http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=134721376617&ref=mfIt’s not every day that retired generals denounce a Vice President. But two distinguished military leaders felt compelled to speak out against Mr. Cheney’s support of torture, in an op-ed in today’s Miami Herald. (full article below)
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General Charles C. Krulak and General Joseph P. Hoar have this to say:
In the fear that followed 9/11, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to “take off the gloves.” As a former Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a Vice President of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas – and his scare tactics.
We have seen how ill-conceived policies that ignored military law on treatment of enemy prisoners hindered our ability to defeat al Qaeda. We have seen American troops die at the hands of foreign fighters recruited with stories about tortured Muslim detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. And yet Mr. Cheney and others who orchestrated America’s disastrous trip to “the dark side” continue to assert – against all evidence -- that torture “worked” and that our country is better off for having gone there.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Mr. Cheney applauded the “enhanced interrogation techniques” -- what we used to call war crimes because they violated the Geneva Conventions, which the U.S. instigated and has followed for sixty years. Mr. Cheney insisted the abusive techniques were “absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States.” He claimed they were “directly responsible for the fact that for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States. It was good policy... It worked very, very well.”
Repeating these assertions doesn’t make them true. As more of the record emerges, we now see that the best intelligence – that led to the capture of Sadaam Hussein and the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—was produced by professional interrogations using non-coercive techniques. When the abuse began, prisoners told interrogators whatever they thought would make it stop.
Full text of the op-ed:
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1227832.html(On a personal note. I worked with Gen Hoar's wife at the Navy Hospital, Charleston, SC. They were both dedicated professionals, and two of the nicest people you'd ever meet.
As those of you who have or are serving in the military, it is highly unusual for these officers to make these assertions against a VP, and I applaud them for doing so. dgibby)
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