Open Left - Richard Bruce Cheney

The Ongoing Normalization of Crimes Against Humanity

Daniel De Groot — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:30:34 GMT

It is now acceptable to go on national TV and argue openly for the use of torture as formal US bi-partisan consensus policy.

I went looking to see what I could find in terms of prominent media figures defending the use of torture, and here's what I found.

Most egregious is radio host and (non-practising, I hope) attorney Michael Smerconish who is a regular contributer to Hardball. Here he is in December of 2008:

(transcript excerpts inside)
From the transcript:

MATTHEWS: KSM is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. [Vice President Cheney] approved the waterboarding. He said it's fine. Michael Smerconish, you agree?
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I agree. [...]
I'll tell you something else, Chris. You've got to believe in the efficacy of water boarding because one has to suspect that the best of our interrogators would be assigned to KSM. And if that man or that women believed that these means were necessary, then obviously, they believe in the efficacy of waterboarding.
And frankly, there are no measures that I would be unwilling to say-or I would be willing to say are inappropriate for the likes of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Mine is a blanket endorsement...
MATTHEWS: So shoot his toes off one at a time.
SMERCONISH: ... of whatever is necessary.
MATTHEWS: No, no, no. Michael, shoot his toes off one at a time is fine with you. You just said that, right? Anything is OK with you?
[...]
SMERCONISH: Yes, Chris, I believe that if you're dealing with the operations planner of September 11 and if this individual has actionable intelligence, that there are no means that should not be employed. [...]

Let me stop here and note this man is not just a guest, but in fact is paid by MSNBC to provide commentary like this. There is simply no one from the left of any comparable extremism who even appears on TV never mind being actually paid to do so. You have to go to Comedy Central to find a television host willing to point out the Israeli assault on Gaza isn't exactly a moral no-brainer but you can be paid by MSNBC to overtly endorse the use of literally any form of torture on terrorism suspects. MSNBC, the liberal answer to Fox.

Don't worry though, MSNBC was so offended by his conduct they had him back on tonight (Jan 12), (from Media Matters) again making similar explicit arguments for any form of torture conceivable.

Keep in mind also this man is a lawyer. (Perhaps the state bars that have admitted him would be interested in these views?)

I suppose if MSNBC was going to fire anyone for advocating crimes against humanity, they would have to look higher on their food chain than a mere analyst. On his show today, Drowning Joe made this sober and passionate defence of atrocity:

Some choice text:

SCARBOROUGH: Yes I do. Yes I do. And I know for a fact that waterboarding brought our interrogators, brought Americans, probably about 70-75 percent of what they get. What they got from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed opened doors that we are still going through. Waterboarding has produced and given so much evidence to our people in the CIA and in the other intelligence agencies. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed by himself has done more to crush al Qaeda than Dick Cheney or George Bush because of waterboarding.

I suppose you can say that at least Scarborough is still playing the "waterboarding isn't torture" canard but that's the kind of moral difference that should get one a slightly larger cell in the Hague, perhaps one with a window.

And lest it end with waterboarding, he manages to get both more asinine and reprehensible: (transcript mine)

Q: Do you think Barack Obama will support waterboarding? Do you think there will be waterboarding in Obama's administration?
SCARBOROUGH: Waterboarding won't work, because we as Americans have talked about waterboarding so much, that Al Qaeda--who studies what we do; Al-Qaeda says "this is what's going to happen, they're going to pour water, you're going to feel like you're drowning, work through it ok, because they can't kill you."
Q: So do you think Obama's guys are going to invent new forms of torture that Al-Qaeda doesn't know about?
SCARBOROUGH: Well, it depends how you define torture [...]

Put aside the absurd notion that you can somehow prepare yourself for being drowned and resist ingrained physiological human survival instinctive reactions that occur when liquid fills your lungs (ask Hitchens). Scarborough is endorsing other, new forms of torture being used to compel cooperation.

(By the way, the questions above come from Chrystia Freeland of the Financial Times who admirably goes on to call waterboarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation torture, suffering Joe's condescension for her efforts, I wonder if MSNBC will give her the boot?)

Lastly (for the moment) we have Newsweek, whose front page story "What Would Dick Do?" is described by the Columbia Journalism Review like this:

Written by Newsweek veteran Evan Thomas and National Journal contributor Stuart Taylor Jr., this article has no connection to serious journalism whatsoever.
Let us examine a few of its highlights:

The issue of torture is more complicated than it seems. America brought untold shame on itself with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. It's likely that the take-the-gloves-off attitude of Cheney and his allies filtered down through the ranks, until untrained prison guards with sadistic tendencies were making sport with electric shock. But no direct link has been reported.

Leave aside for a moment the comforting image of "making sport with electric shock." (The ACLU has documented the deaths of at least 160 prisoners in U.S. custody during the Bush administration, of which more than seventy were caused by "gross recklessness, abuse, or torture": an unfortunate side effect of that "sport," I suppose.) Let us focus instead on that tossed-off assertion of "no direct link" between Cheney and his allies and what happened on the ground in Iraq and Guantánamo.

and

Proceeding briskly from unconscionable ignorance to outrageous conclusion, Newsweek's Taylor and Thomas praise Bush for vetoing the law that would have required the CIA to use "no investigative methods other than those permitted in the Army Filed Manual" because "these are extremely restrictive." Indeed, they are restrictive: they are the rules that every previous administration has adhered to since World War II, because they prevent Americans from committing exactly the same kind of war crimes we prosecuted at Nuremberg.

If this is allowed to stand, I don't know what could stop it. America is now living the Stanford Prison Experiment and the people who would tell Milgram "no" when asked to delivery a dangerous electric shock to an unwilling and helpless subject are now being sneered at by the triple-x'ers like Scarborough.

I don't know of any more emphatic terms with which to argue any more forcefully for Obama to be willing to surrender whatever political capital is needed in order to address this. It might even be worth a "failed" Jimmy Carter or Harry Truman single term presidency. It is a sign of the extraordinary mass mental illness that America is suffering, and if you ever wondered why a Canuck like me would spend so much time leaning over his neighbour's fence being nosey, this is a big example of why. This isn't normal politics and it won't be fixed by UHC or a Cap and Trade system or withdrawal from Iraq.

These people are on the moral plane of holocaust deniers. They are denying or even justifying that crimes against humanity are taking place. I had really hoped that the election of Obama, and for that matter the primary victory of the only ostensibly anti-torture Republican (yes, he was craven and caved on torture but at least he was nominally opposed to it unlike the other frontrunners) would be taken as a sign that torture had been repudiated by the electorates of both parties. Not so.

Things arguably aren't even better, since Obama is now being set up to be "soft on terror" for not meeting the bar of his predecessor in meting out brutality and terror as tools to frighten America's foes. He will be blamed for not using torture if there is another attack on his watch. Sure, he won't use torture himself, but now we are in goatee evil-America where not using torture costs you political capital, like some childish indulgence.

Obama has to fix this, as I don't believe we can expect Congress to do this on their own. After all, Scarborough makes a good point:

Democratic leaders were briefed fully on what was happening, post 9/11, in Gitmo, with aggressive interrogation techniques. They went along with it.

The Bush Administration really do think like the Mafia. They made sure to sully their opponents in their crimes so that they could never go to the authorities about it. Obama's short tenure in Congress is his biggest asset here, they hadn't blooded him yet.

The Cheney "Endorsement" - Cheney's Last Laugh?

Daniel De Groot — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:18:43 GMT

As suspicious as I am of the motives of the conservatives jumping ship to support Obama (like Powell and Buckley), I am equally suspicious of the Cheney endorsement. Much like Osama Bin Laden's 2004 "endorsement" of John Kerry, Cheney simply has to know how his endorsement would play. So why do it? All I can come up with is simple revenge. Inside, I'll present the evidence.
First off, to cover the obvious, Cheney is grotesquely unpopular and has been for quite some time. Yes, I know Cheney's remarks were delivered in Wyoming, where people might still brake if they saw him crossing the street, but I don't think Wyoming's 3 electoral-votes were high on McCain's list of worries.

As for the Wyoming House seat that is in play, recent polling has Trauner 4-6 points down to the Republican. Even so, let's look at what Cheney actually said:

I'm delighted to support John McCain, and I'm pleased that he has chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness, and common sense: our next Vice President, Governor Sarah Palin. (Applause.)

As Obama has quite ably been exploiting, when is Cheney ever delighted about anything? I doubt he has ever felt an emotion more positive than "smugness." Snark aside, this language is suggestive of Cheney deliberately trying to draw attention to this remark, so it wouldn't be missed. After all, much earlier in the speech, Cheney had said:

[...] but I do want to join my daughter Liz, who's with me today, and join us in casting your ballots for John McCain and Sarah Palin. (Applause). Our country cannot afford the high-tax liberalism of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. (Applause.)

That would have passed without notice, and was all anyone would expect him to say at a rally to support a threatened House candidate.

So how did McCain's camp respond? Here's their reaction/counterpoint when Obama started ribbing them over it:

The McCain campaign wasn't amused by the Cheney hoopla. "Barack Obama and Dick Cheney aren't just cousins, they've shared support for the Bush energy policy and the out-of-control spending that John McCain has fought to oppose," spokesman Tucker Bounds e-mailed reporters. (The e-mail included a handy fact sheet, citing an Obama speech in Iowa in January as the source to note Obama and Cheney's distant family ties.) Apparently the idea was to persuade voters that Cheney and Obama have more in common than Cheney and McCain. Chances are that one will fly about as well as the caged game birds Cheney likes to shoot.

I think the panicked flailing response tells you this wasn't something they were prepared for.

If Revenge, Revenge For What?

The most obvious/likely candidate is McCain's torture amendment from 2005, which generated headlines like this one from Dan Froomkin: McCain Defeats Cheney

President Bush's cave-in yesterday on Sen. John McCain's torture ban was embarrassing for him -- but it was a total debacle for Vice President Cheney.
Cheney had publicly taken the lead in trying to scuttle McCain's proposal. When that proved both unseemly and ineffective, Cheney was equally publicly pulled off the case.

While it's true Bush would win this fight via signing statement, there is little doubt the political fight with his own party's Senators seriously ruffled some feathers. Cheney in particular would not like being shown up like that, only able to keep 9 Republican senators on-side. As Froomkin further notes:

Cheney was conspicuously absent when Bush invited McCain to the Oval Office yesterday and announced his decision to embrace legislation that was in almost every way identical to what he had promised to veto five months ago.

Suffice to say Cheney wasn't happy.

Beyond that, both McCain and Cheney have long histories in government, and may have butted heads on any number of issues. Cheney's utter exclusion from the RNC probably didn't help.

I wonder if the paragraph preceding his endorsement was a veiled message from Dick to John:

In these decisive years, we've seen above all, the importance that leadership can make by making a decision and setting a course, and putting the interests of the nation ahead of any partisan agenda or personal advantage. Our nation has been fortunate to have that kind of leadership when we've needed it most. And in three days, we'll choose a new steward for the Presidency, and begin a new chapter in our history. It's the biggest decision that we make together as Americans, a lot turns on the outcome. I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Senator John McCain. (Applause.)

Which could be read as "John, even though you tried to embarrass us over doing what was necessary to defend America in your selfish grandstanding way, luckily we won out and the Office of the President is not diminished so the next worthy Republican will have a free hand to interrogate prisoners." Admittedly I am merely guessing here.

Whatever the reason, for once we are evidently the beneficiaries of Cheney's boundless social dominance. For one thing, it helps Obama, and for the other, it it a pretty ringing endorsement of Chris' belief that the election is already over. McCain was already going down in flames, so Cheney decided to get a parting shot in.

Injunction Forces Cheney to Not Destroy VP Records

Daniel De Groot — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:30:00 GMT

A promising start:

A U.S. federal judge on Saturday ordered Vice-President Dick Cheney to preserve a wide range of records from his time in office.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is a setback for the Bush administration, which has been pushing for a narrow definition of materials that must be safeguarded under the Presidential Records Act.

Don't celebrate yet, but CREW (who are the plaintiffs) have won the first round in the battle to get the Judicial branch to agree that the Vice-President, is, in fact a member of the executive branch, which is actually what Cheney's defence hinges on here. However, the injunction is an extraordinary measure while the Court considers the matter. Kollar-Kotelly might end up ruling in Cheney's favour, but at least for the time being, Cheney can't fax his records to Shredderville quite so easily.
The 22 page ruling itself is largely focused on the legal grounds for when a court should consider a preliminary injunction on pending litigation. Basically, the plaintiffs, CREW were able to establish that they had a reasonable chance at success, and that irreparable harm could be caused to their action without the injunction (since Cheney might nuke a bunch of records preemptively if his lawyers felt they were going to lose).

Apparently the Judge was alarmed that Cheney's people would not even agree to preserve records while the Court was considering the case, even though the Court expects to have ruled on this prior to Cheney leaving office.

Cheney's position is a creative interpretation of the post-Watergate Presidential Records Act (PRA) in which

[...]Defendants admit that they interpret the PRA to cover only documentary material reflecting the "functions of the Vice President specially assigned to the Vice President by the President in the discharge of executive duties and responsibilities" and the "functions of the Vice President as President of the Senate." (p16)

So basically, Cheney's position is that he is only subject to the PRA when doing stuff the President tells him to do in writing, or when he is acting as President of the Senate. Otherwise, apparently he is just some guy with a neat office with a giant safe and the act couldn't be talking about little ol' him.

What gives me hope that Kollar-Kotelly is dubious about Cheney's position is that she quotes the Supreme Court decision which upheld the predecessor to the PRA, Nixon v Administrator of General Services:

The legislative history of the [PRMPA] clearly reveals that, among other purposes, Congress acted to establish regular procedures to deal with the perceived need to preserve [Presidential] materials for legitimate historical and governmental purposes. An incumbent President should not be dependent on happenstance or the whim of a prior President when he seeks access to records of past decisions that define or channel current governmental obligations. Nor should the American people's ability to reconstruct and come to terms with their history be truncated by an analysis of Presidential privilege that focuses only on the needs of the present. Congress can legitimately act to rectify the hit-or-miss approach that has characterized past attempts to protect these substantial interests by entrusting the materials to expert handling by trusted and disinterested professionals. (p14)

And she goes on to note sceptically about Cheney's position:

In flatly asserting that the PRA's statutory language is limited in the manner that they apparently perceive it to be, Defendants do not explain how a narrowing construction accords with these myriad concerns or accomplishes Congress's goals. (p15)

Which is really throwing the gauntlet down on Cheney that she will not be deferential, and will take into account the clear legislative intent of the PRA, and not allow him to whittle it into uselessness by parsing semantics to arrive at absurd results. She's clearly sympathetic to the idea of the PRA too:

Finally, the Court concludes that the public interest is undoubtedly served by ensuring that all documentary material potentially encompassed by the PRA's statutory language is actually preserved as Congress saw fit in enacting the PRA. (pp19-20)

I suspect Cheney will need to look up that obscure term "public interest" as he probably has not heard it spoken aloud in decades, living in his safe bubble of Fox News and speeches to militant veterans groups.

I had written a little about Kollar-Kotelly when I was researching the FISC to demonstrate it was a right wing star chamber, but she was one of the blank slates in my research. I'm liking what I see here, though admittedly the bar is fairly low: All she has to do here is say "duh, of course the Vice-President is part of the executive branch" in legalese, but she has cleared it with room to spare.

The ruling itself shows Kollar-Kotelly is aware of Cheney's love for absurd legal interpretations and leaves him no room:

the Court shall order all Defendants to preserve throughout the pendency of this litigation all documentary material, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof created or received by the Vice President, his staff, or a unit or individual of the Office of the Vice President whose function is to advise and assist the Vice President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the Vice President, without regard to any limiting definitions that Defendants may believe are appropriate.

Ha. "without regard to your bullshit interpretation of the law, keep everything"

So this bears watching.