Face the truth, or else embrace torture - By Derrick Z Jackson

[kpete]

Face the truth, or else embrace torture

By DERRICK Z. JACKSON
First published in print: Thursday, September 3, 2009

The more Dick Cheney defends torture, the more we Americans must end our tortured ambivalence. Either we are above using the same interrogation practices that police states use, or we are are not.

This past weekend, the former vice president said he knew about waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used by CIA personnel on terror suspects and even defended officers who went beyond authorized methods. He said they were "absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States."

Going further, he said it "offends the hell out of me" that the Obama administration has decided to investigate prisoner abuse by the CIA. He called it 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."

..........

.....Cheney's role is an old, if still developing story. After all, he warned us five days after Sept. 11 that our government would work on the "dark side." He told the late Tim Russert, "We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies."

more:
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=837857&category=OPINION