Norah O'Donnell slaps down Liz Cheney over the use of torture, what is 'torture' and her father's role in it
By John Amato Thursday Apr 23, 2009 2:00pmYou can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!
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Norah brings up the timeline and points out that it was her father who signed on to it earlier than most and wonders if he pushed the OLC to approve these measure. Liz Cheney tries to use the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape as a justification that "enhanced methods" aren't really torture because our troops were trained in this manner and it's denigrating to them to say otherwise. Huh? Now, we're against the troops again?
She also uses the yet-to-be-substantiated Republican Talking Point that we got a lot of useful intel from torturing. E-mailer Margaret writes in:
In the first place, how does Liz Cheney know we got valuable information? Did she have the same clearance as the Pres and the VP? Beyond that, her rationale for torture, not being torture, because what we do to our own service people isn't torture, is making my head
L. CHENEY: (W)hat you're doing is reading headlines and talking about direction of lawyers, which is a very different thing. And there's no assertion that that's what went on. The lawyers' opinions were sought in order to make sure that the program that the CIA ran stayed within the law. And the lawyers did a very responsible and professional job of laying out exactly what were the limits of how far we could go. And that is precisely what makes it so damaging that these memos have now been released.
O'DONNELL: Listen to yourself – listen to yourself, Liz, "how far we could go."
L. CHENEY: That's right.
O'DONNELL: How far could we go with detainees? I mean, how far could we... Torture them in order to get information?
L. CHENEY: How far – no. For how many minutes you could ask them certain kind of questions. How many...
(CROSSTALK)
L. CHENEY: I'm sorry, it's very, very important point.
O'DONNELL: It's a very important point.
L. CHENEY: It is a very important point.
O'DONNELL: The Geneva Convention were established...
L. CHENEY: Norah, there is nothing...
O'DONNELL: ... to protect our men and women in the military. So that America would be a beacon in the world so when our men and women are captured overseas that they would not be tortured. We would never want our people to...
L. CHENEY: Norah, are you going to give me a chance to answer your question?
O'DONNELL: Let me finish my point.
L. CHENEY: I get your point, Norah, but the point is – no, Norah, wait a second...
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: ... America no longer cares about torture?
L. CHENEY: That's not what the world is hearing, Norah. First of all...
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: .. and if gets valuable information, then OK, we're for it. Is that the message they send?
L. CHENEY: Norah, that may be what you're saying, but that's not what I'm saying.
O'DONNELL: OK.
L. CHENEY: What I'm saying that is there were a series of tactics, a series of techniques that had all been done to our own people. We did not torture our own people, these techniques are not torture. The memos laid out...
O'DONNELL: Did we torture other people?
L. CHENEY: No.
O'DONNELL: You just said, we did not torture our own people.
L. CHENEY: Therefore, the tactics are not torture. We did not torture. The memos laid out the extent of exactly how far we could go before it would become torture, because it was important we not cross that line into torture.
Cheney just wanted to be like Pol Pot, I guess:
Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.
The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.
And as Digby writes:
It shouldn't have taken any warnings. You don't have to be an expert to know that there is a huge difference between having your own people train you to withstand these techniques and using them on prisoners.Marcy gives the shorter Liz Cheney: "I'm proud my daddy is the prime mover of torture." Full transcript below the fold: NORAH O'DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Also, there may be some new information today on who signed off on tough tactics to question terrorists. The Senate Intelligence Committee now says Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice helped direct a small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing these harsh interrogation practices. Also, Rice gave the first verbal OK for the use of waterboarding in July 2002.
And you don't have to be a historian to figure out that malevolent torture techniques have been considered poisonous and evil by civilized people for quite some time now. (That nobody even bothered to find out where these techniques came from is just another example of the "Brownification" of the US Government under the idiot Republicans.) It was bloodlust, plain and simple. They gave themselves permission to become barbarians.
That we now have even more proof they consciously sent these SERE techniques to Iraq to "Gitmoize" it --- a country which we invaded under false pretenses and which had not attacked us first --- takes these crimes to yet another level. If nothing else, allowing a bunch of low level grunts to pay the price while the men and women who gave the orders publicly pretended they were appalled at the behavior they themselves had sanctioned, makes all arguments that these leaders shouldn't be held accountable completely untenable.
Liz Cheney is a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration and the daughter of the former vice president, Dick Cheney.
Liz, good to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.
LIZ CHENEY, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks, Norah. Good to be here.
O'DONNELL: Did the former vice president, Dick Cheney, was he the prime mover behind directing this small group of Justice Department lawyers to come up with an authorization for these harsh tactics?
L. CHENEY: That's actually not what the document says that you're referring to. There's absolutely no question that this was a program that was widely approved and supported within the administration. I think there's no secret here that the National Security Council reviewed the program. The National Security Council ensured that it had legal approval before going forward with these techniques.
But I want to go back to one thing we heard the attorney general say, Norah, which I found troubling. He said that he had not seen the memos or any memos talking about the effectiveness of this program. And I think it's very important for people to ask the question, had the president, before President Obama made the decision to release the tactics and the techniques, had nobody reviewed the effectiveness of the program? Had his attorney general and the president himself looked at whether in fact these programs had gained intelligence that was critical for saving -- for the security of the nation?
O'DONNELL: Well Liz, we'll get to that argument in a minute, about do the means justify the ends. Whether torture justifies...
L. CHENEY: Well, it wasn't torture, Norah, so that's not the right way to lay out the argument.
O'DONNELL: OK.
L. CHENEY: Everything done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SEER training and that our own people have gone through for many years. So it's really – does a fundamental disservice to those professionals who are conducting this very effective program and to those people who approved the program in order to keep this nation safe and prevent attacks through the program to call it torture.
O'DONNELL: Liz, the CIA, on its own after 2005, stopped waterboarding on its own. The U.S. prosecuted people for waterboarding after World War II.
So to suggest there's a consensus out there that waterboarding is not torture is not in fact accurate.
L. CHENEY: No, I think it is accurate. There were three people who were waterboarded. And two of those people are people who gave us incredibly important and useful information, information that saved American lives after they were waterboarded. Both Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah.
And I would just refer your viewers to the really important op-ed piece that Mike Hayden and Attorney General Mukasey wrote laying out why this program worked, why it was effective and what damage has now been done to our national security by releasing the tactics of this program (ph).
O'DONNELL: Well, the current director of the national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said this about those particular memos, he says this, quote, "the information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances. But there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means."
We have a full screen of this – no, let me, I want to put this full screen up, because this is very important. Could we please get this up on the screen?
L. CHENEY: It is important, Norah, but let me comment to that.
O'DONNELL: The bottom line – the bottom line is that these techniques have hurt our image around the world.
L. CHENEY: Norah, I'm sure you know...
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: ... director says that the damage that has done has far outweighed any information that was gleaned. And in fact, there is a disagreement about whether other tactics other than waterboarding could have gotten valuable information.
L. CHENEY: Norah, I'm sure you know that actually the first statement that DNI Blair put out internally acknowledged the incredible effectiveness of these programs and acknowledged that very important intelligence had been gained. And that it was only after the White House got a hold of the statement, edited the statement, censored it I would say, and put it out publicly that his language changed.
So I think this is another instance where people need to take a very close look at the fact you've had four former CIA directors talk about how effective this program is and why memos should not have been released, and the fact that DNI Blair changed his assessment of the program should raise some questions in people's minds.
O'DONNELL: I want to get back again – we can debate this, but I want to get back to specifically, what role the vice president had in directing lawyers to authorize these memos. Was it from the vice president's office, Dick Cheney, who said to those men -- John Hugh (ph), Jay Bibby (ph)– we need to come up with a way to interrogate these al Qaeda suspects after 9/11? Why doesn't he own up to the fact that he was the prime mover behind that?
L. CHENEY: Norah, there was no direction of lawyers from the vice president. That's not how this process worked. And I think that you can look at exactly how the process worked, which is, the CIA said we have Abu Zubaydah and we think he's got important information that further attacks are imminent and therefore, we need to know what we can do.
And the National Security Council met and discussed this. This is actually all laid out in Senator Rockefeller's timeline, which doesn't say what you're alleging that it says, which makes clear that the questions laid out to OlC were, what's possible and when. And if you've read the memos, in fact, that were released, you'll see that they were very, very careful in laying out exactly what could be done and for exactly how long.
So the notion...
O'DONNELL: Well, let me put that up on the screen, because we do have that and that's the first full screen that I was going to get to, which is the Cheney and Rice signed off on these interrogations. Very first graphic...
(CROSSTALK)
L. CHENEY: But Norah, what you're doing is reading a headline – but Norah, you're reading a headline from an A.P. story or McClatchy story. That's not what the document itself says.
Now, I think it's very important, however, to be clear...
O'DONNELL: The Senate Intelligence lays out that in those initial meetings were the vice president..
L. CHENEY: Absolutely.
O'DONNELL: ... the national security adviser...
L. CHENEY: That's absolutely right.
O'DONNELL: ... Powell, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were not in those initial meetings. So if those were that small group of people, why won't you say that the vice president was one of the prime movers in..
(CROSSTALK)
L. CHENEY: There's no question that the vice president of the United States supported the program, as did the national security adviser, as did the secretary of state, as did the attorney general, as did the entire National Security Council. There is nobody who has been clearer about being out there saying this is a good program, this saved American lives than the vice president. So there's nothing about owning up here, because this was a good program and people are very proud of what we've accomplished.
Now setting aside that, what you're doing is reading headlines and talking about direction of lawyers, which is a very different thing. And there's no assertion that that's what went on. The lawyers' opinions were sought in order to make sure that the program that the CIA ran stayed within the law. And the lawyers did a very responsible and professional job of laying out exactly what were the limits of how far we could go. And that is precisely what makes it so damaging that these memos have now been released.
O'DONNELL: Listen to yourself – listen to yourself, Liz, "how far we could go."
L. CHENEY: That's right.
O'DONNELL: How far could we go with detainees? I mean, how far could we... Torture them in order to get information?
L. CHENEY: How far – no. For how many minutes you could ask them certain kind of questions. How many...
(CROSSTALK)
L. CHENEY: I'm sorry, it's very, very important point.
O'DONNELL: It's a very important point.
L. CHENEY: It is a very important point.
O'DONNELL: The Geneva Convention were established...
L. CHENEY: Norah, there is nothing...
O'DONNELL: ... to protect our men and women in the military. So that America would be a beacon in the world so when our men and women are captured overseas that they would not be tortured. We would never want our people to...
L. CHENEY: Norah, are you going to give me a chance to answer your question?
O'DONNELL: Let me finish my point.
L. CHENEY: I get your point, Norah, but the point is – no, Norah, wait a second...
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: ... America no longer cares about torture?
L. CHENEY: That's not what the world is hearing, Norah. First of all...
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: .. and if gets valuable information, then OK, we're for it. Is that the message they send?
L. CHENEY: Norah, that may be what you're saying, but that's not what I'm saying.
O'DONNELL: OK.
L. CHENEY: What I'm saying that is there were a series of tactics, a series of techniques that had all been done to our own people. We did not torture our own people, these techniques are not torture. The memos laid out...
O'DONNELL: Did we torture other people?
L. CHENEY: No.
O'DONNELL: You just said, we did not torture our own people.
L. CHENEY: Therefore, the tactics are not torture. We did not torture. The memos laid out the extent of exactly how far we could go before it would become torture, because it was important we not cross that line into torture.
As General Hayden and Attorney General Mukasey laid out, the problem is that now we've said to our enemies, look, this is exactly how far we're g going to go. So our enemies, who we know read this stuff online, will now train to be able to withstand that.
Now, setting that aside, this argument about the Geneva Conventions, in terms of the – you know, this idea that somehow al Qaeda abides by the Geneva Conventions. If al Qaeda captures an American, they cut his head off. So I think it's very important for us to sort of take a step back from the emotion of this and say we needed to be able to get evidence about imminent attacks.
We knew these guys had information, the information that was provided saved American lives, and the techniques were not torture. And I think it's important for the American people to be able to see the entire argument laid out.
O'DONNELL: OK. Liz Cheney, stay with us, because we're going to have much more not only about these particular harsh interrogation memos that some people are calling torture memos, whether the vice president will participate, will testify before a truth commission, and the future of the Republican Party. We've got a lot more coming up right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The world outside there, both our friends and our foes, will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they think they're dealing with a weak president or one who's not going to stand up and aggressively defend America's interests.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Back with us is Liz Cheney, she, of course, the former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration and the daughter of the former vice president, Dick Cheney.
All right, Liz, did the vice president just call the president a weak president?
L. CHENEY: I think that he is concerned that some of the things that we've seen President Obama do, particularly on his overseas trip, in terms of not taking the opportunity to stand up and defend America when Daniel Ortega delivers a 50-minute screed against the United States...
O'DONNELL: Is that really appropriate, though, to call the current sitting president weak?
L. CHENEY: I think what he said is you begin to look weak and there's a danger if our enemies think we are weak. I think it's important to be very precise about what he said.
But I there's a real concern. I mean the message that we saw coming out of the last few foreign trips, you know, set aside republican and democrat, as an American, it concerns me when I've got a president who doesn't stand up and say, wait a minute. You know, I'm going to defend the United States of America because we are the beacon of hope for people all around the world.
O'DONNELL: He didn't said he wasn't going to defend America.
L. CHENEY: He didn't do it though, Norah. He didn't do it. He stood up after Ortega attacked the nation, attacked our policies for the last 40 years, and President Obama said, well, look I was only three months old.
Now, you know, that's not the kind of strong defense of the nation that I'd like to see.
O'DONNELL: Let me read to you what the former president, George W. Bush, said on March 17th in Calgary. He said, quote, "I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him," talking about President Obama. "There are plenty of critics in the arena. He deserves my silence."
So Liz, what are you doing here? What's the vice president doing?
L. CHENEY: Well, the vice president thinks it's very important when you see the country begin to go down paths that are concerning and dangerous, and when you see the current administration making decisions that really do have the potential to make us less safe, in those circumstances, I would say the vice president doesn't' think that there's an obligation to be silent. In fact, I think he believes the opposite, which is that there's an obligation to stand up and say, wait a second. You know, there are important reasons why we put policies in place. They clearly kept us safe for seven years.
And it's very important as this administration now begins to dismantle some of those things, that the public, you know, understand and have the ability to have a debate about what direction we're going to go in.
O'DONNELL: The latest former vice president's approval ratings, Cheney, favorable, 21 percent, unfavorable 58 percent.
Is it possible that the American people have already made a judgment about whose right on this issue? They voted for change, they don't agree with your point of view, with your father's point of view?
L. CHENEY: You know, I think – obviously, they voted for change. I think there are lot of reasons why the republicans lost this election. I do think that the Republican Party needs to do some rebuilding.
But I think that all of that is domestic politics and poll numbers.
And I think that we are at a crossroads as a nation. We're at a moment where we can either remember that we're at war and remember that there are people out there who really would like to do us great damage and great harm and keep those policies in place that have kept us safe, or we go back to treating this like a law enforcement matter.
And I think when you're dealing with issues that are of that grave importance, spending a lot of time looking at poll numbers is irresponsible.
O'DONNELL: Well, the former vice president is now calling the sitting vice president essentially a weak president. That he's concerned he's going -- he said essentially said he's worried that he's no longer going to ask terrorists tough questions, which I'm sure our men and women are going to ask terrorists tough questions.
L. CHENEY: The question is, Norah....
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: ... answer the questions, I think that's the question.
(CROSSTALK)
O'DONNELL: ... did Vice President Cheney get permission from President Bush to speak out like this?
L. CHENEY: He doesn't need permission. But we were just watching...
O'DONNELL: Do they talk regularly?
L. CHENEY: They do.
But let me say one thing. We were just watching Attorney General Holder, and he made a very important point. He talked about the task forces that have been set up to review interrogation techniques. And this is one of the things that's so concerning about the release of these legal memos and it's another thing General Hayden points out.
President Obama said to his National Security Council, you tell me whether or not the tactics in the Army Field Manual are sufficient and you report back to me about whether those are sufficient to protection the nation.
And they haven't reported back yet. That is underway. That review is underway. And in the meantime, we have released the information about what other tactics are.
So it's really a situation where there's, you know, the president has not only tied his own hands, but he's tied potentially the hands of all future presidents by putting this material out before he himself even knew whether his task force was going to tell him, yes, you need those tactics.
O'DONNELL: Well, the Senate Armed Services Committee came out with a report yesterday. And the chairman of that committee, Carl Levin, said essentially, there's a direct link between what happened in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. That these types of interrogation practices led to what we saw at Abu Ghraib. And I think there's been a pretty general agreement across the world that what happened at Abu Ghraib was despicable.
L. CHENEY: Absolutely what happened at Abu Ghraib is despicable. What Senator Levin is saying and the report that you've mentioned, clearly you've heard republican members of Congress and republican senators on TV all day today pointing out that that was a partisan report.
So, Abu Ghraib was despicable, the people that did those things are being prosecuted and have been prosecuted and punished. That is not the CIA interrogation program. That was a situation in which people were doing things that were clearly against the law and they shouldn't have been doing. And it's a very convenient thing for, you know, Democrats in Congress and people who are trying to sort of make partisan attacks here to point Abu Ghraib. I think we all should be able to say we agree that was a crime and that was despicable. And that's not part of this current debate.
O'DONNELL: Well, the question is whether that led – some of those -- opening the door to those harsh interrogation tactics led to a misunderstanding that happened at Abu Ghraib.
We're going to have much more with Liz Cheney...
L. CHENEY: But I don't think there's any evidence that it did, by the way.
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But it's still a steaming pile of horse-shit.
Gays and lesbians are making great strides. They're in the military and getting legally married, so why not torture apologists too? The Rainbow marches on.
Fab-U-Lus ! ! !
MARY Cheney is a lesbian. Not Liz, the Cheney daughter featured. But whatever daughter it is, I haven't seen Republican children all over the media like this (Meghan McCain is the other) since Julie Nixon Eisenhower. But then, her father had to resign and then was pardoned by his Republican successor, Ford. It will be interesting to see if what comes out about Cheney surpasses what Nixon did ...
Doh!!!
Why did she even go on the show? We see her dad out there spewing crap about once a week and now she has decided to join him? I doubt if there are more than five people who would put any stock in anything she has to say.
Liz cheney said it, so it must be true. Her father said the same thing so it must be true. Two cheneys don't make a right.
Good for Norah for keeping her on a tight leash during that interview.
Alqueada,9-11, Anthrax: the BOOGIE MAN
Who did know Alqueada before 9-11?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2NRsRnrYZg&fe...
"Two Cheneys don't make a right"!
Good one, pop!
I witnessed this interview today and this just lends further truth to the continuing body of fact that lying seems to run in the Cheney family.
Are we sure that Liz Cheney and Sean Hannratty aren't the same person???
If karma plays any role in our lives then somehow she'll end up as the final detainee at Gitmo.
Liz Cheney defends her old man, Dickless, like a real moron.
I remember when Lynne Cheney wanted to take out a file on all college professors who opposed the war on Iraq, too. This entire Cheney family is comprised of ghouls.
The Cheney's are modern day vampires who do not mind sucking the blood right out of other humans...Not to mention that Dick Cheney is a killer himself and like Charles Manson belong behind bars....
The Manson Family = The Cheney Family = The Bush Family
These families are all Satan-like cult killers with a following.
Add this interview to what Miss McCain said on The View today and you might be able to start a female republican cat fight.
She has two arguments in her rant. The first is that the documents laid out the limits before it is considered torture. That is not true. The documents make no such claim. And just because the word "torture" is not used, does not make it less than torture. We prosecuted Japanese for waterboarding!!
Her second argument is that al Qaeda does not follow the Geneva Convention so we do not have to. We are a nation of laws that apply to everyone. Just because an enemy does not follow the Convention does not mean we should sink down to their level. We denigrate ourselves when we do.
And I would really like to know how many times it worked and what information was received. I doubt it was that successful. I think they are just playing a BS hand.
The reason our troops go through the SERE training is to learn how to combat the TORTURE techniques our enemies might use on them if captured.
This is sad, when righties advocate torture, they are spitting on freedom....Again, this INVITES the enemy in war to torture US POWs..
In the words Dr Martin Luther King,
'Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everwhere'
"We did not torture our own people."
But don't worry- they'll eventually get around to torture us....
"argument," which is really just typically intellectually dishonest false logic intended to obfuscate, is that since we used these well-known torture techniques in a controlled and reduced way to train our soldiers (certain soldiers) in how to deal with them, that they're not torture.
THe fact that she can string a coherent sentence together indicating a probably IQ above 60 means she KNOWS she's spewing absolute bullshit, meaning she's just completely morally bankrupt.
Like father, like daughter, two lying sacks of shit.
She's trying to make the argument that some of our troops are put through training in which they experience some of these techniques. And since we don't torture our own people, how can these techniques be torture? Talk about "tortured" logic.
The flaw in her argument is that this training is equivalent to the torture our military has employed on prisoners. Until someone shows me that our military waterboarded an American trainee 183 times I will remain dubious.
The other flaw is her ignorant failure to recognize that our troops go through TORTURE training so that they can resist and make it through REAL TORTURE if they are unfortunately subjected to it. The fact that SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) exists proves that the techniques ARE in fact TORTURE.
Why would anyone need to know how to Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape "non-torture"?!
Exactly. The SERE program is designed to help our soldiers resist...Here it comes...TORTURE!! Jesus Christ. How can you make the argument that it is not torture when you use the same techniques to prepare soldiers for torture. Mind boggling stuff here.
PLEEEEEZE!!! you can't be that gullible in the world of HITLER/Goebels, owned, corporate, PROPAGANDA!!
According to the repig talking point, we only use "enhanced techniques" that we use for training our own military. There have been reports of detainees at Abu Graib having been beaten to death during interrogation. So it begs the question; exactly how many US military trainees have suffered the same fate?
Why is Liz Cheney being interviewed on what she thinks? WTF does she know about whats going on? Nothing thats what. The MSM should be going through these documents and helping the American people understand whats going on. There should be legal experts, eyewitnesses and history scholars explaining why waterboarding is torture, the reasons why it's illegal etc...
Checkers is exhumed from the pet cemetery to discuss the Obama's ill conceived choice of family pet.
I guess it's not a shock when you consider the genetics and environment of this person, but she's making arguments that didn't stand up even before the documents were released ("it's not torture"????).
Uou gotta love it when you hear the Right's talking heads go on and on about "saving lives" and "they are chopping our heads off." Aren't these people supposed to be followers of that jewish carpenter guy? If Bill Clinton can be impeached for getting blow jobs and changing the definition of sex, and the entire Republican party can carry on and on about that, what's it say when the same people are ok with torturing people? Do they understand that this is not a video game?
Weren't the Geneva Conventions signed during Eisenhower? Didn't we execute Japanese generals who did the same or even less? Did we learn or better yet remember anything from WWII? And when the hell is Obama gonna stand up for the rule of law and for the decency and integrity of America?
I'm getting fuckin sick of this already.
Congress should be doing its job.
The wingnut xian cult is based on Old Testament torture and death. They thrive on the idea of punishment and smiting of their enemies (i.e. everyone but them). It's the only thing that makes their knickers moist.
and submit to being waterboarded, to see that it is indeed torture?
LC was NOT going to let Nora talk without interrupting. Typical fucking filibustering asshole republican.
HATE these people.
Arrogant, obnoxious, rude, ignorant- the Republicans are walking charactures, spitting images of the most negative sterotypes of Americans held abroad
Oh hell yeah it's torture and I would love it if these holier than thous would stop trying to treat all human beings like we're ignorant!
The actions of these a**hats has made it clear to the world that we no longer care that our sons or daughters will be tortured in the future if they are captured.
Prosecute those who've signed on to this!!!
Who in the hell is she to speak on this subject? And Nora O'Donnell, the tool, is getting righteously angry? Who knew? OH, LOOK! Flying pigs!
my she is a good mouthpiece for the party of torture. she talks over the facts as the host speaks them. she hits all the talking points. and states ingnorance with conviction. daddy must be proud. but i have to wonder, other than the fact that her dad could be in a bit of trouble over all this, someone tell me why she is the athority speaking on this subject?
Liz Cheney tries to use the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape as a justification that "enhanced methods" aren't really torture because our troops were trained in this manner and it's denigrating to them to say otherwise.
this argument is the epitome of speciousness, or utter intellectual dishonesty.
The soldiers were subjected to SERE training to prepare them to face fucking TORTURE. It was assumed that our enemies would do to our captives what we would do to theirs, and toe SERE training arose from that tactical decision. Troops went through SERE training to harden them to TORTURE their bosses thought they'd face.
Get it?
Chuy!
She says it wasn't torture because we used it to train our own people. Wasn't the point of the training to teach them how to withstand, um, torture? Ergo, it's torture. Admit it lady, your old man is an evil criminal.
I can't believe there is actually a debate on news channels about all of this. To justify torture because it may have worked is repulsive and astonishingly dissonant. If an enemy had gathered good info from a us serviceman, would it then be ok? WE the people had better demand some accountability here or else this is not the country I always thought it was.
Torture is wrong. It's a war crime. It's against the law. Our own laws and courts have upheld this determination, and we've signed international agreements that stipulate we WILL NOT engage in such practices, ever.
The fact that they went through the process of crafting memos, legal defenses, excuses, and even had the gall to talk about looking for 'moral clarity' tells me the architects of this debacle knew full well what they were doing, and that it was both morally and ethically wrong.
And are we to believe that NO ONE had a dissenting opinion? They're all so ethically bent, so devoid of conscience and the basics of human decency that not one of them said, "Hey, this isn't right?"
There's this fake 'debate' just exactly because we only have corporate snoozenooze. The 1%ers own those 'TOOLS' sadly, just like O-bought-ma. AND, trying to peddle THEIR own agenda for BLOODYISRAEL.
In the post-9/11 world, it seems as though many on the Right forgot that the United States ever fought anyone besides terrorists.
Here is the way to answer the talking point "but they cut off our Soldiers' heads!" Ask them this: "Will our troops only fight terrorists in the future? What happens when we fight lawful combatants in the future and they capture our troops, as happens in most every conflict? If, in the future, our troops are captured by lawful combatants, how can we say they should not be tortured?"
What can they say? We have lost the moral high ground, and we can't defend ourselves anymore from this position. To get the moral high ground back, we need investigations and prosecution.
Why is she even on? Who cares what she thinks?
also add to that list: Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, Bill Kristol, Dana Perino, Meghan McCain, David Frum........
You forgot the WAR CRIMINAL Kissenger!!! It wouldn't like that, bad, bad,.........add to that list any, all, DINOS, the colluders of the party of NO, the obstructionist party. The perverted 'party' ---- yeh, that's all they do know is perversion.
In the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, we were always being told "He's so terrible that he gassed his own people!"
Now that the standard of acceptable behavior has dropped down to what we are willing to do to our own people, does he get a pass? Oh wait, we hanged him.
Well, can we at least invade the People's Republic of Texas to get our oil back?
First, SERE is a course that trains troops in Survival, Evasion, Resistance (i.e. to torture), and Escape.
If it were just about torture, then the other elements wouldn't be necessary.
It should be clear that we use waterboarding because, while it is torture, it isn't something that produces lasting damage or impairment - as the VietCong did to John McCain by breaking his arms. It is a technique that allows the program to replicate the same stresses and uncertainty of threatened death.
The program is not meant to encourage or instruct such behaviors on the part of our soldiers, but to RESIST such techniques when they are subjected to them. This is not a bunch of make-believe macho crap, but a carefully designed program. Bill-O, Hannity, Beck, Cheney -- they wouldn't last a day. (Neither would I, but then, I'm not on the air pretending that this is just 'getting tough' with the terrorists.)
"It should be clear that we use waterboarding because, while it is torture, it isn't something that produces lasting damage or impairment "
We executed Japanesse soldiers for waterboarding Americans in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
"It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, ultimately, death.[4] Adverse physical consequences can start manifesting months after the event; psychological effects can last for years.[14]"
So propably the viets used on McCain that's why he is still retarded!
Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Iran...
Yes, you better stay in the shadows, 'cause your act is pretty transparent.
...they sure don't fall far from the tree.
Interesting how dissemination of information about techniques that are discontinued by the CIA are harming national security because now terrorists can train against their use.
Liz to Dick: I learned that news lady some good logic, pappy, also I wrote you a memo saying members of the Executive branch retain their powers even after they have constitutionally expired, cool huh?
The national dialogue on this topic can now be characterized as:
This isn't torture!
IS!
Isn't!
IS!
ISN'T!
Why don't any of these interviewers ever ask the one question that seems to define the issue: Would you consider it acceptable for another country, at war with the US, to apply these interrogation techniques to captured US troops in exactly the same manner as we applied them to the terrorist suspects?
and been ignored.
I ask YouTubers that. What would you think if you saw a video, here, of an American soldier being subjected to these techniques, by some enemy of America?
They usually tell me to go fuck (or kill) myself, you pussy-assed Canadian, libtard, fuck-head, etc.
That's about the level of dialogue going on.
Brawndo
'In the first place, how does Liz Cheney know we got valuable information? Did she have the same clearance as the Pres and the VP?'
THANK YOU!!!!!
That was just ridiculous. Dick Cheney's own daughter. Yeah, that just drips of credibility. Darth must terrified in order to send out one of his own kids...a daughter at that...to lie for his slimy evil ass. Just tells me that a lot people are starting to get real concerned. I hope they put that SOB in the deepest darkest dungeon they can find.
married to Philip Perry, the former General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security.
That's even worse. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to get Mr. Perry himself? Must be getting bad for them, they have to send out their women folk to defend their sorry asses.
I don't think Perry's clearances apply to his wifey.
And Dick's clearances don't apply to his daughter.
So, for her to assert that we got intelligence from this, she's been privy to classified information and/or simply cherry-picking the ASC report and Admiral Blair's remarks.
REALLY??? Well, that proves it, just another sad, little troll.
Just because a doctor is standing with the torturer doesn't make a difference. Torture is torture. No amount of justification is right for torture, nothing.
AKA Dr. Mengele comes to mind when I think of a doctor present during torture and dehumanizing.
How far can we go to get information from Dick Cheney? Not that I'm advocating anything like that, but I'm just asking.
We've become that which we're supposedly fighting against.
We've become the barbarians, the uncivilized.
The enemy is us.
How incalculable is the damage the Bush Crime Family wrought ...
As required by the UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment the prohibition against torture is incorporated into US Criminal Code:
US Code § 2340. Definitions
"Simulated Drowning" IS a "threat of imminent death."
The notion that "we did it to our own people therefore it can't be torture" is BS. "Our own people" KNEW they weren't going to be drowned.
Liz is her daddy's daughter alright. That apple sure didn't fall far from the tree.
I guess Mary Cheney wasn't so eager to defend daddy who aligns himself with a party who thinks she's immoral and going to hell for who she is.
who assisted the bushies in gaining and staying in power
she should have her child taken away from her
the madness must end
the cheney gene must be removed from this earth
nuke the cheney homestead
and cover the ashes in concrete
Its not on Google earth.
Your dad's a terrorist thug who is responsible for the deaths of more innocent civilians and American servicemen than Al-Queda by lying america into a war on false pretenses and then steering no bid government contracts to his former company to profit from it. I'm sure you are getting some of those profits yourself so it's not surprise you would be a war profiteer and war criminal apologist for Daddy Darth.
PS: Since you did not out a CIA agent like your dad did, I will however stop short of calling you a traitor.
elected? How does she know anything about classified government secrets?
Because when daddy wasn't outing CIA agents and profiting from war he seemingly found the time to pass on classified information to those who didn't have the clearance.
When our troops go through SERE training, they KNOW they aren't going to die. The detainees don't know that. Some have already died. Not only that, but consider the detainees have been held WITHOUT charge for years. As far as they know, this torture (which is what it is) is going to last for the rest of their lives. They don't have the freedom to go anywhere else. I don't know why that's so hard for these idiot GOPhers to understand. Our troops ARE NOT detainees.
You have been starved for three days and had very little sleep in SERE as well. You would really be suprised how disturbing the experience is even when you know that you will get it over with in a few hours. You would have brief times when you were not too sure of anything.
Liz, congratulations! We have a couple of thugs offstage waiting to waterboard YOU in a few minutes. Don't worry, we'll stay within the guidelines of the memos that you love so much. And don't worry, we'll keep doing it until we get what we think is some valuable information from you! Again, congratulations! We'll start right after this word from our sponsors...
There's no logic to any of their arguments. Today Boehner said that it was torture. Cheney's daughter (and other lunatic rightwingers, like O'Reilly) say it wasn't torture. When the US was part of an international tribunal that prosecuted and executed Japanese after WWII for torture ('water cure' it was called, which was waterboarding), it was torture. And because doctors were present, it wasn't torture? Does that mean none of the horrific experiments Josef Mangele conducted at concentration camps was torture, because he was a medical doctor?
Let's not forget the memo that said the Geneva Conventions were "quaint and obsolete." Cheney and his daughter don't have a leg between them to stand on.
Daddy buys Liz a sparkling new pony.
... unclassified, but it nonetheless specifies that even SERE must be within the principles set forth in the Geneva Conventions.
LINK
Torture: the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
Random House Dictionary, 2009.
There is one very important factor that is almost always left out of discussions in the MSM concerning water boarding.
The presumption of those volunteering to be boarded or those in the SERE is that no lasting harm will come to them, that their mock torturers are not really trying to hurt them, that a doctor is standing by and that when the volunteer gives the signal, the experience will stop.
A real victim of water boarding has no such understanding whatsoever, no "safe signal" and may be told in fact or otherwise believe that their torturers will eventually kill them.
No staged water boarding can even begin to simulate that additional psychological stress.
If anyone really wanted to know what water boarding was really like, some operators would have to have abduct you off the street, convince you that they were terrorists seeking revenge and that they were going to kill you and your family and then water board you full bore untill near death. Then they would understand.
And I would add that waterboarding is a form of mock execution, much like a firing squad that shoots rifles loaded with blanks.
The victim has no way of knowing whether he/she is not about to die, so the presumption is that he/she in fact is.
This is a particularly brutal form of psychological torture and I can't wrap my head around how imbeciles like Hannity and Cheney have the guts to defend it. I guess the only answer is they really have no conscience.
AND you have to kidnap them from their own beds, in the wee hours of the AM, after you kick in the front door and terrorize the whole family, and disappear them into those 'Extraordinary RENDITIONS, which affectively displaces the victim in time, place, support.
The point of SERE is:
We took our lead from a Communist Dictatorship
People can be trained to resist this torture and give disinformation
No one researched the source of this method of torture before making it American policy.
liz chainey probably thinks a waterboard it the support you put under a waterbed mattress
Or an old-fashioned method of doing laundry.
liz cheney is
when our servicemen were captured by the japanese, koreans and vietnamese...they were frequently tortured
did not change how we were to perform interogations or hold prisoners
you stupid slag
the apple doesnt fall far from the tree
lock the entire family up
Noron ends this segment by leading up to the following disussion after the break (paraphrasing), " After the break, I want to talk to you about the future of the Republican party."
I thought to myself, "That's got to be the shortest program segment in TV history."
GOP=toast
To paraphrase Liz Cheney, "The WH and CIA decided on what techniques to use, and then went to the lawyers to get approval."
How can anyone defend this?
"Rearranging the chairs on the Titanic"
Uncle Joe: You're in some mood today. Carry on.
Dick's gone senile.
The good daughter's covering his ass and trying to clean up his shit.
about it and did nothing, she should at least resign. What a bunch of amateurs this administration is turning out to be. Is anybody concerned that Obama is looking a lot like Chavez?
Please give at least 3 examples.
1. Physique
2. Oratorical Skills
3. Turning their respective countries into bannana republics.
I may be wrong about the physique, but I think the Chavez diet is working, so it won't be long till I'm right.
And all that.
Is anybody concerned that Obama is looking a lot like Chavez?
Not really.
But, I am have trouble deciding which family is more loathsome, the Cheneys ot the Bushes. I'd like to see them start a feud. Shooting and all: dead-eye-Dick is good at that.
However, I would love to see the connection. Please go on scruzman. Enlighten us.
The Cheney's are more interested about protecting their family then the country. It's about them and not us. They broke the law and they know it.
When do they roll out Lynne from the batcave for an interview?
The Cheney's seem worried, don't they. How very typical of dickie-boy to send out the girls to save the day.
The whole family disgusts me.
As a Veteran and someone familiar with the Air Force's SERE School, I need to set something straight. The school is not to train people on how to use these untoward techniques, but to train our people on how to survive them! The methods are used in controlled environments to familiarize our pilots and others with what other...LESSER...countries or organizations might do to them should they be captured. It's a shame that this is being twisted. It's not a school on HOW to torture, but on how to SURVIVE it and resist giving away information.
Having said that, waterboarding and other methods are so obviously torture that this is a joke. A worse joke is how the Bush Administration tried to destroy so many American values. We're America. We don't torture. We don't start wars, we end them. We are the good guys. We don't stoop to our enemies' level. We maintain the moral high ground...and we win anyway. This vet is thankful to have a Barack Obama to lead us out of this immoral hole and back into the leadership role that we used to be good at.
you must have gone through the SERE School because your first paragraph is spot on; your second paragraph, however, indicates you've never seen combat.
would never want another one.
I've actually been through SERE( The first poster is familiar, not been there). I can tell you that most of the people talking about this have no idea of what goes on in that program. It would really be a little off to say that it prepares you to resist torture, but it teaches you the best way to handle it. It is preparing you to be tortured. They actually stress that you will break and you will talk and try to give you tools to best deal with the circumstances of a POW camp.
That said, I have sat in a room and watched a friend of mine get waterboarded for less than two minutes and there is no doubt, having watched that desperate thrashing, straining, horror, that it was absolutely torture. Was he fine after he was done? Sure, after a while. Does that make it any less torture? Not a chance.
Brother, H/T
I don't know what else you'd call someone who makes up his/her own reality and then believes everything he/she comes up with.
Every time I hear one of these wingnuts on TV or radio trying as hard as they can to convince anyone who'll listen that the "techniques" used (like waterboarding) are not torture, I feel like banging my head against the wall. Hell, the Spanish Inquisition waterboarded people accused of witchcraft and even they acknowledged it was torture.
I guess the only thing with we should all be concerned about is not debating with the likes of Cheney or Hannity whether waterboarding is or isn't torture, the ONLY question should be what to do with these criminals.
someone? How far do you have to go to do that? The first time? The 83rd time? And what possible new information can be gained after 83 times of waterboarding someone?
First she change from saying the word torture to enhance interrogation techniques because Liz Cheney told her to.
Second she didn't refute much of what Liz Cheney was saying.
And last why the f*ck is Liz Cheney being interview in the first place?
Liz is not an expert in nothing that is being discussed, but being Cheney's daughter.
God the t.v entertainers would interview anyone.
If my dad were responsible for the deaths of more innocents than Osama BinLaden I'd probably be in denial too.
Sorry Liz baby , your daddy is a frigging criminal , a genuine low life criminal , a mad man , a psycho and I hope that eventually the SOB pays the price and that justice will be served one day . Only a right wing lunatic would dare argue that slamming people into walls , water boarding them again and again to the point of drowning is not torture , these A holes would say pulling finger nails out with pliers isn't torture . They just lie and make up their own reality and truths , God damned freaks ! These people are a malignant cancer on the country , friggin saboteurs and traitors is what they are . May you get a severe case of rhoids Liz .
The Inquisition also had guidelines on how to treat suspects of heresy. Torquemada himself mandated that a "wise, faithful man, of good reputation and conscience; a man who would not be expected to do something out of hatred, affection, or self interest" should be present whenever a prisoner was tied down and had water poured into his or her nose and mouth.
I guess that makes what they did not amount to torture, either.
now the world knows that lynne cheney has
two sets of lips that will lie...... and
the other is like her father dick they both
have two things in common the world does not
like
their face........
(paraphrase of old line from movie "the mirrow cracked"
It is assinine to think that you can craft guidelines that keep you from straying "over the line" when the line is different with every person. For example: I have an irrational fear of spiders. Even thogh I know it is an irrational fear I would still wear my fingers to bloody stumps trying to get out of a crate that I was confined in with, say, a tarantula. I just shuddered as I wrote that. But if you put me in the same crate with a non-venomous snake - nothing because snakes don't scare me.
It wouldn't cause organ failure for me to be confined with a spider but I guarantee you that it would scar me for life, especially if it was done over and over and over again. Isn't it torture when you destory a persons sense of well being for life? Isn't it torture to give a person nightmares for the rest of their lives?
Only fools and liars say they know what torture is.
L. Cheney:
Wow! I'm sure it's easy to be unemotional while considering someone being beheaded if you're a Cheney. For the rest of us ...mmm..not so much.
I meant the dishonesty and sophistry of L. Cheney.
Does she truly believes what she's spewing here?
Or is she merely dishonest?
No, he won't last that long.
Listen to the sound of his breath as the talks, he is not going to live very much longer.
Pull a Ken Lay on us.
support the waterboarding of Ken Lay.
Good god!! She is actually comparing whtat the US does to what terrorists do, as if that is the perameter you should judge on. Do these idiots not remember that we hold ourselves to a higher standard? Why do these armchair sadists continue with this fallacy?
I guess these are desperate people doing desperate things.
Liz Cheney statement that, "when Al Qaida captures an American, they cut his head off".
Question for Liz Cheney, " Why did the Bush Adm send in civilian businessmen and their employees into a war torn battle ground"?
Isn't that the one that got caught and beheaded on video?
Cheney encouraged a small businessman of cell phone communications into Iraq as Al Qaida where drawn into Iraq because our U.S. military were being used as a terrorist magnet to draw them in. And Cheney encouraged this?
And it led to that man being caught and beheaded. Cheney needed to protect that greedy small businessman from himself and the dangers of the battle going on in Iraq at the time. The imminent threat.
I couldn't listen to it....awwwwwwww poor Cheney...he's such a wuss his idiot of a daughter has to defend his sorry behind....
But I do love Lawrence O'Donnell....man, I would have loved to have had her have to deal with HIM!!!!!
If you look close enough (it's very fast) you'll see her fathers dick fall out of her mouth!
during SERE training is to show our soldiers WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE TORTURED!!!!!! This circular argument is frikin' insanity.
Sorry about the all caps, but I am if fact screaming.
This is so idiotic that the enemies, if they knew that we waterboard them, would train to resist us. First day of training they use water pistol??? On graduation day they get a certificate to withstanding breathing for 10 minutes under dribbling water? This info been out for awhile, and I would like to see a glimpse of the training camp for waterboarding. Why haven't we seen that?
In the h... do we always let these republicans talk a person down with their lies , BS and propaganda...
Love to see these people do as Matthews does and stings them right back on lies and BS...
I am tired of hearing these people given them a podium to broadcast and spread their deceit.
When one knows that republicans like Liz is lying ,we see it very clearly when she shoots her BS... But for these hypocrites that look thourgh different color glasses they do not.
The Cheney's did a terrific job of raising and teaching their ignorant, stifled kids how to habitually lie and then do their best to coverup the lies of their father.
I am no fan of Cheney - however his kid knocked the crap out of the wussy Norah's weak old stupid lies - waterboarding is NOT torture and quite frankly if it was - I could care less if it saves American lives - or should we go back to waiting to be attacked then go "why did'nt we do anything" ...at least one of my fellow Dems got it right .. Leon Panetta said WATERBOARDING is still in the toolbox and will be used if needed....
I guess it's more important to worry what "The World" thinks than protecting "American" lives...thats right "AMERICAN" lives...not terroist lives....
Liz methodically picked apart Norah’s weak line of questioning. It was beautiful to see. My favorite is “But Norah, you’re reading a headline from an A.P. story.” In other words, Norah do you have an original thought? Mainstream media regurgitating lies on itself and other media and the readers of this site eat it up. Umm, umm.
Cheney clearly won that exchange.....and for the idiot "Teddy" saying the Japanese were executed for waterboarding? Read a history book your fricking dope! The Japanese hung POW's by their feet and dipped them in water.....a little different then what was done by our CIA you frickin DOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look I have been a Dem my whole life - but I call em as I see em and Norah looked the fool, I mean really you think she might have done a little research, insted of following some pre-concieved notion. Liz in-fact quite easily knocked Norah all over, proof of that was when Norah started yelling at her guest.
Rule one of a host of any show - if you start yelling at the guest - YOU LOSE. Norah please show up with a little research before inviting a guest to smack you around - even if Liz was wrong. she made you look like a screaming lunatic as she sat there calmly waiting for Norah to finish her temper tantrum.
Fellow Dems I am sorry you might hate Bush - however one of the FEW things I was supporting him in is proctecting my kids and if waterboarding helped so be it and if it did'nt I don't want to wait to find out we were wrong in NOT using it - case and point is the current administration STILL has waterboarding in the playbook - Why? because no-one wants to have a attack and say "Well we did'nt try it cause a bunch of people said it was wrong"
Liz won this round - hopfully Norah learned something from this exchange.
Liz slam dunks Norah O'Donnell...as with every liberal in the news media, they should shut their mouths and listen...they "might" learn...excellent points Ms Cheney...knowledgable, whitty, intelligent....Thank you Ms Cheney....Norah, the position reporting the weather is open, go for it....
Liz Cheney is merely Dick Cheney with a vagina.
Incidentally, the prisoners at Guantanamo should either be set free or relocated, depending on the charges against them, The prison itself, however, should be kept open for the confinement of Cheny, Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, etal when they are eventually convicted of the war crimes they have committed.
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