Former New York governor George Pataki who was in Manhattan when the World Trade Center was hit, used the opportunity to criticize the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate CIA interrogators who went beyond their legal guidance, saying it "jeopardizes" national security:
When the question of the day was the overall legitmacy of the legal opinions drafted by the DOJ's Office of Legal Council, every supporter touted the unambigious language that clearly defined the boundries and limitations for these enhanced interrogation tactics. However, now that he know that some CIA Interrogators went beyond the legal guidance outlined in those opinions, George Pataki and former Vice President Dick Cheney are now of the opinion that investigating even those that went beyond those clearly defined limits would "jeapordize" national security.
"Placing CIA officials who were acting in the aftermath of the worst attacks against our country and civilians in our history in possible criminal jeopardy years after the fact is in my mind a horrible decision. It jeopardizes our ability to continue to effectively protect our country against those who hate us and want to attack us again."
Oddly, Pataki claimed that his disapproval of the investigation sprung from a concern for the rule of law. "We must make sure we obey the rule of law and act in ways that are not just legal but moral," said Pataki. "But now, years after the fact, to consider charges is wrong for our country, wrong for our security and wrong for the entire world that believes in the rule of law." -
President Bush's war policy has taken this country so far into the abyss that he's left the Republican Party with the impossible task of trying to defend the undefendable at all cost. It has made honesty, integrity, and logic obsolete and no longer compatable with public discourse.
Instead, Bush defenders now have to rely on tender notions, contridiction, and prefaced statements to offer up even a flimsey argument. If you look at Pataki's statement above, he could have said that "Placing CIA officials in possible criminal jeopardy years after the fact is in my mind a horrible decision." But the right has lost the luxury of being direct and to the point. They have to sell everything now by making it a threat to national security or plain old unpatriotic.
Instead, Pataki had to add a sentance within a sentance as an excuse. So now it reads like "Placing CIA officials who were acting in the aftermath of the worst attacks against our country and civilians in our history in possible criminal jeopardy years after the fact is in my mind a horrible decision." Oh...so they broke the law while acting in the aftermath of the worst attack against our country. Well shit! - That's different then! - We can't have the rule of law getting in the way of fighting a war and torturing our prisoners.
When we start ignoring the rule of law or allowing public opinon to determine when it should or shouldn't apply, that is when we jeapordize national security. When we start to rationalize criminal acts based on the circumstances under which they were committed, that's when he jeapordize national security. When we begin to excuse criminal acts based on a flimsey rationalization that it jeapordizes our ability to effectively protect our country against those who hate us and want to attack us again, we're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from becoming a rogue nation.
It's quite clear now that to people like Former Gov. Pataki and Former Vice President Dick Cheney, that there are no limits or boundries to anything done in the name of national security. With a new chapter in the Bush-Cheney saga leaking out of the CIA like a book of the month club, I fear that it will not be long before we learn that what we already know is just the tip of the iceberg.
I fear that some really bad Deer-Hunter kind of shit has gone down at these secret prisons and that Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney's magical history tour actually had fuck-all to do with waterboarding. In a few years time, waterboarding will be a tender notion compared to random execution and negligent homicide in the process of "enhanced interrogation" People like Dick Cheney don't jump into CYA mode to the extent that he has just because we sprinkled some fucking water on someones face. Give me a break!
Chico Brisbane
Jon Stewert Thank You Boston
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