Cheney's Reign of Error
"The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism....But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed."
-Dick Cheney, on the offensive.
Then lock 'em all up. Lock everybody up -- not just the ones with a strange-sounding name or an odd way of speaking, but everyone. Every last one of us. The native sons as well as the foreign born. The old as well as the young. The rich, the poor, the city dweller and suburbanite and farmer -- we all go behind bars, locked away forever.
That's the only way to be sure, you know. Anything less would be a half-measure.
Put cameras in every cell, and hidden microphones. Keep track of everything we say, even in a whisper, and every expression, no matter how fleeting, that ever crosses our faces. Ankle bracelets and motion detectors, of course. Waterboards. And as soon as they can figure out the technology, brain chips, too, so they'll always know exactly what we're thinking.
"You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States," says the former vice president. "You must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States."
Then close all the borders -- nobody goes in, nobody goes out. From this day forward, no immigrants from anywhere. No business travelers. No vacationers. The walls go up, and they stay up. Because you have to be sure.
Anything less would be a half-measure.
Ground all the airplanes. If you need to be sure that nobody ever again hijacks an airplane and flies it into a tall building, prohibit airplanes. For that matter, take down all the tall buildings. And while you're at it, rip up the rails, and shut down the ports. They're targets, too -- get rid of them.
"There is never a good time to compromise," says Dick Cheney, "when the lives and safety of the American people hang in the balance."
Except that we compromise all the time, even when "the lives and safety of the American people hang in the balance." Barack Obama will compromise as he struggles to get it right -- and so did Dick Cheney.
We'd be better protected against the smuggled-in weapon in a container ship if we banned all container ships. But we don't, because we've balanced the risk of the danger against our need for all those imported goods -- machine parts and furniture, bananas and Toyotas.
We don't shut down the airlines either, because we've balanced the risk of another hijacking against the need to keep the nation's commerce flowing. So we keep the airlines flying, but we make travelers pass through metal detectors and take off their shoes. We don't make them take off the rest of their clothes -- even though somebody might have a plastic knife hidden under her blouse -- because we balance the risk of violence against the need for individuals to have some privacy, some dignity. Likewise with the cameras and microphones, or midnight raids, or cattle prods.
If there were no "half-measures," there'd be no spending on schools, or traffic lights, or concert halls, or football fields. There'd certainly be no tax cuts -- the government would have a prior claim on every available dollar, and every available dollar would go for national security. Anything else would be a "compromise."
But it's not that simple. Governing has always been about choosing, about balancing competing interests. There's security -- but there's also liberty, and privacy, and commerce, and justice. Some things that we could be doing, we choose not to do, because of the time, the effort, the cost, the level of intrusion involved.
Because there are offsetting considerations. Values in conflict. Because -- Dick Cheney's certainty notwithstanding -- these are tough choices.
And anyone who insists otherwise is a fool, or a fraud, or a fanatic.
Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.
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If you and your freinds..e
And IF you take your Defense Machine Industry Worldwide and this Creates some Enemys who frighten your Clients, who now beg for your services Better yet . And the more you oppress and scare your clients the more they demand your Service and the more enemys you create to fear.
Wanna make money ?, invest in War. Ask H@$$iburton , and Blackw@$$er.
Cheney's daughter has been making the tv rounds vehemently asserting that the contents of certain classified memos will exhonerate Dad and the torturers . Has anyone flatout asked her how she knows personally what the contents of those memos are?
I think what you point out, rather succinctly, is that there is NO world without some risk.
That is the great error and tragedy of the bush years, that so much of what was the essence of what is America has been lost in prostrating ourselves to the false god of 'security'.
At 52 years of age, I am cynical about America's ability to recover from this damage.
The real shame is that our youths, such as my 18 year-old son, have faced their formative years under a regime characterized by fear and infringement of civil rights. They know nothing else with which to compare. They have no foundation from which to say, 'This is not right. This is NOT America!'.
Cheney and his minions knew exactly what they were doing. They were not living in fear, but they played the fear card over and over again to prep most Americans for their many crimes. Their actions were calculated, their conspiracies set in motion to PROFIT FROM WAR. Follow the money trail and eventually you will find all involved in their conspiracies.
I like the way Horowitz fights. push cheney logic to it's possible extreme. thanks.
What Cheney and those like him haven't realized is that, in their cases, the terrorists have won. The objective of terrorism is to terrify, and Cheney and his kind have been permanently terrified.
Has it ever occured to Cheney and his defenders that when someone is tortured. The torturer has to already know what it is they want their victim to admit? In other words torture is just an ineffective act of vengence for desperate and scared cowards trying to prove thier manliness. Toture has Proven over and over to produce only the results that are desired.
Like Ventura said"Give me a waterboard and Dick Cheney and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon tate murders in 6 seconds". For all those clueless non-researching rightwing nuts. Sharon Tate was murdered by Charlie Manson's followers. A much gentler and sane man than Dick.
I concur....
Can't argue with that.
But when you are Dick Cheney, and your power and wealth depend on looking strong, and you already know all the information, because you set up the whole thing, it doesn't really matter, does it? He's never been interested in "national security" for you or me--it's been about protecting his corporate wealth all along and gaining more. He really is "The Penguin".
You've got to quit thinking like a sane rational honest person. All the Dick Gang needed was a couple of 'confessions' that gave them " documented intelligence " that Saddam was working withterrorist on 9-11 and the WMDs were smuggled out of Iraq moments before Bush attacked.
See! We were working with " flawed intelligence , we weren't lieing" We,and the American people were missled. The ends do justify the means.
"There's security -- but there's also liberty, and privacy, and commerce, and justice."
In creating a false conflict between security and liberty, we have abandoned the latter and sacrificed the former to justify an ideology. I am sick and tired of the political right shifting the "balance" toward their ideological delusions and away from the nation's best interests.
Well if your surviving by selling security Tech, Mercenary forces and security, And Nobid rebuilding disaster sites Fear is a GOOD thing.
I know you were putting their comments/statements of policy "to the extreme" (for dramatic effect), but it DOES point out their flawed way of thinking (ie. finding ANY justification for their actions / decisions).
-- "...fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed."
-- "There is never a good time to compromise
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior MORAL JUSTIFICATION FOR SELFISHNES
Equally:
"If there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction, and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time, the US must now act as if it were a certainty.
-- Detainees "suspected" of terrorist activity..
Now ask yourselves:
Do you REALLY believe that ONLY 3 people ("snicker*) were waterboarded, as per Bush/Cheney (as they "claim")..
Do you REALLY believe that ONLY a few "bad apples" were responsible for the abuses of detainees; as we're being told to believe..? We have plenty of examples of how he thinks. Do you think they're isolated incidents.
The "War on Terror" is and always has been a War On America and Americans and our freedoms under the Constitution, and our enemy consists of those in our own government who would continue to us fear to destroy our rights and steal our country.
Referring to torture
the(former
"Your enemy is not surrounding your country; your enemy is ruling your country."
http://www
Oh yes Rick. It's been a Reign of Error. And Terror. Dickie Cromwell and the Roundheads. (Who were Republicans. Even back in England they were a horror show.)
In his world we'd all be held in detention. For our protection. At an undisclosed location no doubt. He'd let us know when it was safe to come out. Which would of course be....neve
It might of course have made more sense to actually do something about the terror. Like spend the money he wasted on invading the wrong country to instead secure cockpit doors on planes. Really do something about border security. Many other things. But then that would defeat the whole purpose wouldn't it? Cheney couldn't "protect" us unless there was something to scare us.
It's classic brainwashing. Create the problem, promote it like it's the only thing that will save our lives, inundate with fear, then present a solution. You get to be the hero!!! The pharaceutical companies do the same thing with medication.
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