CIA director Panetta suggests Cheney wants attack (click here)
CIA Director Leon Panetta told The New Yorker magazine that former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's approach to terrorism almost suggests "he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."
WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon Panetta told The New Yorker magazine that former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's approach to terrorism almost suggests "he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."
Cheney has said in several interviews that he thinks Obama is making the United States less safe for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.
"When you read behind it," Panetta said, "it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."
The magazine also reported in April that Panetta fired Mitchell Jessen & Associates, a firm run by two psychologists who helped introduce waterboarding and other harsh methods to the agency's interrogation techniques.
The Senate Armed Services Committee reported on the role played by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen in developing "countermeasures to defeat" the resistance of captured enemy detainees from whom intelligence was being sought.
Panetta said he supported at one time the creation of a "truth commission" to look into the subject, but Obama discouraged the idea.
Then there is this 'caliphate' mess that one tries to understand. It is not only bizarre, but, simple minded and bigoted. I use that word with regret. Bigot is an easy word to use. But, in all sincerity the underlying 'tone' of this entire mess is a profound misunderstanding of the people of the Middle East, their strife, their needs, their love of God and their dire, dire need to 'have a place of peace.' I know it sounds strange to state the root of the violence of the Middle East is a need for a place of peace. But, at 'the end' of the 'hate' lies a 'place.' If 'that place' could be reached, would they be 'done with it all?' If they reached 'that place' without the violence in their lives could this be finished? Is violence a peaceful thing for those that control it?
Posted on Thursday, May. 21, 2009 from the Miami Herald
Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.
In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."
He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."
Cheney has said in several interviews that he thinks Obama is making the United States less safe for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.
"When you read behind it," Panetta said, "it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."
The magazine also reported in April that Panetta fired Mitchell Jessen & Associates, a firm run by two psychologists who helped introduce waterboarding and other harsh methods to the agency's interrogation techniques.
The Senate Armed Services Committee reported on the role played by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen in developing "countermeasures to defeat" the resistance of captured enemy detainees from whom intelligence was being sought.
Panetta said he supported at one time the creation of a "truth commission" to look into the subject, but Obama discouraged the idea.
Then there is this 'caliphate' mess that one tries to understand. It is not only bizarre, but, simple minded and bigoted. I use that word with regret. Bigot is an easy word to use. But, in all sincerity the underlying 'tone' of this entire mess is a profound misunderstanding of the people of the Middle East, their strife, their needs, their love of God and their dire, dire need to 'have a place of peace.' I know it sounds strange to state the root of the violence of the Middle East is a need for a place of peace. But, at 'the end' of the 'hate' lies a 'place.' If 'that place' could be reached, would they be 'done with it all?' If they reached 'that place' without the violence in their lives could this be finished? Is violence a peaceful thing for those that control it?
Posted on Thursday, May. 21, 2009 from the Miami Herald
Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.
In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."
He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."
