OpEdNews - Article: Currently the war criminals are shaping the argument.

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his crew are getting their opportunity to spin reality. They lied their way into the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and, as a result of that expansion of executive powers, they had a chance to commit truly heinous crimes such as torturing prisoners,and they couldn't resist. We want our good names restored. I don't want to be associated with war criminals. To accomplish that, this group of war criminals needs to be brought to justice.

Cheney gets to say, "it offends the hell out of me that the Obama administration has decided to investigate prisoner abuse by the CIA" and it is an "outrageous political act that will demoralize the intelligence community to the point where "nobody's going to sign up for those kinds of missions."

He knows that he got the masses to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 and, if he gets a chance, he will get this torture propaganda to stick also. A June poll by the Associated Press found that 52 percent of Americans said torture was sometimes or often justified to obtain information from terror suspects, which shows Cheney that his hypocrisy is working. Lie to those whose lives are consumed in a daily struggle for survival often enough and gradually they will believe any lie that appeals to their hatred of others.

The GOP admits to using "enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT), which is shorthand for torture, on three detainees. Only one is enough for them to qualify as war criminals. Don't listen to arguments about getting information from the terrorists only as a result of waterboarding. It is still war crimes.

It is obvious they committed war crimes. Cheney and Bush verbally during their exit interviews, not only admitted -- but boasted -- of torturing detainees. They also left written documentation. Section X of the article, "Fighting Terrorism Fairly and Effectively" lists the documents that George Bush and Cheney'screw generated...

"The September 17, 2001, Executive Order that reportedly authorizes the CIA's secret detention, interrogation, and rendition program.

President Bush's February 7, 2002, Order stating that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Taliban detainees or to al-Qaeda and excusing cruel treatment in cases of "military necessity".

Letter to Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, from John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC, on the applicability of the Convention Against Torture (July 22, 2002) (not yet public).

Two August 1, 2002, Jay Bybee/John Yoo-authored OLC memos to the CIA authorizing abusive interrogation techniques.

March 13, 2002, Jay Bybee-authored OLC memo to William Haynes, II, Defense Department General Counsel, reportedly authorizing renditions to torture and abuse.

Three 2005 Stephen Bradbury-authored OLC memos authorizing aspects of the CIA interrogation program.

Executive Order 13440, issued July 20, 2007, which authorizes the CIA to maintain a secret detention program using interrogation techniques that have been prohibited by the military."

With this list there is no point in going after the minor functionaries. Every red state dolt knows what guilt by association is. I didn't vote for a failed hack politician -- Cheney -- and his puppet Bush 43 to declare that the US Constitution is quaint and to decide that enemy combatants can be tortured. I can understand how a terrorist can believe that every US citizen is responsible for torturing detainees as the country as a whole voted the war criminals in twice, but I don't want to be associated with Cheney and his crew.

In the article "Report reveals Cheney misled about "trained interrogators'" a senior homeland security adviser to Bush 43 admits that no one knows if EIT can receive credit for the fact the US has not suffered a major terrorist attack since 9/11. "It's very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it's not clear when techniques were applied versus when that information was received," Frances Townsend reportedly told CNN. "It's implicit. It seems, when you read the report, that we got the most critical information after techniques had been applied. But the report doesn't say that."

The omnipresent, disgraced Cheney likes to lie about how well run EIT was, but as the Associated Press reports...

"With just two weeks of training, or about half the time it takes to become a truck driver, the CIA certified its spies as interrogation experts after 9/11 and handed them the keys to the most coercive tactics in the agency's arsenal. It was a haphazard process, cobbled together in the months following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington by an agency that had never been in the interrogation business.The result was a patchwork program in which rules kept shifting and the goals often were unclear."

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