the organization. The information [REDACTED] helped us to better understand al-Qa’ida’s hierarchy, revenues, and expenditures, [REDACTED] as well as funds that were available to families.

What an astonishing outcome! Patrick Appel says it quite well:

“The documents are heavily redacted, but nothing we can read refers to torture techniques providing solid information…. It’s worth repeating that no one denies torture produces information. It produces loads of information, most of it bad. The same or better information can be collected through other techniques and, again, nothing in these documents compares and contrasts these methods.”

Tie all of this in with the GOP’s steadfast resistance to any investigation of said torture policies. Why, here’s favored mouthpiece Joe Lieberman doing the dirty-work of laying out the “we were only following orders!” fig-leaf:

These public servants must of course live within the law but they must also be free to do their dangerous and critical jobs without worrying that years from now a future Attorney General will authorize a criminal investigation of them for [their] behavior

My stars, what sort of country would it be if our public servants had to come to work each and every day with the nuisance of THE LAW hanging over their heads. We can’t have some sort of empirical reality getting in the way of whatever policy decisions we might need people to carry out. Next thing you know, they might start wanting to hold the President to the various laws of the land. Then just think of the mess we’d be in. It’s a slippery slope, I tells ya.

As Peggy Noonan so sagely advised us, re: G.W. Bush administration policy, enforcement of the law, and investigations of law-breaking activities:

“Sometimes in life you want to just keep walking… Sometimes, I think, just keep walking…. Some of life just has to be mysterious.”

Darkseid

Time reports what is essentially the only possible explanation for the sudden concern on the part of the as-yet-briefed:

[…] two former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there’s another equally plausible possibility: The program could have required the Agency to spy on Americans. Domestic surveillance is outside the CIA’s purview -– it’s usually the FBI’s job – and it’s easy to see why Cheney would have wanted to keep it from Congress. Both officials say they were never told what was in the program, and that they’re only making calculated guesses. But their theory gibes with other reports, quoting ex-CIA officials, that say the program had to do with intelligence collection, not assassinations.

Let’s face it, were it just some legally questionable assassination orders for high ranking al Qaeda folks operating, say, inside an ostensibly friendly country (er, Pakistan?) and carrying out said orders would be a violation of various treaties and maybe even a few international laws…there’d be no significant dust-up whatsoever over this. Instead, even GOPers apprised of the situation are well off their normal “partisan witch hunt!” game and actually showing some sober adult sides to themselves that Our Staff never knew existed. And, in fact, that sort of program would hold no real reason to order the CIA to keep it off the books.
The only possible explanation that rises to the occasion (and explains the barely concealed outrage at its outing) is that they were planning to engage in plainly illegal acts, which probably includes but is not limited to: wide scale surveillance of US citizens as well as clearance to execute same without prior authorization. There is no doubt in my mind that the details, should they ever emerge, will fall loosely along these lines. No other reason to conceal at this level. Even for Cheney, whose first impulse is always: conceal.

For far too long now, the CIA has been the go-to agency when illegal acts are called for. Time to shut that agency down. We have far, far too many agencies competing in the spying and secrets arena as it is. Clear the slate and start over with a single, well regulated, and clearly delineated agency. And, just to make this move politically realistic: put John McCain in charge of the panel that lays it all out.

Darkside (of the moon)

Lord Cheney of Darkside, until recently so endlessly ensconced in undisclosed locations now can’t seem to stop yapping; perhaps his long, silent sojourn on Moonbase Alpha has left him with lots to say. All of it apparently the kind of thing that you just can’t hope to get across in any meaningful way to Sandra Benes during long overnight bull-sessions. Among them was a shout-out to Rush, he of the positively delightful, drug addled romps with what will inevitably turn out to be 12 year old boys:

Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin [Powell] had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.

Rush, upon reading the statement (recall his oxycontin-abuse-induced deafness), returned the favor:

What motivates Dick Cheney? He doesn’t need the money. He has no further political ambitions. He is not hot for interns. He is not a torture freak. He knows that he is toxic and despised by the drive-by media and the Democrat party and the left in this country. “What motivation does Dick Cheney have to go out and say these things? Is it possible that Dick Cheney is motivated by national interest? Is it possible that Dick Cheney is motivated by love of and for his country? Is it possible that Dick Cheney is speaking from his heart and is not speaking politically?

Love of country? Let’s put on our Dr. Sean Maguire hats for a response: It is not an excuse. It is not an excuse. It is not an excuse. It is not an excuse. It is not an excuse.

Does anyone doubt (Godwin’s Law alert!) that Hitler loved his country? Or, are we meant to assume that the big H had it in for Germany all along? Can we then agree that it matters not what Cheney is thinking, or what he thinks he is accomplishing, or hoping to accomplish, but instead what really matters are the results of said thoughts? Actual outcome? Then can we just put the motherfucker in jail for the rest of his inexplicably long, evil-extended life span? I hear Noriega has a spare bunk and a lot on his mind.

I can eat 50 Hiroshimas

Yarr! Pirates attack and seize an oil tanker some 450 miles off East Africa. Despite the obvious and salutary effects on global warming, the steady growth in these pirate attacks has some wondering where it will all end. Some are already figuring these guys must have bigger operations in mind, like hijacking a gas tanker and blowing it up (or just selling it to somebody who will). Something like that would indeed be pretty bad:

“If it was an LNG tanker seized, we’re looking at something potentially catastrophic,” said Candyce Kelshall, a specialist in maritime energy security at Blue Water Defence, a Trinidad-based firm that provides training to governments and companies combating piracy. “An LNG tanker going up is like 50 Hiroshimas.”

We certainly don’t want that happening. Unmentioned, of course, are a few little details. First, said pirates would have to seize this LNG tanker without anyone noticing. Then, they’d have to sail it from the coast of East Africa (presumably, anyway…after all, these guys don’t exactly operate off Long Island Sound) to somewhere much more interesting. Without anyone noticing. Then they’d have to park it within a 50-Hiroshima blast radius of, say, a big city. New York City certainly suits with all the shipping traffic. LA would work too. But again: motor this ship up to and then park this ship in a major harbor without anyone noticing. Then they’d have to blow it up such that it actually exploded catastrophically. This, in and of itself, is actually a non-trivial step. However, conditioned by Hollywood as we are to expecting a colossal, city block flattening explosion after even the most minor fender-bender, this is perhaps the hardest point to make with the public. After all, it’s a well established fact that 99.999% of all elevators suffer catastrophic cable failure within 30 seconds of any unscheduled stop. This, of course, is also followed instantly by catastrophic emergency brake failure…it’s plainly a wonder that anyone survives an elevator ride.

Can we ever get past all the “We’re all going to die! This is the end of the Republic!” nonsense? The second most likely outcome of such a LNG tanker seizure is a 50-Hiroshima detonation way the hell and gone out to sea, being the result of a sailor pressing a button mid-coffee-sip on a US Navy missile cruiser located somewhere well over the horizon. The first most likely is, of course, the surrender of said pirates once their situation becomes clear to them. But either way works out pretty well.

Real security means focusing on the relatively easy to secure, already here type targets that can be turned into seemingly ubiquitous engines of fear, uncertainty, and doubt subsequent to the initial attack. As a rule, we don’t need to be wasting our efforts on the theoretical plots that require professional laboratory conditions aboard an airplane, or that rest upon ridiculously complex, multi-step, slowly evolving plots that, though summarily rejected by the audience in Die Hard 14: This Time It’s Really Personal, are at least 1% feasible…and thus MUST be defended against without consideration of expense or probability of said event while the 98% feasible targets languish because, gosh, that would require some minor outlay of money on the part of Cheney’s hunting buddies. Naturally, these “easy” targets are precisely the ones the Bush administration has repeatedly stressed that it could give a fuck about. Who could have expected that?