The Republican Party's case for torture:

[BuyingThyme]

This man’s name is Dick Cheney.

Dick Cheney is the mastermind behind the Bush administration's use of torture and secret prisons.

Using false information obtained via his torture techniques, Dick Cheney successfully convinced the people of the United States to invade and destroy the nation of Iraq.

Thus far, Cheney’s torture techniques are directly responsible for the wrongful deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and at least 2682 Americans in uniform.

[Solly Mack]

1. I used to jokingly say that when Cheney wasn't around it was

because he was off visiting those secret prisons. I was only half-joking.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. A legitimatized Turd ,Cream rises to the top, and on top of that, is scum!

[Bucky]

3. The false info on Iraq didn't come from torture, it came from Chalabi

Chalabi was out to take over Iraq's oil fields and played the PNAC morons like a rusty fiddle with his fake info. I strongly suspect he was working for Iran the whole time, as Saddam was their number one enemy.

[BuyingThyme]

5. It seems that

the false information about al Qaeda working directly with Saddam Hussein did not come from Chalabi. It came from torturing al Qaeda.

[Bucky]

8. Oh, okay. I was thinking about WMDs, not the Iraqi-AlQaeda links

It really still surprises me, sometimes, just how stupid they are.

[Richard Steele]

10. They were usingthat fake info long before we invaded Iraq at all.

So it could only have come from AbuGhraib torture via a time machine.

[BuyingThyme]

12. Dick Cheney started torturing innocent people long before

you even heard of Abu Ghraib.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Critique

We know that Chalabi lied. He even admitted it. The neocons, like a love-stared man or woman, probably said to him, "tell me more lies, honey."

I just posted that this is the first I've heard of this, but the hypothesis is credible. My own critique of torture (at least that part that rests on pragmatic rather than moral grounds) is based on the fundamental truism that information obtained this way is by its nature unreliable.

However, the neocons didn't give two bits about the reliability of the information they turned around and propagated. While rejecting reams of testimony to the contrary for Iraqi government officers acting as double agents and scores of Iraqi common citizens willing to talk to American spies, the neocons relied on the word of a convicted embezzler (Chalabi), a known liar (Hardball) and other members of the Iraqi exile community who had been away from Iraq for years if not decades, as long as the interviewee told them what they wanted the public to believe. Knowing that, it's not a very big leap to think they told somebody what they wanted to hear and tortured him until he told them.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. Using false information obtained via his torture techniques . . .

Could you provide a link. This is the first I've heard of that.

I'm not scoffing at it. That would be the quality of information I would expect from a torture victim.

[BuyingThyme]

7. ..

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120905J.shtml

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Muchas gracias, señor(a)

I'll add this to the list of reasons to oppose torture.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. K&R

Because I learned something from this thread.

[BuyingThyme]

13. More here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=134740

[BuyingThyme]

14. And here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110705I.shtml

[Sam Odom]

15. Female interrogator is a torture technique ?

So say Islamists.

[BuyingThyme]

16. How long have you been listening to Limbaugh?

[Sam Odom]

17. So

I guess you didn't know that.

[BuyingThyme]

19. Rush told you that the Chimp is attacking the Geneva Conventions

so more women can interrogate "Islamists"?

And you believed it?

[gulliver]

18. Trust in Dick. He's a straight shooter. n/t

[struggle4progress]

20. "Big Time" Dick

President Bush's nickname ... for Cheney ... "Big Time"
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/cheney.html

[BuyingThyme]

21. I thought that label came from the event where

the following exchange was captured by an open mic:

BUSH: There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole, from the New York Times.
CHENEY: Yeah, big time.

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/09/04/cuss_word/

[struggle4progress]

22. Thanx: I didna know that.

[BuyingThyme]

23. kcik

[warrens]

24. That pic makes me think torture ain't such a bad idea

It would be fun to shove a funnel full of boiling lead up his ass, the nazi fuck.