[Anyone] : It Only Figures, Doesn't It.....

[totem at laplaza.org]

People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent ... War will exist until that distant day 
when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today: 
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service: Albert Einstein

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I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, And they brought 
back bodies of living men, But their eyes were cold and dead: Edmund Vance Cooke

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When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness 
of its hands and purity of its heart." : Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes 
hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism: Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Cheney Admits Authorizing Detainee's Torture

Outgoing VP says Guantanamo prison should stay open until end of terror war, but has no idea when 
that might be

By David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
December 16, 2008 "Raw Story" -- Monday, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney made a startling 
statement on a nation-wide, televised broadcast.

When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whether he approved of interrogation tactics used 
against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr. Cheney, in 
a break from his history of being press-shy, admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.
 

"I supported it," he said regarding the practice known as "water-boarding," a form of simulated 
drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts 
for water-boarding, a practice which the outgoing Bush administration attempted to enshrine in 
policy.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the 
agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," Cheney said. "And 
they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

He added: "It's been a remarkably successful effort, and I think the results speak for themselves."

ABC asked him if in hindsight he thought the tactics went too far. "I don't," he said.

The prisoner in question, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the Bush administration alleges to have 
planned the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is one of Guantanamo's "high value targets" thus far charged 
with war crimes.

Former military interrogator Travis Hall disagrees with Cheney's position.

"Proponents of Guantanamo underestimate what a powerful a propaganda tool Guantanamo has 
become for terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, despite several Department of Defense studies 
documenting the propaganda value of detention centers," he said in a column for Opposing Views. 

"For example, West Point�s Combating Terrorism Center has monitored numerous Al Qaeda 
references to Guantanamo in its recruitment propaganda materials," continued Hall. "Improvements 
to Guantanamo�s administration of judicial mechanisms will not make its way into Al Qaeda 
propaganda. Nothing short of closing Guantanamo will remove this arrow from its quiver."

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to close the prison and pull US forces out of Iraq. 
Cheney, however, has a different timeline for when Guantanamo Bay prison may be "responsibly" 
retired. 

"Well, I think that that would come with the end of the war on terror," he told ABC.

Problematic to his assertion: Mr. Bush's "war on terror" is undefinable and unending by it's very 
nature, and Cheney seems to recognize this as fact. 

Asked when his administration's terror war will end, he jostled, "Well, nobody knows. Nobody can 
specify that."



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