Did he?? Who were the people that he ordered the torture of and what was the torture exactly?
Personally ordered the torture of others?
Knowingly helped start a completely useless and unnecessary war which has killed perhaps a million people.
Love your revisionist history
ohh god...
lmao Cheney the patriot. I can see it now the "Cheney international airport" - in remembrance of a great war profiteer and exploiter - a true American.
Nope! I don't have any lens distorting my view. I see things the way they really are. Cheney, a flawed man he may be, is not a sadistic tyrant or evil man that the far-feft portrays him as.
Cheney isn't going to hell, Satan doesn't want the competition.People who are as blind as you and tell people they aren't are frightening.
He intentionally manipulated the wacky christians and the gay haters to vote for them so they could steal some minerals from two of the most mineral rich pieces of dirt in the whole world
good luck.. maybe you can Cheney can hang out in hell together
People who are as blind as you and tell people they aren't are frightening.
He intentionally manipulated the wacky christians and the gay haters to vote for them so they could steal some minerals from two of the most mineral rich pieces of dirt in the whole world
good luck.. maybe you can Cheney can hang out in hell together
I wonder how many of the people here would be as critical of Cheney had he and the rest of the Bush administration not been so successful in averting further attacks after 9/11.
Suppose they did nothing more than Bill Clinton did. And another attack came, with even more loss of life. Then another. And another.
Would you have refrained from blame? Would you have said, they did the right thing by doing nothing? How many attacks before you changed your tune?
Cheney saw the threat clearly and did not waver in addressing it. If he were a different man he could have asked OBL to forgive America for being America. He could have offered appeasement and exposed the soft underbelly of our population centers to our enemies' mercy. He could have collapsed into self-doubt as so many that post here have.
But he didn't. There was a lot of catch up to do after the Clinton era. But neither Bush not Cheney wasted years nor made unending excuses blaming Clinton as Obama does now, reveling in pointing backwards while making his own monumental errors.
Mistakes were made in strategy and tactics but history will judge results and the result is that for the remainder of the two Bush terms no other attack was made on U.S. soil and a formerly dictatorial and genocidal (rape rooms and poison gas attacks anyone?) country in one of the most volatile regions of the planet is now on the way to joining the march toward a better world.
Cheney did a lot with his life before he became VP. His life was one of great achievements rather than the caricatures his enemies would prefer he be remembered by.
I will also note that he is an extraordinarily personable guy with a great sense of humor. He was someone that had and exercised great power and influence, yet someone that did not do so for his own gain. How many politicians can you say that about?
Those of you with such a strong distaste for what happened should consider with brilliant hindsight how you might have acted differently. But for all the mistakes mortal men make, there are a few that we should be grateful stood firmly, and Dick Cheney is such a guy.
I wonder how many of the people here would be as critical of Cheney had he and the rest of the Bush administration not been so successful in averting further attacks after 9/11.
Suppose they did nothing more than Bill Clinton did. And another attack came, with even more loss of life. Then another. And another.
Cheney saw the threat clearly and did not waver in addressing it. If he were a different man he could have asked OBL to forgive America for being America. He could have offered appeasement and exposed the soft underbelly of our population centers to our enemies' mercy. He could have collapsed into self-doubt as so many that post here have.
But he didn't. There was a lot of catch up to do after the Clinton era. But neither Bush not Cheney wasted years nor made unending excuses blaming Clinton as Obama does now, reveling in pointing backwards while making his own monumental errors.
Mistakes were made in strategy and tactics but history will judge results and the result is that for the remainder of the two Bush terms no other attack was made on U.S. soil and a formerly dictatorial and genocidal (rape rooms and poison gas attacks anyone?) country in one of the most volatile regions of the planet is now on the way to joining the march toward a better world.
I will also note that he is an extraordinarily personable guy with a great sense of humor. He was someone that had and exercised great power and influence, yet someone that did not do so for his own gain. How many politicians can you say that about?
Those of you with such a strong distaste for what happened should consider with brilliant hindsight how you might have acted differently. But for all the mistakes mortal men make, there are a few that we should be grateful stood firmly, and Dick Cheney is such a guy.
You left out the part where Cheney was a war hero in Viet Nam. The stupid fuck had no problem, though, sending others to their deaths. Funny how somebody folk on the right would call a fucking worthless turd coward can become an American hero to the same brain dean scum by playing on their xenophobic fears. Cheney is a puss sack.
Personally ordered the torture of others?
Did he?? Who were the people that he ordered the torture of and what was the torture exactly?
Cheney OK'd harsh CIA tactics
December 16, 2008|Greg Miller, Miller is a writer in our Washington bureau.
WASHINGTON Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely.
Cheney's remarks on Guantanamo appear to put him at odds with President Bush, who has expressed a desire to close the prison, although the decision is expected to be left to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
Cheney's comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding.
"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared," Cheney said in an interview with ABC News.
Asked whether he still believes it was appropriate to use the waterboarding method on terrorism suspects, Cheney said: "I do."
His comments come on the heels of disclosures by a Senate committee showing that high-level officials in the Bush administration were intimately involved in reviewing and approving interrogation methods that have since been explicitly outlawed and that have been condemned internationally as torture.
Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney said, the CIA "in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."
Waterboarding involves strapping a prisoner to a tilted surface, covering his face with a towel and dousing it to simulate the sensation of drowning.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said that the agency used the technique on three Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. But the practice was discontinued when lawyers from the Department of Justice and other agencies began backing away from their opinions endorsing its legality.
Cheney has long defended the technique. But he has not previously disclosed his role in pushing to give the CIA such authority.
Cheney's office is regarded as the most hawkish presence in the Bush administration, pushing the White House toward aggressive stances on the invasion of Iraq and the wiretapping of U.S. citizens.
I wonder how many of the people here would be as critical of Cheney had he and the rest of the Bush administration not been so successful in averting further attacks after 9/11.
Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US
The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 10, 2005
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.
But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.
The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."
The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.
Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.
A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.
"We had a lot of information about threats," said the spokeswoman, Laura J. Brown. "But we didn't have specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures."
She added: "After 9/11, the F.A..A. and the entire aviation community took bold steps to improve aviation security, such as fortifying cockpit doors on 6,000 airplanes, and those steps took hundreds of millions of dollars to implement."
The report, like previous commission documents, finds no evidence that the government had specific warning of a domestic attack and says that the aviation industry considered the hijacking threat to be more worrisome overseas.
"The fact that the civil aviation system seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security is striking not only because of what happened on 9/11 but also in light of the intelligence assessments, including those conducted by the F.A.A.'s own security branch, that raised alarms about the growing terrorist threat to civil aviation throughout the 1990's and into the new century," the report said.
In its previous findings, including a final report last July that became a best-selling book, the 9/11 commission detailed the harrowing events aboard the four hijacked flights that crashed on Sept. 11 and the communications problems between civil aviation and military officials that hampered the response. But the new report goes further in revealing the scope and depth of intelligence collected by federal aviation officials about the threat of a terrorist attack.
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction."
Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said.
Still, the 9/11 commission concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem.
"Throughout 2001, the senior leadership of the F.A.A. was focused on congestion and delays within the system and the ever-present issue of safety, but they were not as focused on security," the report said.
The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give up revenues by providing free seats to marshals.
The F.A.A. also made no concerted effort to expand their list of terror suspects, which included a dozen names on Sept. 11, the report said. The former head of the F.A.A.'s civil aviation security branch said he was not aware of the government's main watch list, called Tipoff, which included the names of two hijackers who were living in the San Diego area, the report said.
Nor was there evidence that a senior F.A.A. working group on security had ever met in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer," the report said.
Jane F. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator at the time, told the commission "that she was aware of the heightened threat during the summer of 2001," the report said. But several other senior agency officials "were basically unaware of the threat," as were senior airline operations officials and veteran pilots, the report said.
The classified version of the commission report quotes extensively from circulars prepared by the F.A.A. about the threat of terrorism, but many of those references have been blacked out in the declassified version, officials said.
Several former commissioners and staff members said they were upset and disappointed by the administration's refusal to release the full report publicly.
"Our intention was to make as much information available to the public as soon as possible," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Sept. 11 commission member.
Your mercifully EX-Traitor In Chief
You're talking about a guy who shot someone in the face, and that guy ended up apologizing to him for getting in the way.
Your mercifully EX-Traitor In Chief was in the direct chain of command
ordering waterboarding and other "ehnanced" interrogation methods. You don't have to take my word for it. Cheney admitted it.
Don't even think about trying to defend waterboarding or claiming it isn't torture. It is,
and it has long been established that the Bushwhackos' goons didn't restrict their torture to that one method of inflicting torture.
I know you take this very seriously, but if there haven't been any prosecutions or war crimes trials by this time they ain't going to happen.
I know you take this very seriously, but if there haven't been any prosecutions or war crimes trials by this time they ain't going to happen.
In fact, for all of the rhetoric, I don't see the prosecution of war being all that much different under Obama. The biggest practical difference as best as I can see is that he just spends a lot of time embarrasing the country by kow towing when he should be walking proud.
I hope Cheney survives at least long enough to be tried and convicted for his crimes.
LOL, a long response that responds to nothing, Mr. Cat.
If you don't believe we are engaged in a war, nothing I say will convince you by now.
If you don't believe our enemies will do what they can to destroy us, nothing I say will convince you by now.
If you don't believe we are safer with our enemies fearing us than laughing at us, nothing I say will convince you by now.
If you don't believe our people, our culture, our way of life, our traditions have any value worth preserving, nothing I say will convince you by now.
If you believe this country is no better than the totalitarian regimes and Islamic extremists we have opposed, nothing I say will convince you by now.
If you so distrust the judgment and the actions of those who have the responsibility for protecting us, nothing I say will convince you by now.
As you have swallowed the leftish political line, hook and sinker, nothing I say will convince you by now.
You really are better off grabbing hold of that four leaf clover for dear life.
Myself, I'd rather take a different stand just in case your magical four leaf clover doesn't quite have the power you think it does.
Is that it?? Waterboarding? Well, cry me a frickin river. The US has been waterboarding its own soldiers for years and there was never a peep out of you bleeding-hearted limp-wristed lefties over it. Then when three terrorists scumbags undergo the procedure you moonbats get all weepy and outraged about it. And I will say it, the waterboarding technique used by the US is not torture.