(Senator Carl) Levin: Cheney lied about torture

[sabra]

Source: Michigan Messenger

In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association on Wednesday night, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin forcefully answered recent claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney that the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” ordered by the Bush administration to be used on detainees in the war on terror were not torture and that they saved American lives.

Levin blasted Cheney for “embracing the arrogance that for too many years alienated our friends and set back efforts to achieve common goals.” Referring to the 200-page report that his Senate Armed Services committee recently put out about abuse and torture of detainees, Levin said that Cheney’s worldview, put into action at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, “dishonored our nation.”

He explicitly took on Cheney’s claim that the abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib was just the work of a few bad apples, with no link to techniques employed on other detainees at the request of the Bush administration. “The seeds of Abu Ghraib’s rotten fruit,” Levin said, “were sown by civilians at the highest levels of our government.”

...

“Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked,” Levin said of documents he has also seen. “But those classified documents say nothing about the numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified, so that people can judge for themselves what is fact, and what is fiction.”

Read more: http://michiganmessenger.com/19990/levin-cheney-lied-about-torture

[librechik]

1. so bring on the prosecutions!

otherwise, such statements mean nothing. We are still a Torturing Nation.

Come on, Senator. it's up to you!

[MurrayDelph]

4. Yep, without prosecutions, all we can claim

is that we won't torture for now!

[No Elephants]

6. Obama left the door open as to "special" renditions, though. So, maybe "we" personally

won't torture, but we may offshore torturing.






"Well, isn't THAT special?"

[Papa Boule]

2. What gets me about these brave, powerful leaders is the cowardice that leaks through

The whole time they were bravely ordering those terrible things they were employing fig-leaf weavers to give them cover, denying everything, and allowing underlings to take falls for them.

If they were convinced of the rightness of their actions, why be such cowards about it?

I can only conclude they knew it was wrong all along, and they knew the risks, which they felt in their hubris and positions they could manage. (And they could reason, narcissistically, that it would be in the best interest of the country if underlings took the falls and let them continue their "important work for the American people.")

By appearances it seems to me like they had this opportunity, and it was, to them, a dark and twisted pleasure they could not resist.

[No Elephants]

7. "fig leaf weavers" I like that. Think I'll steal it. Welcome, Papa Boule!

[rateyes]

3. Senator Levin, you just said that Cheney ordered torture.

What are you going to do about it? What does your oath of office require that you do about it?

[TheMachineWins]

5. Fantastic, maybe now we can nail the traitors

Look what happened to crude oil prices after Levin decided to regulated electronic crude futures trading. Levin gets things done.

[florida08]

8. what a great remark

"embracing the arrogance that for too many years alienated our friends and set back efforts to achieve common goals"
and isn't that just what it did. Our government has demonstrated how inept we are at spreading democracy and running an economy.

[No Elephants]

9. Thanks, Senator. We always knew he was lying. His lips were moving. You always

knew it, too.

There was nothing we coud do to stop him, though. And there was nothing you could do, either. Oh, wait. YOU could have done something, especially after 2006, but you never did.

Although statutes of limitation will start expiring soon, there is still time to create (again) an Office of Independent Counsel, if only one for the sole purpose of investigating Bushco.

So, are you going to put your money where your mouth finally is, Senator Levin? Put another way, is this about principle or is it only partisan posturing and bloviating?