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Send Him Back to the Bunker! Dick Cheney's dishonest speech about torture, terror, and Obama.

By Fred KaplanPosted Thursday, May 21, 2009, at 6:36 PM ET

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Timothy Noah discovered why Cheney and other Republicans make such sore losers. Bruce Ackerman argued that Congress should impeach former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee for authorizing torture. Frank Bowman rebutted that Bybee shouldn't be impeached. David J. Morris advocated closing the military's torture school, from which he graduated while in the Marine Corps.

Finally, Cheney pounded Obama for wanting to investigate and possibly prosecute, on criminal charges, those who approved and conducted the enhanced interrogations. Or, rather, he employed semantic sleight of hand—another long-standing Cheney technique—to suggest that this is what Obama wants. At first, Cheney said, "Over on the left wing of the president's party … some are … demanding" such prosecutions. In the next sentence, he said, "It's hard to imagine a worse precedent … than to have an incoming administration criminalizing the policy decisions of its predecessors." (Italics added.)

By conflating "the left wing of the president's party" with the "incoming administration," Cheney aimed to leave the impression a) that Obama is left wing and b) that he is pushing for show trials.

This isn't just sneaky—it's wrong. First, as many left-wing Democrats have begun to discover, Obama is no leftist. Second, in his speech today, Obama clearly rejected the idea of prosecutions. Decrying "a return of the politicization of these issues" on both sides of the spectrum, Obama said, "I have no interest in spending our time relitigating the policies of the last eight years."

However, in the course of inveighing against official inquiries (perhaps because, if they ever took place, he would certainly find himself in the docket), Cheney also condemned an idea that—if he is telling the truth—would serve his interests. This is the idea of convening a "Truth Commission," and it may be the one idea that might settle the only legitimate question that Cheney raised in his speech: Does torture work? Or, to put it another way: Should a president take the option of torture irrevocably off the table? Are there circumstances under which he might want to put it back on?

Cheney's main point, in his speech and in other recent statements, is that torture (even if he doesn't want to call it that) works; that it squeezed important information out of the few "high-value" terrorists on whom it was inflicted; that this information saved thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of lives; that there are documents supporting this claim, and that Obama should declassify and release them.

Obama disputes this point. "As commander-in-chief," he said in his speech this morning, "I see the intelligence … and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation."

The preponderance of available evidence supports Obama's side of the argument: that torture does not work; that, to the extent it does get someone to talk, what he says is often untrue; that some al-Qaida terrorists were water-boarded several times a day, for up to a month, and still didn't provide the information that top Bush officials wanted them to say; and that the most useful information was gained through more creative, less violent means.

But look: We—meaning those of us who don't have special, compartmentalized security clearances—don't know, can't possibly know, the full story. Were there cases in which CIA interrogators learned a lot by torturing a prisoner? Did those revelations save lives? Could the information have been acquired through other means?

The objections to torture—expressed not just by President Obama, but by many others, including Sen. John McCain and nearly every senior U.S. military officer who has spoken out on the subject—may well hold, even if it happens that torture did "work" on a few occasions.

But this debate is far from over. Today's two speeches are more likely to intensify than settle the controversy. What's wrong with assembling a truth commission, an independent body empowered to examine all the documents and subpoena witnesses, behind firmly closed doors? Cheney said at the start of the speech that his successors' policies should be based on "a truthful telling of history." Let the telling begin.

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Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" columnist and author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed. He can be reached at .

COMMENTS

OBAMA = ETHOS: Ethos (Credibility), or ethical appeal, means convincing by the character of the author. We tend to believe people whom we respect. One of the central problems of argumentation is to project an impression to the reader that you are someone worth listening to, in other words making author into an authority on a subject , as well as someone who is likable and worthy of respect. This type of argument requires that you establish yourself as trustworthy and respectful of the audience. You do this by demonstrating that you have taken the time to research your topic, which establishes your credibility on the subject.

CHENEY = PATHOS: Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions and basic needs. Language choice affects the audience's emotional response, and emotional appeal can be effectively used to enhance an argument. This is when you appeal to the emotions of your audience by describing in detail the effect of a particular situation. You should try to arouse a sense of pity, anger, fear, or other emotion in your audience. Criticism of rhetoric tends to focus on the overemphasis of pathos, emotion, at the expense of ethos, the message.

-- akarmin
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Ibn Shaykh Al Libi - does that name ring a bell?

This individual was snatched-up in Pakistan having fled the Spin Ghar mountains, in Afghanistan (Tora Bora), in late 2001. After initially interrogated by the U.S., he was turned over to Egypt for further "questioning," possibly involving enhanced methods of interrogation - certainly not torture, because Egypt denies that.....yes, they do!

It seems Al Libi provided information that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons production capacity and al-Qaeda. And as everyone should recall, this was cited to justify our run-up to invading Iraq. President Bush himself used this information in a speech, and Colin Powell, also noted this information among the amateurish evidence he presented to the U.N., despite concerns from some American intelligence officers that al Libi was feeding information he wanted us to hear (perhaps someone specifically wanted to hear?). al-Libi later recanted stating he had been tortured. It would seem the information he gave turned out to be false, as some in the intelligence community suspected, since no WMDs were found in Iraq.

President Obama has stated the U.S. does not and will not use torture, which I personally believe is the right path. But he also, interestingly enough, has not ruled-out the use of extraordinary renditions, which could mean taking prisoners/detainees to countries that might use torture.

I once was tasked on the Fray for saying we should move on - I now recant, and say it's too late for that, and we need to get all the information out for the American public to see, before the next terrorist attack on American soil, or we go to war based on bad and/or phony intelligence.

-- Tyrtaios-rising
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