Comments on: Cheney Speaks

By: ejh

ejh — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:51:54 +0000

Fortunately, this enemy has lost control of Congress

Not that you’d notice, mind.

By: abb1

abb1 — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:51:14 +0000

I find it hard to believe that a captured killer will be “quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States”.

I read the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad’s hearings and he sounded more like “you have your rules, I have mine”.

But of course it doesn’t hurt when your country’s military associate your domestic political opponents with “enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right”.

By: croatoan

croatoan — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:30:30 +0000

Bush managed to get all the regional powers together to put pressure on North Korea.

After he let North Korea develop nuclear weapons. He may be doing a bang-up job of closing the barn doors, but the horses are already gone.

By: Ragout

Ragout — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:56:03 +0000

Just because no one’s come right out and said it, let me point out the obvious interpretation of Cheney’s speech. By mocking the idea of applying the Constitution and Geneva Conventions to captured prisoners, he’s encouraging Army officers to commit war crimes by torturing them.

Perhaps this is too obvious to be worth mentioning?

By: Grand Moff Texan

Grand Moff Texan — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:40:19 +0000

you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for

Fortunately, this enemy has lost control of Congress and has been systematically alienating everyone outside its most radical base, so this enemy’s days are numbered.
.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:36:18 +0000

“There is a position that the Geneva Conventions (as applied to the US who has not ratified the entirety of the Conventions) do not protect actors who fail to meet the minimum requirements for protection. More simply, fight honorably and be treated honorably, fight dishonorably and be treated dishonorably. Cheney seems to be refuting to this position.”

Posted by james

That position is wrong; the Geneva Conventions apply to anybody in a conflict. Note that this is not ‘prisoner of war’ status. Most particularly, and most criminally, the GC basically says that one can’t just grab civilians at random, and torture/kill them at a whim. This is the power specifically claimed by the Bush/Cheney administration, and implemented across the world.

Note that the Geneva Conventions don’t mandate kid gloves; executing most guerrillas (after a trial) would be acceptable. Picking up and torturing people ‘because’, however does indeed violate the Geneva Conventions.

By: Teddy

Teddy — Tue, 29 May 2007 03:01:30 +0000

Teddy, you’re here not because you want to discuss Bush and Cheney’s policies, but because you are a masochist who likes to be insulted by strangers.

Walt, you are wrong again. I actually prefer to insult strangers, you moron!

By: DW

DW — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:31:27 +0000

What no one has mentioned is the enormous psychological victory that Cheney and Bush have handed to Bin Laden. Bin Laden & co took advantage of some weaknesses in American security, got lucky and managed to kill a few thousand people. Stalin would snicker in contempt at such a paltry total. Yet by insisting we need to disregard the Geneva conventions and other legal protections, and that we need to consider “enhanced interrogation methods” (torture) Cheney and Bush have inflated Bin Laden into the equivalent of Spectre or Lex Luthor. Think of what that must do for Bin laden’s reputation and recruiting – all these mighty Americans quaking in fear, pronouncing him the mightiest enemy ever – must be better than sex for him.

We should keep our traditional laws and rights not merely out of moral principle, but to demonstrate our confidence and our contempt for the enemy. One religious fanatic punk isn’t worth scrapping our society for.

By: aaron

aaron — Tue, 29 May 2007 01:26:14 +0000

Bush has made his fair share of bad decisions, but off the top of my head I can name at least three situations that one could argue Bush handled correctly (or at least didn’t mess up completely):

North Korea: You can argue that Bush hasn’t done enough, but Bush managed to get all the regional powers together to put pressure on North Korea.

Darfur: Calling Darfur a “genocide” was a big step. Bush probably expected more support from the world on Darfur, and you can claim that he should have confronted other world powers more, but he did more than any other leader on the matter.

Spy Plane Crisis: Bush handled this relatively well. Some might disagree with the path he took, but few would argue that this was a disaster.

By: blog

blog — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:48:59 +0000

Not to mention that he is a liar(Atta), a war-profiteer(Halliburton fraud in the billions upon billions of dollars) and a coward(five deferments).

By: blog

blog — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:43:24 +0000

Cheney is so completely compromised in this regard that it is sickening to hear him mouth platitudes about values, when his bestest friends in the whole world, the ones who grease his and his cronies palms, are the primary funders of those whose values he so condemns.

By: james

james — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:07:20 +0000

56 should read refuring not refuting.

By: james

james — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:04:09 +0000

There is a position that the Geneva Conventions (as applied to the US who has not ratified the entirety of the Conventions) do not protect actors who fail to meet the minimum requirements for protection. More simply, fight honorably and be treated honorably, fight dishonorably and be treated dishonorably. Cheney seems to be refuting to this position.

By: SG

SG — Mon, 28 May 2007 22:56:41 +0000

Ah yes, Dan Simon, Iraq the partisan controversy. 655,000 dead would probably want to argue it’s an objective failure, but they can’t. They’re dead.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Mon, 28 May 2007 19:51:18 +0000

“Delicate sensibilities” is the kicker—I doubt the sincerity, or sanity, of anyone who argues that Cheney did not mean to deprecate the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution.