Ten Years After Bush-Cheney Time Bandits & War Criminals

Remember? 12 years ago about this time of year in 2001, before 9/11, Dick Cheney was holding his secret energy task force meetings. Only the Dickster and the fossil industries were allowed to attend or know what was discussed, the public and any other groups were excluded and the content kept secret through executive privilege.

Under a Freedom of Information Act request the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch was able to get three small documents from the conclaves that inadvertently happened to be at the State Dept. and therefore had to be released under the law. These three little documents speak volumes about the agenda of the Cheney Administration.

What a Lying Little Dickster

"You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it."-- Dick Cheney, on Richard Clarke

Subject lines of Richard Clarke emails to Bush Administration prior to 9/11/01:

"Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack" (5/3/01)
"Bin Ladin's Networks' Plans Advancing" (5/26/01)
"Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent" (6/23/01)
"Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats" (6/25/01)
"Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks" (6/30/01)
"Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays" (7/02/01)

Oh yeah, and what, in front of Congress and the Camera's, did Condi have to admit was the title of the Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing from Early August 2001? - Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States.

I guess that little Dickster was too busy with the secret Energy briefings where he was dividing up Iraq's oil fields among his cronies to take a clue and so he was caught completely unawares. Now he's got to spin and find someone else to take the blame.

Morsels of Truth - Cookies Beat Torture

The Dickster is of course lying about the torture he authorized and it's effectiveness. He can't help it, he lies out of reflex now the habit is so ingrained. And he's a frightened and pathetic little man. But it turns out that what really worked, what really provided the most and the best actionable intelligence was a cookie, sugar free cookies to be precise: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901491,00.html

One of the FBI's top experts on terrorism and interrogation and a harsh critic of the bu$hite tactics of torture, Ali Soufan, interrogated the man closest to Osama who has ever been in custody, his bodygaurd Abu Jandal. A man charged with protecting Bin Laden and ensuring that he was never captured alive. He got nowhere until he gave the diabetic man sugarfree cookies. He thereby showed him respect and became a human being in his eyes instead of an evil westerner.

Soufan has testified before congress about the ineffectiveness of torture and says that contrary to Cheney's claims that torture was used succesfully it was these types of methods, not the harsh techniques, that prompted al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah to give up the identities of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attack and Jose Padilla the dirty bomber. Soufan says that once the CIA brought a private contractor to start the rough stuff, Zubaydah stopped cooperating.

Apparently, top experts in the field of interrogation agree with Soufan that resorting to torture, means you've lost control of the situation and leads to poor results compared to standard techniques. I know personnally I'd spill my guts for some oatmeal scotchies warm from the oven. But I can't help but wonder, if the recruiting pamphlets that Al Qiada is handing out all over the middle-east showed Americans bearing cookies instead of chains, electrical wires, sexual/religious humiliation and water-boarding might they not be having the success they've had at demonizing us with our own actions.

Anyway you can't be a beacon of light when you're working on the darkside like the slimebucket war criminals, Cheney and friends.

GOPster Torture and Murder by Proxy

It's entertaining to see Cheney with his 18% approval rating rounding the the talk show circuit making excuses for his crimes and working hard to drive the Republican Party to the extreme wing-nut margins by choosing Rush limbaugh over Colin Powell and calling Powell a Democrat (soon to be Democrat-Socialist per GOPorthodoxy).

But before we on the left embrace the exiled Powell, lets not forget that Powell KNOWINGLY and dutifully lied to the U.N, DIRECTLY paving the way to the Neocon's illegal and very deadly war in Iraq. He's got a long long repentant path to walk before he can redeem himself. And while El Snortbo lies everyday and is in a very real sense directly responsible for the messes our country is in due to conservative dogma run amock, one would be hard pressed to make the case that any one of his lies led DIRECTLY to murder like Cheney's and Powell's.

By the way, here is what Russ Feingold (who is not a documented liar like the three GOPsters above) had to say about the torture memos Cheney wants declasssified to promote his rationalization and war crimes defense in the court of public opinion; "Nothing I have seen — including the two documents to which former Vice President Cheney has repeatedly referred — indicates that the torture techniques authorized by the last administration were necessary, or that they were the best way to get information out of detainees. The former vice president is misleading the American people when he says otherwise."

But speaking of murder, this story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103412.html was also reported in Tuesday’s Democracy Now!, so you know it's credible: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/12/headlines

A key witness (and victim) Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi of both the Bu$hites torture and their war promoting lies is conveniently DEAD (supposedly of suicide) in the hands of our new best friend and all around good guy Muhmar Quadaffi of Libya, into whose care our CIA delivered him from their blacksite archapelago. This is HUGE!

Al-Libi was captured by the CIA and when he didn't tell them what they thought he should, they rendered him to Egypt where he was severely tortured (including beatings, waterboarding and mock burial) in our names and on our behalf. To end this torture done at the behest of the Bu$hites, al-Libi agreed to tell his torturers anything they wanted. What they wanted and got was false testimony that Saddam was working with al-Qiada to obtain chemical weapons to kill Americans and that's exactly what they got. This information along with other fabrications was used by Colin Powell and the Neocons to sell the debacle in Iraqle to the American people.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the bu$hites launched their illegal and unconstitutional torture regime to cover their lies and lead us into the quagmire of Iraq from which we cannot (and will not be able to for years) extricate ourselves and which is has now killed tens of thousands (minimum) of innocent people. The ugly truth is coming out and into focus and the more Dick talks the more appearent it becomes what an absolute scumbag he is.

George, Dick, Condi and the rest of the gang are war criminals, plain and simple and they need to be brought to justice before they flee to Uruguay (or is it Paraguay, I forget) like the good little fascists that they are.