Cheney: Free Pass For CIA Interrogators Gone Wild

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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

Fox News Panel Blind To All But Al Qaeda

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Fox News assembled an "All Star" panel for a Special Report on domestic terrorism yesterday. The topic was sparked by the arrests of 7 men in North Carolina for supposedly planning acts of terrorism on the behest of Al Qaeda. What seemed to surprise the Fox panel yesterday -- was how successful the suspects were at blending in as regular American neighbors. But not once does it ever seem to cross their minds that this, indeed, has long been a feature of right-wing domestic terrorism in this country.

There's no doubt that the addition of Al Qaeda as a player on the domestic terrorism scene is cause for special concern. America has been fortunate in that, for the most part, its many would-be domestic terrorists have not typically been very competent. Adding a highly competent organization like Al Qaeda to the mix ratchets up the potential danger on this front significantly.

Attorney General Eric Holder was fairly thoughtful in his interview with ABC in addressing this:

"I mean, that's one of the things that's particularly troubling: This whole notion of radicalization of Americans," Holder told ABC News during an interview in his SUV as his motorcade brought him from home to work.

"Leaving this country and going to different parts of the world and then coming back, all, again, in aim of doing harm to the American people, is a great concern."

... Holder said the ever-changing threat of terror and the pressure to keep up with it weighs heavily on his mind as he tries to ensure that the government has done all it can to anticipate the moves of an unpredictable enemy.

"But, you know, in the hierarchy of things, it's hard to figure out how to prioritize these things in some ways," he said. "The constant scream of threats, the kind of things you have to be aware about, the whole notion of radicalization is something that didn't loom as large a few months ago ... as it does now. And that's the shifting nature of threats that keeps you up at night."

Obviously, Holder is focused on these new cases involving international-terror entities. But the dynamic he's describing also fits what has been happening on an increasingly intense basis within the ranks of American right-wing extremist groups since the election of Obama: Not only are people being radicalized by right-wing rhetoric, an increasing number of them are joining organizations that preach the violent overthrow of American democracy -- our genuine enemies within.

People don't need to travel overseas to become violently radicalized in this country. Indeed, there are exponentially many more white Americans who have gone through "radicalization" from white-supremacist, nativist, and anti-abortion organizations than will ever be successfully recruited by Al Qaeda.

Now, there's plenty of evidence the Holder DOJ gets this. But the media -- particularly its right-wing component -- clearly doesn't.

Frequently mentioned on cable, for instance, the past few days has been the New York "terrorism" cell that was busted by the feds a couple of months ago ... except they turned out not to be so much of a "terrorist" cell after all.

Moreover, these cases have been relatively few and far between. We simply can't say that, however, of the regular drumbeat of domestic terrorism we get from the extremist American right -- both in recent months and indeed for many years running.

Now, we all remember how prescient the Homeland Security warning about far-right domestic terrorism proved to be. Yet Janet Napolitano was forced to apologize to the raving wingnuts for having issued it.
But then, right-wingers have been trying whitewash away the existence of these domestic terrorists for some years now.

For the most part, movement conservatives have trouble seeing white right-wing domestic terrorists as just that. The only terrorists who matter, it seems, are those from overseas or with dark skin. (It didn't help, of course, that the Bush DOJ practiced an ugly double standard on this score.)

Which is why, periodically, we continue to see "lone wolves" committing acts of horrific violence, themselves domestic terrorists radicalized not by foreign organizations, but by entities that reside right here in America.
And periodically, the media are surprised by all this. Because they all thought the problem was just Al Qaeda.