That was how Dick Cheney summarized what the International Red Cross described as treatment "tantamount to torture" handed out to certain US detainees. You pays your money...
But buried deep within the former Vice President's chest-thumping speech defending the Enhanced...excuse me, the Unpleasant Things Program was a bizarre boast. He said that immediately after 9/11, the US government targeted the threat of regimes proliferating nuclear weapons, and he specifically mentioned the AQ Khan proliferation program, operating out of Pakistan. Here's what David Albright, a former US weapons inspector in Iraq, says about the Khan program:
"Suspicions also remain that members of the network may have helped Al Qaeda obtain nuclear secrets prior to the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The damage caused by this network led former CIA director George Tenet to reportedly describe Khan as being "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden."
Gee, if he was that dangerous, maybe, after the reality-changing experience Cheney describes 9/11 to be, maybe AQ Khan should have been the primary focus of American anti-terrorism policy. Instead of, say, Saddam Hussein.
In Cheney's speech today, he cites the "rollup" of the Khan network as an achievement of the Bush administration. Here's Albright (and his collaborator Corey Hinderstein's) version:
After his arrest in February 2004, Khan confessed to selling sensitive technology and equipment to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. He received a conditional pardon and today remains under house arrest with very little access to outsiders. Khan also maintained that he alone was responsible and had acted independently of current and previous Pakistani governments--a statement that many experts view with skepticism as apparently intended to prevent Islamabad's further embarrassment.
Although many Pakistanis have been detained since the scandal broke, none have been prosecuted. The Pakistani government has provided the IAEA and foreign governments with information about Khan's activities but has not allowed anyone outside the Pakistani government to interview Khan or the others that were detained. Although the IAEA has been allowed to submit written questions that Khan will answer, this type of exchange is not
a substitute for direct access to Khan and his associates.
No prosecution, no access, no problem. And as to the Bush administration's tenacity regarding the Khan network, they write (as of 2005):
Even today, the United States has not demonstrated that it places an equal priority on unraveling the activities of the Pakistani members of the Khan network as it does on maintaining Islamabad's support for hunting down Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.
If Cheney meant to cite the rollup of the AQ Khan network as emblematic of his administration's single-minded focus on protecting America from the most severe dangers in a post 9/11 world, message received.
Rove didn't actually move troops into New Orleans until five days after the storm, when an exasperated President Bush told him to consider it a direct order.
Bush asked Cheney to head a task force to see exactly what were the ongoing holdups with post-storm search, rescue, and recovery. Cheney said "No".
Five days at least 60 thousand of your fellow Americans went in near-100-degree daytime heat with nighttime minimums in the 80's, without shelter, enough drinking water, medicial care, clean clothes, mosquito repellent, diapers. These citizens--your fellow countrymen--- lost everything. Homes, cars, jobs, churches, entire neighborhoods, a way of life. Family members. The clothes on their backs.
I always suspected former President Bush didn't have the intellect to understand much, but he just didn't seem cold-hearted enough to have let a thousand of American men, women, and children die like dogs in the street, just to punish a Democratic governor and break up a Democratic-voting stronghold. Now I know I was right.
It was Cheney.
This man doesn't need a microphone. He needs an orange jumpsuit.
As much as I despise (Vice President Bush), I think he's shown class by not attacking Obama on every radio, t.v. show and newspaper that would have him. It's (President) Chenney who has showed his n&uts to America. Can you imagine?
I call boolsheet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020603730.html
http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/
Which makes it sound like Plame had moved on before the Novak outing, which makes that seem even more suspicious.
Still like to know how you put this together
Who the hell if giving a pass on the worst terror attack on US soil to you?
We gave you in the year 2000 a peacefull country with money in the bank. What happened?
..starting to hold...breathe...
If we are to give over to Cheney's twist-tie 911/torture reasoning, then why not consider giving credence to other unsubstantiated claims as well?
For instance, I'll make the claim that the reason you don't see any elephants storming the streets of Manhattan is because they're afraid of cabdrivers.
When held over a bucket, we see that my claim holds about as much water as his.
Difference is - HIS claim was pushed through the national bullhorn unchallenged.
Perhaps Cheney thought McCain would be finagled into the White House, which likely would have allowed him to kick-back with confidence and ride off into the sunset - accompanied by banjos.
But instead, here he is, having to make a big stink nearly everyday, traveling about pressing the press, milking the media, wading waist deep in the goo of messy investigations, oath taking, and other lip curling stuff meant for mere 'commoners' - along with excruciatingly "unpleasant things" ... of course.
(It's the desperate fear of a teenager who is hoping that no one discovers the magazines in his closet while he's away at camp.)
But I think you're right. He probably didn't even consider the possibility that Obama would be elected. Because nothing in the past eight years leads me to believe that Cheney makes contingency plans. If Plan A doesn't work, he doesn't move to Plan B. He just keep repeating, "Plan A..Plan A..No compromises. Plan A."
America screwed up by funding Afghan insurgents in the 1980s using Pakistan as surrogate but our problems in South Asia begin much earlier. In the 1980s, we were so concerned about making USSR look bad we didn't consider the long range implications of our Afghanistan policies. If we examine what our government has done since 1945, there are few instances where our policies have made sense or accomplished their intended purposes. Our government made mistake after mistake and then compounded them by concealing the truth and lying to Americans to save the collective political asses. We've had 50 years of generally poor foreign policy and we're now finally paying the price.
Now when do we get to prosecute them??!!
Good job Dick for letting Osama escape into nuclear-armed Pakistan. Way to keep America safe. That helps me sleep at night.
Doesn't he realize he is an abject failure?