Because Dick Cheney says so, that's why

For another point of view on whether Dick Cheney should face prosecution, here is Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, now writing his own blog on "The Dish."  Here he is responding to Cheney's last tv interview, which came after the release of the Senate Committee report on CIA and torture:

"His interview last night is worth revisiting . . . .   [He is] clearly rattled. He is used to proclaiming categorical truths about things he knows will never be made public. He is used to invoking what he says he knows from secret intelligence without any possibility of being contradicted. This interview is the first time he has made statements about torture that can be fact-checked by the record. And, he is proven to be a liar . . .  .

"He doesn’t address the mountain of evidence. He is simply ruling it out of bounds – after admitting he hasn’t even read it! . . . .  He merely invokes other CIA official denials as an authority – when they too are charged with war crimes. That’s like a gangster claiming he is innocent on the basis of his gang-members’ testimony. He blusters on. In a court of law, his performance would be, quite simply, risible as an act of self-defense. It becomes some primal scream version of “Because I said it worked! . . . "

Citing transcript evidence that, rather than torture being used as a last resort, Sullivan continues:


    "In fact, it is prima facie evidence that torture was used as a first resort, and it was a first resort because Cheney already knew it was the only way to get intelligence. How he knew we don’t know. No one in professional interrogation believed or believes it. So you have clear evidence that the decision to torture was taken early on – and nothing was allowed to stand in its way. This was an ideological decision – not a policy judgment based on evidence. . . .  

   "What we have here is a staggering thing: the second highest official in a democracy, proud and unrepentant of war crimes targeted at hundreds of prisoners, equating every single one of the prisoners – including those who were victims of mistaken identity, including American citizens reading satirical websites, including countless who had nothing to do with any attacks on the US at all – with the nineteen plotters of one terror attack. We have a man who, upon being presented with a meticulous set of documents and facts, brags of not reading them and who continues to say things that are definitively disproved in the report by CIA documents themselves.

   "This is a man who not only broke the law and the basic norms of Western civilization, but who celebrates that. If this man is not brought to justice, the whole idea of justice in this country is a joke."


Part of me feels the same way toward Dick Cheney.   And yet I'm not sure it is the best way to set the record straight -- because any attempt to hold Cheney legally accountable will be fought tooth and top defense lawyer nail, and we would probably never get a clear verdict.  

I'd still settle for a clear, unimpeachable record of what happened (building on this important report that Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) bulldogged into the light of day.   It is based on actual documents (emails, written reports) rather than on personal testimony    Cheney criticizes it for that:    "They didn't even interview a single person that was involved."    No, but they read the email of those people written contemporaneously, which is probably closer to revealing the truth.

Ralph