{"id":48948,"date":"2014-12-15T07:17:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T14:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/15\/dick-cheney-presents-the-slippery-slope-of-torture.html"},"modified":"2014-12-15T07:17:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T14:17:50","slug":"dick-cheney-presents-the-slippery-slope-of-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/15\/dick-cheney-presents-the-slippery-slope-of-torture.html","title":{"rendered":"Dick Cheney presents the slippery slope of torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Granted that the Bush Administration was noteworthy for never, ever,<\/i> admitting it had made a mistake, this particular article on Dick Cheney's current attitude — as given on "Face the Nation" yesterday — is appalling. In short, real torture was the killing of 3,000 people on 9\/11, so if it's not as bad as that, then it's not torture. The real tragedy is if people are released who turn out to be bad guys in the future, so if innocents are captured and tortured and die so that doesn't happen, well, it's okay.<\/i> <\/p>\n

Cheney can't even bring himself to express reluctant regret for what was done. It was by the book, it was done to prevent another 9\/11, it wasn't as bad as 9\/11, so it was all okay and he'd do it again in a heartbeat. The freezing to death of US prisoner doesn't match 9\/11, so it's okay. Waterboarding isn't as bad as decapitation, so it's okay. A quarter of the people captured and tortured were innocent, but some of them weren't, so that's okay.<\/p>\n

This<\/b> is why we don't try to justify torture in "exceptional" circumstances. This is why we don't turn ticking-time-bomb hypotheticals into public policy. Because it's a quick and easy step from there to making some binary "It's not the worst evil you can imagine, so it must therefore be good" call, justifying (even in your own mind) any extreme, and not simply justifying but glorying in it as necessary, heroic, and patriotic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nDick Cheney Defends the Torture of Innocents<\/a><\/span>
\n“I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Granted that the Bush Administration was noteworthy for never, ever, admitting it had made a mistake, this particular article on Dick Cheney's current attitude — as given on "Face the Nation" yesterday — is appalling. In short, real torture was the killing of 3,000 people on 9\/11, so if it's not as bad as that, … Continue reading “Dick Cheney presents the slippery slope of torture”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48928,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/14\/truth-in-quoting-sometimes-hurts-but-not-tortuously.html","url_meta":{"origin":48948,"position":0},"title":"Truth in Quoting sometimes hurts (but not tortuously)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 14-Dec-14 10:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I had retweeted to me this little bit (https:\/\/twitter.com\/P0TUS\/status\/544252013773848577), a quotation from George Washington to \"the Northern Expeditionary Force\":\"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13003,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/21\/was_mccain_tortured_in_vi.html","url_meta":{"origin":48948,"position":1},"title":"Was McCain tortured in Viet Nam?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Aug-08 10:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, of course he was. Looking at the litany of mistreatment as a POW in the hands of the North Vietnamese, how could we not call it torture? Um ......","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26500,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/17\/in-the-interest-of-fairness-i-applaud-dick-cheney-for-this.html","url_meta":{"origin":48948,"position":2},"title":"In the interest of fairness, I applaud Dick Cheney for this","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-Feb-12 11:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cheney has said in the past that he favors states recognizing marriage equality (though not federal action to force it), and has a lesbian daughter. On that basis, it's not surprising, but quite gratifying, that, as a landowner on Maryland, he's been pushing behind the scenes for the Maryland marriage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5934,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/25\/word_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":48948,"position":3},"title":"Word","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 25-Jun-04 12:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Big kerfluffle today over Dick Cheney using a naughty word in the Senate chambers. Vice President Dick Cheney blurted out the \"F word\" at Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11507,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/12\/the_dangers_pitfalls_and.html","url_meta":{"origin":48948,"position":4},"title":"The dangers, pitfalls, and general unadvisedness of invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 12-Aug-07 10:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Per Dick Cheney himself.\u00a0 Heck, he even uses the \"quagmire\" reference.\u00a0 Albeit in 1994. Even if -- even if -- one grants the necessity of doing in 2003 what Cheney...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48988,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/16\/the-justification-of-horror-by-other-horror.html","url_meta":{"origin":48948,"position":5},"title":"The Justification of Horror by Other Horror","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 16-Dec-14 2:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I have actually seen a number of commentators today pointing at the Taliban massacre of children at a school run by the Pakistani Army as justification for the torture of prisoners. \"See what animals 'they' are? 'They' deserve everything they get.\"(Ignoring that apparently quite of a few of \"them\" that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}