Commentary: Cheney says U.S. can torture but can't heal

[Niels Bohr 72]

(CNN) -- ####### Cheney has finally found the limits of government power.

In his interview with CNN's John King -- his first television interview since leaving the vice presidency -- Cheney revealed a view of federal power that is incoherent and hypocritical.

According to recently released legal memos from the Bush-Cheney administration, the former vice president believes that the federal government can ignore the First Amendment and suppress free speech and freedom of the press as part of its "war on terror."

An October 23, 2001, memo from Justice Department lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty said, "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully."

Former Vice PresidentCheney also believes, according to these same memos, that the federal government can send troops to burst into the homes of American citizens without a search warrant, despite the Fourth Amendment's protection against such unreasonable searches. He believes that the federal government has the right to arrest an American citizen on American soil and hold him in prison without charges. He believes that the federal government can listen in on your phone conversations without a court order.

Cheney believes that the federal government can ignore the Geneva Conventions, binding treaties largely written by the United States, signed by the president and ratified by the Senate. He believes that the federal government can commit torture, despite laws and treaties making torture a crime.

As the Washington Post reported, "Starting in January, 2002, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion of prisoners in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials."

The newspaper said, "Cheney and his allies ... did not originate every idea to rewrite or reinterpret the law, but fresh accounts from participants show that they translated muscular theories, from Yoo and others, into the operational language of government."

In fact, Yoo has said the federal government has the power to grab your young son and crush his private parts if the president thinks that will help the "war on terror."

Think I'm kidding? Here's the verbatim exchange from a debate between Yoo and Notre Dame professor Doug Cassel:

Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty ...

Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo ...

Yoo: I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do that.

Wow. That is a sick, twisted, sadistic world view. It is also a breathtakingly expansive view of federal power over citizens. Indeed, the position of Cheney and his allies seems to be that the federal government has limitless power over people. If the government can censor the free press, restrict free speech, listen in on your private conversations, burst into your home, take you away, hold you in prison without charges and torture you, it raises an interesting question: What on Earth does ####### Cheney think the federal government can't do?

Thanks to John King, we now know: Cheney believes that the government cannot help with health care, improve education or wean America off Middle East oil. I'm not kidding.

Cheney, whose authoritarian impulses run deep, is suddenly worried that the federal government might become too powerful under President Obama.

"I worry a lot," he told King, "that they're using the current set of economic difficulties to try to justify a massive expansion in the government, and much more authority for the government over the private sector. I don't think that's good. I don't think that's going to solve the problem."

Set aside the, umm, irony of a guy who is alive, thank God, because of government-provided health care opposing health care for taxpaying Americans. And set aside the hypocrisy of the Bush-Cheney Medicare prescription drug entitlement, the greatest expansion of the federal role in health care since President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Focus instead on Cheney's alarmist rhetoric: "a massive expansion in the government", "much more authority for the government." Cheney is comfortable with a government that has the authority to torture, imprison, censor and kill. Just not a government that has the capacity and compassion to write a health insurance policy or take on Big Oil.

I write this only hours after King's interview with Cheney, and yet I believe it will live in history. Right there, in his own words, Cheney gives historians a candid explication of his world view: that government may claim dictatorial powers when he and his ilk are in charge, but when we the people call on our government to act to address recession, illness and ignorance (made worse by Cheney's policies) well, then we've reached Cheney's boundaries of the government's power.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Only wizards can heal.

[Ban Hammer 14,569]

Only wizards can heal.

i thought it was clerics.

[HAL 9000 96]

Only wizards can heal.

i thought it was clerics.

+4 to AC, +4 to constitution, +8 to strength

[Heracles 417]

According to recently released legal memos from the Bush-Cheney administration, the former vice president believes that the federal government can ignore the First Amendment and suppress free speech and freedom of the press as part of its "war on terror."

Of course they should. We are talking about war here and not a news story regarding some idiot who thinks their first amendment rights were violated because a government department asked to see their ID before processing a form.

Something that is common sense in most developed countries. I have never seen 1/1,000th the ####### people here complain about even hinted about overseas.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Constellation

[Niels Bohr 72]

According to recently released legal memos from the Bush-Cheney administration, the former vice president believes that the federal government can ignore the First Amendment and suppress free speech and freedom of the press as part of its "war on terror."

Of course they should. We are talking about war here and not a news story regarding some idiot who thinks their first amendment rights were violated because a government department asked to see their ID before processing a form.

Something that is common sense in most developed countries. I have never seen 1/1,000th the ####### people here complain about even hinted about overseas.

From what I recall, there was no War in Vietnam. Only the Americans wanted that War. History repeats itself. The only difference then and now is that the war on terror is actually a war that never ends.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[Heracles 417]

From what I recall, there was no War in Vietnam. Only the Americans wanted that War. History repeats itself. The only difference then and now is that the war on terror is actually a war that never ends.

When it comes to my safety I would rather be on the paranoid side than die from radiation poisoning or death. If anything, the fact the nothing has happened over the last few years leads me to believe they are planning something big.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Constellation

[Niels Bohr 72]

Something always have been planned big by a foreign entity. And, that doesn't include terrorist. There are a number of foreign countries who would love to destroy US. More openly would be North Korea.

I understand safety. However, safety wouldn't be enough of a reason. As I've seen, we're a much dangerous to our own selves that the terrorist are. Plainly summarize, I'd fear the government more than I do terrorist. Examples could be seen from foreign countries lacking freedom of speech (Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Thailad, Madagascar, etc...) where these countries have executed a number of those who opposed their ideas, and freedom from search and seizure where they implant evidence to acuse you of something to protect their own ####### so that in order not to make a shameful name for them.

I better to fight for these freedoms then not to have them.

[Heracles 417]

I better to fight for these freedoms then not to have them.

Anything to the extreme is not good. I have asked this before but do you think that everyone else abroad is jealous or envious of the first Amendment?

I have a number of friends from those same countries you mentioned who constantly joke on me about the first amendment. To this day I am yet to met one person and have them say to me man I wish we had America's first Amendment. Your so lucky living there. The stuff they usually joke on is the same things that liberal Americans strongly believe in.

And you know there is nothing wrong with the original and actual intent of the first amendment. What people abroad laugh at is how it has been bastardized from freedom to express political views, to the 2009 definition of license to literally do as one pleases. I am sure there are people who will disagree with me but in my experience the current context of the first amendment is usually the but of jokes if it comes up abroad.

Edit: For obvious reasons I never ever saw the Australian military's plans and latest offensive published, let alone mentioned, in the papers. Whereas when it comes to the US, the terrorist just need to read the NYT.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Constellation

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Only wizards can heal.

i thought it was clerics.

Wizards are more powerful.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Only wizards can heal.

i thought it was clerics.

Wizards are more powerful.

See?

Edited March 17, 2009 by spookyturtle

[Niels Bohr 72]

Most historians of the Vietnam conflict have extrapolated the Republican commitment to anticommunism generally and in Southeast Asia specifically into full-scale support for the war within the party.

Wars happen when these people are in charge. Less freedom, or more conflict. When worse comes to worse, we'll have war. But, pushing a political agenda is not war but of self-interest. They never learn. With them, there will never be peace. Any signs of repression, they want to control it.

Their agenda, "Imprisonment before asking questions. Use torture to get it out of people by any means." That may work, but, not all the same. Same as with negotiation, they may work but not all the time. So, what's the difference? One takes away any meaning to what freedom is, and the other takes corruption away from gov't. Nixon have showed that the Republican will go at great lengths to extend their bounds to influence other countries. Bush is a reflection of him. Not saying all Republican, but most, that is why Nixon and Bush was nominated as the party leaders.

[Ban Hammer 14,569]

Only wizards can heal.

i thought it was clerics.

Wizards are more powerful.

not if your pc is dead!