The guy that replaced Poppy at the CIA says Dick Cheney is the “vice president for torture. He condones torture, what else is he?”
The devastating accusations have been made by Admiral Stansfield Turner who labelled Dick Cheney “a vice president for torture”.
He said: “We have crossed the line into dangerous territory”.
The American Senate says torture should be banned – whatever the justification. But President Bush has threatened to veto their ruling.
The former spymaster claims President Bush is not telling the truth when he says that torture is not a method used by the US.
Speaking of Bush’s claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: “I do not believe him”.
On Dick Cheney he said “I’m embarrassed the United States has a vice president for torture.
“He condones torture, what else is he?”. link
No one believes Bush and Cheney. Nor should they.
Holy shit! I’m speechless.
all of the arguments ‘for’ impeachment that have been offered up, but perhaps the most compelling to me is that we need to show the world that America does NOT stand for this.
I am sick and fucking tired of travelling to other countries and having to pretend that I’m Canadian (no offense intended to Canadians…in fact, please take that as a compliment).
No apologies needed. Just so long as you know a little about our government and nuances. But seeing that you’re from Michigan, I’m confident in you.
I know quite a bit, actually…I grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. I could (literally!) see Soo Ontario from my bedroom window 🙂
My first thought as Susan said … shit. My second thought followed e … what’s going to happen? If this is it, if it’s going to come down to the Bush/Cheney for torture, and they’re going to veto senate rulings that attempt to stop torture, then what do the people do? Is this finally what pushes the people to say enough.
about. It doesn’t really lend itself to “nuances” or “frames.”
Like Mr. Danger bleated, you are either with (the US, which is defined by torture) or you are with the terrorists.
It has been going on for quite a while, and I don’t think it is likely that we will see a lot of Americans saying, well, I used to be all for torture, but now I’ve changed my mind.
Overall, I think if there are any fence-sitters, they will naturally want to “support their troops.”
Not to mention that those intended to benefit from the crusade are making money hand over fist.
thing is that we know they have rice pilaf and several kinds of chicken, and good desserts. Provided they have a good culturally sensitive meal, we don’t really care whether they are packed in cold ice or dry.
But this is where leadership comes in. When our leaders want to torture people they are inevitably going to get some support. But the support is minimal, and with a different message the people’s will against torture would be clearly expressed.
If we can see poll numbers dropping d/t all the other issues circling right now: dishonesty, Plame issue, FEMA/Katrina, etc., do you not think that something concrete about pro-torture wouldn’t have an impact?
I’m not sure I like the idea … in fact I know I don’t like it … that a majority of people in the US would not be sickened, disheartened, or angered by this.
And maybe it’s not so much that they were for torture, but that they chose not to be aware of it. (Not that that absolves them, mind you…)
It’s a sad commentary on how far our political integrity has fallen that the fact that Stansfield Turner was CIA Director under the Carter presidency by itself means that his statements now will find virtually no relevance in press except to the extent that the wingnuts ridicule him for all the Iranian shit that happened on his watch.
As for nobody believing Cheney, I think that’s true. But I think that for many, especially Repubs that somehow still, inexplicably, like Bush, these people really don’t think it’s important whether Cheney is truthful or not. They see it as him having to do whatever in order to support Bush, and if that means lying, so what. This is what I find most disturbing.
I completely agree that most of Cheney’s supporters don’t care if he’s truthful or not. I’ll go further – I read a recent poll (sorry, I don’t remember where) saying that something like 38% of Americans would support torture in that oft-cited, seldom occuring “ticking bomb” scenario. I posit that a significant percentage of Cheney’s supporters think torture is just fine, as long as it isn’t happening to them or anyone they care about.
scenario is a good one, for the pro-torture crowd. I try to keep in mind the Cheney support numbers of 19% and keep optimism alive.
You are right of course. There are many people throughout the world who support the idea of torture as a legitimate, even desirable method for dealing with one’s opponents. If circumstamnces were only slightly different, a reprehensible, repulsive creature like Cheney could command a vast array of brutal loyalists, making other megalomaniacal sadists like Hitler or Stalin or Pinochet or Pol Pot look like amateurs by comparison.
These are the creatures who determinedly retard mankind’s approach toward enlightenment. They revel in their false piety, their superiority, and the very existence of their sentiments contaminates the living world we inhabit.
A pox on them all.
The dynamic has changed drastically in just the last 24 hrs. First, the assault on Cheney from Scrowcroft in the New Yorker, now this.
Rumors of James Baker III and his henchmen about, Bush 41’s long standing ties to the CIA, Murtha on the attack, Kerry <cough> finally finding his balls, Fitzgerald turning the heat up, slowly and methodically flipping one low life after anotherwith the aid of unspecified “witnesses” voluntary information, Woody’s mea culpa, the plunging polls, Big Dog’s, 41’s newest, bestest friend, statements yesterday…Cheney’s toast.
Gone by Christmas…health reasons…or a massive heart attack…probably terminal.
The Bushco™ family machine is in full swing to cover it’s ass and McCain’s going to get his 15 minutes of fame. Jr will do as he is told, or failure to do so will likely result in impeachment, or an invocation of Amendment 25.
Karma’s a bitch, especilly when it runs over your dogma.
Great catch Boo!
Peace
the last 24 hours have been quite amazing, just part of quite an amazing turnaround in things like Democratic spines growing, Republicans failing to ram through bills that surely would have passed under DeLay, or been dropped under threat of Bush Veto (McCain anti-torture amendment.)
I will be so bold as to think those in the faith-based crowd are going to have a tough time as Bush’s numbers continue to plunge, approaching Cheney’s 19%, and they have to come up with actual reasons to support this illegal and immoral regime that has hijacked not only this country, but their Republican party. After all, Kool-Aid is better enjoyed with a crowd, without having to justify or explain, by waving a flag and trusting in what once was the party of smaller government and blaming everything wrong in their lives on the elites and evils of Hollywood and gays.
In 2000, I think the neocons thought they had the right person in the form of a true believer (Bush) who trusts those who he delegates the ultimate power (war) to (Cheney and Rumsfeld, and the whole WHIG and PNAC cabal).
Unfortunately for the large corporations and religious right (strange bedfellows they), I think the Iraq diversion is exposing the true cost of having our country run by those that don’t believe in government. While Katrina may be slipping from memory, the reality-based community is finally gaining the upper hand as the need for a federal government, properly funded, becomes apparent. Tax cuts to the richest 2% lead to state budget problems, and we need look no further than Grover Norquist’s latest project in Colorado of a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights going to down to defeat as a positive sign. It had all the proper framing, is in a right-leaning moderate state, which believes in smaller government. But the state voted against the bill, and I’m encouraged.
(Dana Milbank) Pelosi and Reid left Murtha with nobody at his back, nobody at his side. The dems cannot let the MSM frame this for them.
the Democratic Party has a ways to go on a unified Iraq front. It’s our issue to lead on, and we should be leading, not responding to the Republicans who most likely will begin pushing for a pullout in time for the 2006 midterms.
I was looking into Stansfield Turner and ended up following a link to the Wiki entry on MKULTRA, which began in 1953 and continued through the late 1960’s. It is chilling.
Just a reminder that America has a long and sordid history when you take a look at what has been kept secret from its citizens by its government. This all came out post-Watergate in the Church Committee hearings (at which Stansfield Turner testified). And, interestingly, the Church Committee came about as a result of an article by Seymour Hersh.
My only hope for the future at this point is that it is getting harder and harder to keep such things secret. However, that to a large extent relies on the power of the internet, and I think we are dangerously complacent in thinking that that cannot be taken away from us.
“My only hope for the future at this point is that it is getting harder and harder to keep such things secret. However, that to a large extent relies on the power of the internet, and I think we are dangerously complacent in thinking that that cannot be taken away from us.”-JS
Great point, Janet. Did you see that the internet servers are required to have back doors for surveilance?
Gov taking the internet away from us will be the equivalent of taking a bone from a dogs mouth.
I predict that all hell will break loose should such an event happen. What sort of hell? I don’t know. But for comparison, how long would our populace tolerate a no TV situation?
Bush Cheney= 100 years backward for USA
the courts with not only conservatives like Scalia, or hacks like Clarence Thomas, but those who want to turn us back to the 19th century like Roberts, Alito, Rodgers-Brown, etc.
James Baker puts the Carlyle interests first. That was part of the criticism against him acting as special envoy renegotiating the Iraq debt that his Financial Group benefits from. He’s a waybacker too.
As for Cheney, any idea if this story is actually true?
SCIENTIST’S DEATH HAUNTS FAMILY
I get the feeling it is….
Here’s another version of that situation with s few moe details.
The Secret Sharers
The CIA, the Bush Gang and the Killing of Frank Olson
From the link above on MKULTRA
I was a child and teenager when this was happening. Cheney’s one of the younger ones of the Bush I cabal. They think this shit is normal. They see themselves as “realistic” or “pragmatic.” They think the rest of us are dangerously naive and ignorant of how the world really works.
They’ve nearly perfected the psy-ops)public) to an art, haven’t they.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading through accounts of that dark time in our history. I think it sheds a new light on a lot of the torture situations, incorporates the real possibility that suicide bombers are not actually willing participants and even some odd domestic incidents that have happened.
People laugh at the idea but it wouldn’t take much more than a good, professional hypnotic suggestion to have a subject perceive a rigged vest to be something else and then remote detonation.
In the inhumanity of what’s happened to Maher Arar and others, they almost all report receiving injections during their captivity.
The biggest remaining risk is that they’re still in office.
And they think they’re smarter than everyone else because they’re the only ones who appreciate how things are really done.
I can’t help but think of Danny Casolaro.
This is the type of thing that sends shivers down my spine.
When I saw Janet’s comment on MKUltra it brought to mind the strong connection of the psy-ops, disinformation and several other programs these same guys were fond of. They just revived the technology, or actually, kept alive until they could use it again.
They’re seriously accumulating drug companies, genetic engineering, biometrics and patents for all of this.
I have no doubt they are implicated in many other curios coincidences of the recent past.
I think he was right and way ahead of his time on much of it. That was a powerful promis he chased.
When the wheels started coming off the wagon recently, there happened to be a story in the news about a giant octopus being discovered-killed, I think. It made me think of what he went through and maybe it might be taken down.
Glad to see others catching up with us. The minute Abu Gonzales was sworn in he became Pro-Torture Attorney General Gonzales. Lieberman is Protorture. I have stopped counting the proturture officals that apparently don’t represent us in DC. I wish Bush would just fucking out himself (the torturous bastard) and veto the bill if it includes McCains rider. WTF is this administration doing and who, at this point, do they represent? Do the far religious right Dobsonites support Torture? Do all the Millionairs that voted for Bush support Torture? The minute the US announces it’s Govt. won’t sign an ammendment that says we don’t or won’t torture is the minute the there are no rules in War and we will be known to the world forever as America the ProTorture Country. We will become the Terrorist overnight. We know that Bushco is already doing it..this will just confirm it. This will be the birth of many generations of terrorist to come. “Do as I say…not as I do” We are Fucked
The US crossed that line way before. Charlie Horman, Frank terrucci, were tortured and murdered in Chile while the CIA observed.
Sister Joan McCarthy who was trying to save a priest kidnapped and temporarily dissapeared went to the embassy and they called the cops on her. Ronni Moffitt blown to pices in DC and Daddy pardoned Bosch, while sonny si alowing Posadas to stay here for inmigration violations (both bragged of their success.
Truth be
told, every republican administration has been involved in torture and murder, and not even Americans have been spared.
Lets not forget.
I was certain impeachment was imminent when on Oct 26, an editorial with no byline graced the Washington Post:
Vice President of Torture
I lost count.
This is truly an extraordinary comment. It would be extraordinary enough in any context, but Turner is discussing the Vice President of a sitting administration, not someone out of office for a few decades.
Thirty to 35 years ago, the last page opinion column in Newsweek was written by Stewart Alsop (no alternating pundits then, Alsop ran every week). On one occasion, can’t remember which, he talked about some deteriorating situation and used the word “degringolade” to describe it. This is a French word for which there is no easy translation, IIRC Alsop described it as “a slitthery coming apart.” I suppose to get the full meaning of the term you should try to imagine a huge slag heap suddenly collapsing after many days of heavy rain; something of long-standing that seemed so solid and permanent simply disintegrating in such a way that you wondered how you could ever have failed to realize how precarious it was.
The slagheap that is the Bush Administration is now being pelted with Great Flood-like amounts of rain. The degringolade is coming, and when it happens we may find ourselves in the situation the French found themselves in 1958, and the citizens of the USSR in the period 1989-91.
We are seeing a rebellion by the elders of the National Security apparatus against those who are currently in control of the institutions they once led. It would seem the groundwork is being laid for the sort of sub rosa coup d’etat we prefer to the obvious kind.
I’m not surprised at these statements, but appalled none the less.
A couple of days ago a dressed up VP Cheney speaking at some dinner, takes Senators to task for accusing the administration of cooking the intelligence in the lead up to the war. The arrogance of this man and the others who surround GW, and the prez himself continue to bewilder me.
Correct me if I am wrong, but if this had occurred in the 50’s- the 70’s, wouldn’t most of this administration be in jail by now? Instead to a large number of fellow Americans, they have achieved folk hero status.
I wish someone would tell them, this is not a video game!
Don’t all of these same characters share involvement in the past? I’ve seen some references to Woodward and Pincus looking at hard at Bush41 when he had a pattern of unexplained or poorly explained absences as head of CIA. This was about the same time that he reportedly established a “B Team” within CIA and cultivated a good relationship with Congress so he had the trust to avoid scrutiny.
This falls in line with the beginning of Bush43 oil career, Bath’s financing and the oil deals in the Middle East…Harken, Arbusto,…Zapata was earlier maybe and actually 41’s.
Cheney grew up in Wyoming. Didn’t go to a town with more than 200.000 people till he was in his 20’s.
But he know all about…”what a dangerous world this is”.
He’s the danger in the world.