RAY McGOVERN - Answering 'What if Cheney's Right?'

[kpete]

Answering 'What if Cheney's Right?'

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Richard Cohen ("What if Cheney's Right?," op- ed, May 12) started out on a high moral plane with the observation that "torture is a moral abomination."

But he then seemed to slip over to what then-Vice President Dick Cheney called, in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "the dark side." Mr. Cohen referred disparagingly to those "who will not acknowledge that the immediate post-Sept. 11 atmosphere allowed for methods that now seem abhorrent" and focused on Mr. Cheney's insistence on the "efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture."

Let me try to help.

As a former Army intelligence officer, I may be biased, but I'll go with Lt. Gen. John F. Kimmons, head of Army intelligence from 2005 to 2008. He did a very gutsy thing on Sept. 6, 2006, just a couple of hours before he knew President Bush would publicly extol the efficacy of his "alternative set of procedures" for interrogation. Gen. Kimmons arranged his own news conference at the Pentagon and in unmistakable language said, "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that."

RAY McGOVERN
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/16/AR2009051601846.html

[ck4829]

1. History tells us that torture has never been used stop terrorist activities... ever

[create.peace]

2. ray's the best!

[Karenina]

6. Indeed he is! Welcome to coming out of your lurking mode!

:toast:

[Mira]

8. Proud to give the 5th recommendation to my fellow marcher, Ray McGovern.

What I remember with pride is that he and I marched against Bush together for about an hour in Fayetteville, NC, a few years back.
A very fond memory of a valuable hour spent listening.

[Jeep789]

3. Every young child that has ever been tickled knows

the truth. I can't believe this is even worth debate.

[BlooInBloo]

4. Heh indeedy. You'll say anything.

[glitch]

5. Richard Cohen has been on the dark side for quite awhile now.

Any forays onto a high moral plane are simply rhetorical.

[blueworld]

7. Then it must be Armageddon. He's been wrong about everything else n/t

[nichomachus]

9. I don't know about anyone else, but I

found these methods abhorrent before Sept.11, during Sept, 11 and after Sept. 11 --

Mr. Cohen referred disparagingly to those "who will not acknowledge that the immediate post-Sept. 11 atmosphere allowed for methods that now seem abhorrent"

Seeing these methods as abhorrent is what separates us from the terrorists. Cheney destroyed that line.