whether or not you have a hard line president, america will always be in peril. There are people out there looking to do bad things who might not be al qaeda and all the torture in the world or preemptive strikes won't stop a criminal mastermind from doing his work as they are the ones who never get caught, only their stooges get caught and they can always recruit new ones

Cheney is right, and I will hate to see that proven.

...which of course means that we should just lay down our arms and let them do as they please? Sorry, but I'd rather have someone around to protect our way of life from a group of people that would rape women and then use their shame to convince them that the only way out is to commit suicide by way of strapping a bomb to their chests and putting themselves at the disposal of said group.
Perhaps they should divide America in half and let people with your mindset live on the half that would rather we let them do as they please, and then see what happens.

That comment was for nyardzom.

So yes lets torture a few human beings (terrorist or not) because that will stop others from attacking us immediatly.

I've never understood that...

Define torture.

People who torture others are also evil people, Dick.

Seriously? More concerned about reading them their rights? That's an absurd characterization and does nothing but try to discredit our current adminstration. Ridiculous.

Good grief, did I ever say I was in favor of torture? I wish people would read the whole comment in context before responding. My last comment only meant that the definition of torture can sometimes be pretty vague.
We can't just drop all of our defenses though. There has to be some point in between shoving a persons head under water for extended periods of time (or whatever new tactics they're using now) and throwing all of our weapons into the ocean.

that was for carrie sue. anyway if you actually sat down and read my post before foaming at the mouth, you would be able to comprehend what i said carrie. I never said don't protect yourself i said that the threat of attack is always no matter what you do. And as for the rest of your post i am not american, i don't live in america, so you can relax about that and "people like me" and save that kind of crap for someone else who does

More concerned about reading a terrorist his rights? Yeeeah. Sure, Cheney.

"Perhaps they should divide America in half and let people with your mindset live on the half that would rather we let them do as they please, and then see what happens. "

That's the spirit!!

Strong words. I did read your comment, nyaradzom...thoroughly. You made a semi-intelligent statement concerning the way these groups work, but offer no alternative as to how to counter them.
I find myself glad you aren't American...

I'm down Em!
"we'll be over here..on the fun side!"

Haha, momma! We should get a list started. Maybe some bouncers and a velvet rope.

Oops, forgot the

"shouldn't dick be enjoying his retirement so to say somewhere sunny and peaceful. He had a good 8 year run, time to take a break. "

Yeah, I know, I was thinking the same thing nya. It's probably good for him to not freak out so much, since he has a bad heart and all. Time for a nice vacay, Cheney!

em i think we will definitely need the bouncers today, i took a gulp of the haterade and i'm ready to go, wink wink nudge nudge. just kidding.

While I don't agree with torture except in very extreme cases, I think Cheney does have a point that treating these kinds of criminals the way we'd treat every other criminal is somewhat short sighted. I hate it when politcians (even commenters here) invoked 9/11 like some kind of carte blanche, but at the same time I do feel like this new admin is somewhat stuck in that pre-9/11 mindset where an attack on our soil was unthought of.

I also get confused because I feel like I heard all the time from Obama on the campaign trail that Al Qaeda has only gotten stronger, etc etc and while I disagree with that, I have to wonder that if he truly believes that then why are we loosening our defense?

At the end of the day, it's the job of the President to keep us safe. Personally, I'd rather be too harsh than not harsh enough.

when did they take away spell check??? I just noticed that!

lol dick what an appropriate name for him.

Mmm, haterade! Tasty!

There was spell check on here? I never noticed!

I never used it because it never worked for me on this comp for some reason... maybe it was buggy and thats why they took it down.

You've contradicted yourself in your own statement. You are right that I don't agree with you, and you say that's fine, but then make it seem like I haven't any right to argue. Why should I not be able to make my case the same as you?

the problem in my uneducated half intelligent opinion, is that it's not only al qaeda, there are so many little known groups now that are just springing up and the fact that they are all over the world and have billionaires bank rolling them is another problem. How effective is the torture if the person isn't even a part of the group that's plotting something big. And people tend to say anything when they are in pain, i mean how many wrongful convictions have been overturned because the person lied under duress during the interrogation. Oh well, that's just another of my inane statements lol.

Besides, nyaradzom, I wasn't the one who resorted to name-calling. Yeah...that's using your intelligence.

'I do feel like this new admin is somewhat stuck in that pre-9/11 mindset where an attack on our soil was unthought of.'

What leads you to think this? Just because the current adminstration said we aren't going to systematically torture doesn't mean we are now thinking that terrorists aren't still trying to attack us. I just don't see this connection at all.

Ha! We agree on something, nyaradzom! I definitely don't agree with extreme torture tactics like the ones you describe where the information is certainly not effective.

"What leads you to think this? Just because the current adminstration said we aren't going to systematically torture doesn't mean we are now thinking that terrorists aren't still trying to attack us. I just don't see this connection at all."

Agreed, mydia. Last time I checked, Obama wasn't smoking a bong, wearing a daisy chain around his head, and trying to sing Kumbaya with the evil-doers.

mydia - maybe it's because they seem to be following the Clinton footsteps so closely and that is pre-9/11. they just don't seem to be really serious about it, it seems to be more a theoretical argument than a reality based one, like theoretically we shouldn't torture anyone ever, but in reality sometimes its neccesary. ya know?

but hey! i'm always open to being proven wrong and in this instance i truly hope i am!

I strongly disagree with the way that Bill Clinton handled threats so I'm worried that Obama will go down that path like he's gone down many Clinton paths so far.

However, HRC does seem to be pretty strong from what I've heard her say since she's been in her new position.

haha amazing grace carrie sue lol. i think it's pathetic that after all this time i still don't know how to do the smiley faces, sheesh.

haus what threats were there during bill's presidency, i am honestly asking because i don't know.

we had a lot of embassy attacks and the USS Cole was during that time. and it seemed like we just ignored it really, i suppose we were doing some kind of diplomatic something but it didn't seem to work very well...

though, i don't entirely blame bill for taking that approach because i don't think anyone really thought they would ever attack us here. so in a way, i don't totally blame him for his approach, but now we know, now we know they won't hesitate to be so bold so with that information we need a stronger approach.

oh ok i had totally forgotten about that one. yeah i can see why they would ignore it, i mean no one ever though t they could go that far, i wonder sometimes how long it took osama and co to come up with everything and convince these men to commit these crimes.

Bill Clinton had drones scheduled to bomb Bin Laden as soon as the drones were able to be armed...which wouldn't happen until 6 months after his presidency ended (in June). Bush CANCELLED the drone bombing of Bin Laden's hide out. So if anyone didn't take things seriously before poo hit the fan, it was Bush. (Per Richard Clarke, anti-terrorism advisor and in Defense Department under Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr.)

For a man as smart as Cheney, it is amazing how he thinks there is only coddling or torture. There are many other techniques they can use, with better results and more accurate information coming from the suspects. Matthew Alexander (pen name) has spoken at length on the subject and he has done over 1300 interrogations with high level Al Queda operatives. He said not using torture helped him get the most information.

yea i wonder that too! i think it would help to know that to put all this info into context but i don't trust speculators on that, i would only trust it from the horse's mouth.

why does cheney's opinion still matter? he's an ex-vice-president.

I don't think its fair to blame Bush entirely Jill. I'm not a weapons expert, but as far as I know, if you have the weapon it can be used when you need it. But regardless, even if the drones weren't ready, we couldn't have used a different weapon if it was that imporant? We only have one kind of bomb? I find that hard to believe. Esp. considering that there doesn't seem to be any info that Al Qaeda has anti-aircraft missiles, so why not just fly a jet with a person in it and drop a bomb? That can happen in what? 3 days?

I would think the 6 months had more to do with getting our NATO/UN/ etc relationships in order and making sure we had the documents to cover our behinds than it had to do with arming ourselves.

I don't know, I just don't see how Obama is more Clintonesque in his security. I feel like people trying to paint this adminstration as somehow more lax than the previous on terror are either doing so based on massive generalizations and assumptions (just becuase he isn't Republican) or they are privy to discussions that the rest of America just aren't seeing. I highly doubt torture is the only thing that is keeping us safe.

Besides, in August of 98 Clinton ordered the firing of cruise missiles to a place where Bin Laden was suspected of making biological weapons. That didn't take 6 months.

It was 13 days after the embassy bombings of Nariobi, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Clarke worked head of anti-terrorism in the Defense Department, so I take his opinion with a little bit of weight. If he says that Clinton had scheduled them for June, to me it doesn't really matter why it was June, it matters why Bush cancelled the mission. I just don't think you can give Clinton a bunch of flack when it was Bush who undermined efforts that Clinton took to fight against terrorism. If he scheduled a bombing, that isn't really "ignoring" Al Queda.

mydia - I agree with you that torture isn't the only thing keeping us safe. But it could be part of it. The fact is that most of that info is classified so we'll never know how much a part of it torture is, there will always be info that we're not privvy to. But I don't think there is a strong argument against how this admin is following in Clinton's footsteps. So far its been pretty clear and if this issue is the one where he steps outside of it, I'll be very happy to see it.

Jill did it ever occur to you that maybe Bush cancelled it because they had new information that Osama was no longer in that location?

This is a guy who moved around a lot. Is it really out of the realm of possibility that he maybe moved twice in 6 months when he knows the CIA and everyone else is on his tail?

I mean, you're acting like Bush just didn't care and I think thats pretty unreasonable.

Furthermore, when I just looked up info on the drone here is what I found that the Predator drone was both inaccurate and still not well developed enough to be flown with consistentcy - "For a year before 9/11/2001, CIA-operated Predator drones flying over Afghanistan had occasionally picked up Bin Laden.5 Even before the U.S. bombing campaign against Afghanistan started, a CIA-operated RQ-1 Predator had crashed in Afghanistan on September 23, 2001. Such an inauspicious beginning was soon followed by another Predator crash on November 2, 2001 in Afghanistan, two more crashes during the week of January 21, 2002, and another crash on May 17, 2002 in the hills near the U.S. air base in Jacobabad, Pakistan."