Dick Cheney is a sensitive soul. Are you?
Dick Cheney, who I thought was beyond such things, claimed today that he was offended by Amnesty International's report on US conduct at Guantanamo Bay. It's nice to see that he still has the capacity to be offended...usually someone as shameless as him feels no offense or scorn.
My favorite part of Cheney's rebuttal to Amnesty was this statement: "I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world," he said. "Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly repressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people." As usual, Cheney response to overwhelming evidence of US misconduct is to ignore it. Independent contractors who conduct torture sessions at the behest of the Oval Office aren't necessarily American, it's just statistically a 95% chance that they are--so the Bushies have their plausible deniability.
His claim of "hundreds of thousands" of Iraqis and Afghanis slaughtered by Saddam and the Taliban is absolutely laughable. Since 1991, more people have died in Iraq due to the US than any other dictator, catastrophe, or natural disaster. Between the two Gulf War exercises alone nearly 200,000 Iraqis have died, and the economic sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War have purportedly been involved in the deaths of 500,000 more citizens. The liberation that Cheney champions will be enjoyed by a nation of corpses.
Amnesty International characterized Gitmo Bay as the "gulag of our times"; perhaps a bit excessive in terms of hyperbole, but still accurate nonetheless. At least it's warm in Gitmo, not like Kolyma, Karaganda, or Vladivostok...also the death rates have to climb by about 5000% before the comparison is truly warranted. So in that regard, Cheney does have a viable complaint...but political violence is political violence, no matter how you spin it. It is immoral regardless of what scale it is conducted upon.
In today's America, Cheney and his cohorts have stolen the last two elections while sewing up billions of dollars in no-bid governmental contracts to "rebuild" Iraq after we're done destroying it. My wish is that someone brings Dick Cheney home to his undisclosed location strapped to a board with a blindfold around his head. Then they can make him drink menstrual blood while burning his favorite parts out of the King James Bible. Perhaps at that point in time he might see why Amnesty International views the US as a country badly in need of regime change.
My favorite part of Cheney's rebuttal to Amnesty was this statement: "I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world," he said. "Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly repressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people." As usual, Cheney response to overwhelming evidence of US misconduct is to ignore it. Independent contractors who conduct torture sessions at the behest of the Oval Office aren't necessarily American, it's just statistically a 95% chance that they are--so the Bushies have their plausible deniability.
His claim of "hundreds of thousands" of Iraqis and Afghanis slaughtered by Saddam and the Taliban is absolutely laughable. Since 1991, more people have died in Iraq due to the US than any other dictator, catastrophe, or natural disaster. Between the two Gulf War exercises alone nearly 200,000 Iraqis have died, and the economic sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War have purportedly been involved in the deaths of 500,000 more citizens. The liberation that Cheney champions will be enjoyed by a nation of corpses.
Amnesty International characterized Gitmo Bay as the "gulag of our times"; perhaps a bit excessive in terms of hyperbole, but still accurate nonetheless. At least it's warm in Gitmo, not like Kolyma, Karaganda, or Vladivostok...also the death rates have to climb by about 5000% before the comparison is truly warranted. So in that regard, Cheney does have a viable complaint...but political violence is political violence, no matter how you spin it. It is immoral regardless of what scale it is conducted upon.
In today's America, Cheney and his cohorts have stolen the last two elections while sewing up billions of dollars in no-bid governmental contracts to "rebuild" Iraq after we're done destroying it. My wish is that someone brings Dick Cheney home to his undisclosed location strapped to a board with a blindfold around his head. Then they can make him drink menstrual blood while burning his favorite parts out of the King James Bible. Perhaps at that point in time he might see why Amnesty International views the US as a country badly in need of regime change.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 3:58 PM
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