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"Unpleasant Things"
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.
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It's come out as of last week that several days after Hurricane Katrina, an upset President Bush asked both Rove and Cheney to move more quickly to help tens of thousands of desperate, dying New Orleanians trapped in their island city by rising flood waters.
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.
I can't for the life of me I figure out why Obama just dosen't turn Chenney over to Eric Holder?
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?
Well.... this is because Cheney has not done anything wrong.
If this information was such a state secret then, why is he openly talking about it now?
I call boolsheet.
DiD Cheney or Bush pull a Reagan , making a deal to insure further mischief for the Dems. ?interesting that Pakistan releases AqKhan from house arrest within one month of Obamas inauguration and the Taliban advances upon Islamabad.Coincidence?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020603730.html
This is what they do. They start off with a patently false premise then pile so much nonsense on top of it that you're unable to dig your way down to the central point. Like the Iraq invasion was a response to an 'existential threat' - wrong. That most of the euphamistically called 'harsh interrogation' done had anything to do with interrogation - wrong. That the U.S. 'liberated' Iraq - wrong. That the war was "good guys against bad guys" - wrong. That the Bush admin too the 'terrorist' threat seroiously before 9-11 - wrong.
What a crock! If Cheney was so hot to stop Khan's network, why was Mark Grossman, the #3 man at the State Dept., overheard by Sibel Edmonds on FBI wiretaps outing Brewster/Jennings as a CIA front company to the American Turkish Council in the months following 9/11? The same ATC that was linked TO the A.Q. Khan network. This was TWO full years BEFORE Cheney compromised Plame's status as a covert CIA officer and head of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Division at CIA to Bob Novak. Of course, we could ask Edmonds about it...Wait! We CAN'T! SHE'S still under a State Secrets GAG Order to this day. Let Sibel Edmonds Testify in Open Congressional Session!
http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/
Ishmael-- do you have a source for blowing the Brester Jennings cover before outing Plame? Why do you think Grossman was doing that? Was Plame operating afterwards without knowing of what Edmonds overheard? Wasn't her front through oil contacts in Saudi Arabia? Is there a SA-ATC connection? Was it a SA-Pakistani connection, were the SA working on acquiring? The whole Novak stuff was so silly, it seemed like Cheney was trying to shut down a NOC for some reason, not brushing back Wilson. what do you think?
Thanks for bringing this up: I found http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3257725.ece
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
If Cheney had gotten tortured, would he still use the word "unpleasant"?
The Six Since.......If I hear "since 911" one more time.
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...
Unsubstantiated statements such as 'enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) helped thwart another attack on American soil', are hopefully starting to reach a national watermark where reason challenges such bottom-heavy, twirpy ideas.
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.
At first I thought that notion sounded clever but silly; that Cheney fully expected another republican administration would follow his own, and that his frenzied media sprint is a desperate distraction effort now that he's really lost control of, and influence within, the White House.
(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."
AQ Khan and the network he had should have been some of the first detainees in Gitmo if Cheney had any interest in protecting America from a real nuclear threat vs. the one he made up. Cheney's speech was all about protecting his own warped view of reality in that bunker called his brain, and no one else.
Pakistan was and is the clear and present danger than Iraq was not. Instead of cracking down on Pakistan at the time, they let them take our money and do nothing, and then we did nothing when Khan's activities finally became public.
I don't dispute what you say but...what is it that you think America could/should have done? We weren't in a position to make demands and short of turning Pakistan into a nuclear wasteland and killing most of its people, our options were limited with respect to cracking down on them. Should we have given Pakistan money after 9/11? I question this wisdom since here it is, 8 years later and Pakistan is only now taking on insurgents within the own country.
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.
Cheney & Co lie so much about so many things that it sometimes overwhelms my ability to keep it all straight. Thanks for putting these pieces into context!
Now when do we get to prosecute them??!!
IS never soon enough? I think we can manage to squeeze that time frame into our schedule.
Alas some in america are putting their head in the sand saying I dont want to know , things will change,justify his actions, when listening to cheney..He sounds scared and he should be. We had evil black hats running our govt. and many are still in civil servant and military and congress..They almost got away with it thanks to our well paid propaganda media ..It wont work now because we as americans are waking up to what the rest of the world already knows..Many are guilty of these crimes and will be found out, but we are responsible if we stay silent.. What he did is no different than what sadamm did..I can now perceive a american public demanding we have congressmen with integrity ,honesty, free from bigotry, prejidice ,hatred and superiority. If god wanted us to be the same he would have made us the same, he must want us to be different..It will happen ,mark my words..
Khan has been cited as the worst nuclear proliferator in history, and it is impossible for him to have acted alone.
Good job Dick for letting Osama escape into nuclear-armed Pakistan. Way to keep America safe. That helps me sleep at night.
He was completely supported by the ISI and the Pakistani government. He played scapegoat to cover his buddies. And we owe Pakistan one too many favors to go blaming them for anything. Why else would we continue to give them money and weapons, when we know for a fact that the Taliban is snug as a bug in a rug in their country?
It continues to amaze me still how condescending Cheny sounds when speaking.
Doesn't he realize he is an abject failure?
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