Cheney- Scaremongering

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27705.html

Generals: Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney are scaremongering

cheney - hype about closing gitmo

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 9/29/09 3:39 PM

Guards watch over Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Retired generals and admirals say Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney are trying to instill fear about Gitmo closing. Photo: AP

About a dozen retired generals and admirals, trying to add momentum to President Barack Obama’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, are accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz of scaremongering about the dangers of closing it.

“It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday.

“Some of the fear issues that are being raised in this are really unfortunate. It gets people excited about things they shouldn’t be excited about and impedes doing what is critical to this country. Get that damn symbol off the table,” said retired Gen. David Maddox, a former Army commander-in-chief for Europe. “We take a setback every time somebody, whether it’s the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say….We have to get out there again and just keep pounding.”

The former vice president and his daughter declined comment on the criticism.

The former military officers, whose Washington visit was organized by Human Rights First, argued rather bitterly that the Cheneys have exaggerated the risks of bringing Guantanamo prisoners from Cuba to the United States.

“Can you imagine getting a terrorist from Guantanamo convicted and put in a federal penitentiary in your town?” Maddox asked. “Have you ever checked who the hell’s in there already? Have any of them gotten out? The person who we’re putting in is probably a heck of lot less dangerous than most of them who are already in there.”

Administration officials recently acknowledged that Guantanamo may not be closed by Obama’s deadline of Jan. 22. But retired Army Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, said the president was smart to set a mark.

“It forces us to have an end state,” Taguba said. “It cannot be open in perpetuity because we’re having this so called long war against terrorism.”

The retired officers met Monday with Attorney General Eric Holder and planned to confer later with Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn.

Holder gave no indication of when the administration might settle on a U.S. site to relocate Guantanamo prisoners, the former military leaders said.

Obama announced the one-year-closure plan on his second full day in office. But the administration lost control of the legislative process in April when the Senate voted 90-6 against funding for the closure. Democrats joined Republicans, who argued that it was a foolish risk to bring suspected terrorists into the United States.

“Closing Guantanamo is of a strategic value,” Taguba said. “Seeing people in orange jumpsuits and whatever have you creates such an excitement for people to be jihadists and terrorists…It’s not helping us.”

COMMENTS:

The Subversive Librarian said...

I'm glad you all are still at it. I'm now blogging regularly. For the moment, anyway. Great post!

Monday, October 05, 2009 7:55:00 PM

Gadfly said...

Thank you for stopping by for a visit. You're always welcome. It's great that you're back online. Best of luck!!

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 1:18:00 PM

What is a Veteran

Granny, Gadfly and I don't get many comments on our posts these days but I do still get emails from readers now and then. The following is from an email I received.

What Is a Veteran? Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel. He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel. She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for 12 solid months in DaNang. He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL. He is the Quantico drill instructor that has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs. He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by. He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep. He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come. He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs. He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known. So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Author Unknown ......................................................................... Excerpt from "Sacrificed For Empire", march, 2007 Veterans Day 2004 - World War II veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor, Houston James, emotionally embracing Iraq War veteran, Marine Sgt. Mark Graunke, Jr., who lost a hand, leg, and eye when defusing a bomb in 2003. "I have posted the above photo before and will probably post it again. It is a poignant reminder of the cost of war and what we as a nation owe our warriors. This old veteran of WWII Pearl Harbor and the young Iraqi War marine symbolize the generations of men and women who have gone off to war at the behest of our government, served honorably and well, and all too often were ignored once their service was completed." Comments: Farnsworth68 said... Thank you. Sunday, September 27, 2009 1:16:00 PM Worried American said... You are very welcome, Farnsworth. And THANK YOU!! Monday, September 28, 2009 12:12:00 AM Spadoman said... Thanks. Monday, September 28, 2009 5:32:00 AM Worried American said... Spadoman; thank you for visiting us and Thank You. I have commented on your blog. I don't visit you often but always enjoy your traveling narratives. Tuesday, September 29, 2009 8:26:00 PM Spadoman; thank you for visiting us and Thank You. I have commented on your blog. I don't visit you often but always enjoy your traveling narratives. Tuesday, September 29, 2009 8:26:00 PM Spadoman said... No, Thanks to you. Remember THIS Saturday, October 03, 2009 5:15:00 AM Worried: Do check out Spadoman's link above. Excellent piece.

Our Constitution

Our Constitution means little to some people, including our former President who called it a "god damn piece of paper", but I think it means a lot to most Americans. Some might not even know what it says but it is meaningful to them anyway. I'm suspicious and distrustful of most of our elected leaders but I love my country, warts and all, and would like for it to be a decent nation once again. I can be a mean assed old bitch but I honor the Constitution. It means something to me.
.........................................................................................

Excerpt from:

http://open.salon.com/blog/saturn_smith/2009/09/17/happy_constitution_day
by Saturn Smith

[...] (Sept. 17) is of special import for me. It's Constitution Day. Two hundred and twenty-two years ago, on September 17, 1787, the new Constitution of the United States of America was adopted by the Constitutional Convention, signed by the 39 delegates, and sent out to the states for ratification. The National Archives, where the original text still lives, headlines it as "a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise," and that has continued to be true throughout its history. We may not agree upon its meaning, always, or its deployment, but Americans almost to a person seem to agree upon its value. Our stability as a country -- and we are a shockingly stable union -- rests most firmly upon the survival of this document.

That's not to say that the Constitution is a stony, implacable thing. In fact, for all the stability it's inspired, it's hard to mark even a concrete date of its birth. It would take another three years before the Bill of Rights were added, in 1791, and it's been amended another 17 times since then. Even now, there are several proposals for amendment before Congress, and 11,000 amendments have been proposed over time. Sure, it's been used for good and for ill, to justify moments of greatness and horrible errors, but it's still there, binding us to a common set of purposes. Is it outdated? Moldy in language and, certainly, in its descriptions of who should be a citizen? Absolutely. But what do you expect from the oldest written national constitution in the world? Perfection? No -- never in our Constitution. It is a document notable for its mistakes, but also for its ability to rise above them, to amend its own content without changing its real purpose. It is a truly American thing.

So -- go forth and celebrate like it's 1787. Lift an ale (Sam Adams, maybe?), try the Which Founding Father Are You? quiz (I'm James Madison), take a stroll about your free and enduring country, and meditate on the meaning of the document still holding us together:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Remember 9/11 2001

Please read Granny's post below. Readers may post on comments their experiences and thoughts on September 11, 2001. If you wrote about it on your blog, please leave your url to your post and we will publish all comments.

I am a night owl and often sleep late in the mornings. On September 11, 2001 I was awakened to the hysterical, terrorized screams of my youngest daughter and the loud cries of fear, grief and rage from my eldest. I leaped from my bed and turned on the TV. All day I watched the repeated broadcasts, answered the constantly ringing phone and attempted to calm and comfort my children, even as I, too, wept in grief and horror. To people of my generation it was a reminder of Pearl Harbor. The dastardly, sneak attack, the murder of thousands of innocents, the desperate heroism, the senseless destruction.

Today I taped a small American flag to my apartment door above a little black wreath and mentally dared Management to chastise me for violating their rule against flammable objects on our doors. I asked Management to lower our flag to halfmast in the circle of the driveway in honor of the ones who perished. It was all I could do to answer civilly when the receptionist gave me a puzzzled look and asked, "Why?" How can any American forget?

My eldest daughter and I support Firemen and Police. Her favorite photos of 9/11 are the following of the young fireman mounting the stairs of the WTC as civilians are fleeing downward.
and the famous photo of the firemen raising our flag at ground zero.

Lest we forget....

Comments:
(These comments properly added to Granny's post below.)

Merle said...

Dear Ann ~~ Great posts and videos
about that awful time. I think I cried for a week, glued to the TV.
I hope you and Ray are keeping well
and the girls visit often.
Much love, dear friend, Take care,
Merle.

Friday, September 11, 2009 8:07:00 AM

audrey` said...

The pictures of 9/11 are still very fresh in my memory. SAD! So many innocent lives were lost on that tragic day.

Take care, my dear friend (((HUGS))) Ann.

Sunday, September 13, 2009 8:37:00 AM

Spadoman said...

9/11, a terrible act wrought upon America. I also am remembering the carnage wrought upon the world in Iraq and Afghanistan, as if killing more people changes anything.

Check out this moving post about the individual lives of those lost at the WTC on that fateful day.

http://katherine-claire.blogspot.com/

Peace.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:53:00 AM

Worried American said...

Merle and Audrey: Thank you for your comments. I have posted them here and also on Granny's post below.

Spadoman: So good to hear from you. You are so welcomed. Thank you for stopping by.

I have been offline for awhile since I had a small stroke and now post rarely. Gadfly has been carrying the burden of keeping the blog going, for the most part. Do come by again. I will check out the url you left us.

Friday, September 18, 2009 10:29:00 PM

September 11, 2001

I probably would have let tomorrow's date go unremarked but then I read my first non-political blog of the day. My friend Chris at Rude Cactus who lives near Washington, DC, said what stays with him is how blue the sky was that day.

Then he asked us what we remembered and I started writing. Here's what I said:

========

"It's been 8 years now and it's still, in some ways, like yesterday. We never forget where we were and what we were doing.

It was just after dawn on the west coast and I had begun getting the great-granddaughters ready for school when I heard the first report. It didn't seem that serious - they said it was a small plane. A few minutes later we all knew what was happening. I called my sons (oldest in Army National Guard) and continued watching it become more unreal. By then I'd decided to keep the girls out of school for the day. It wasn't fear as much as it was wanting them close.

I don't think there was anyone who wasn't affected in some way. The company I retired from (sort of - it was bought after I retired by a larger company located in the WTC) lost over 300 people.

And it's trivial compared to the deaths and the destruction but it was the day my then 6 year old great-granddaughter became afraid of the planes she'd previously loved. She's over most of it but still cringes once in a while.

I thought I'd lived through the worst with the assassinations and attempted assassinations of the 60's and 70's. Events have proven me wrong."

========

And events continue to do so and yet I still hope for a brighter future; if not for me, then for that same great-granddaughter and all the other kids of the world.

COMMENTS:

Merle said...

Dear Ann ~~ Great posts and videos
about that awful time. I think I cried for a week, glued to the TV.
I hope you and Ray are keeping well
and the girls visit often.
Much love, dear friend, Take care,
Merle.

Friday, September 11, 2009 8:07:00 AM

audrey` said...

The pictures of 9/11 are still very fresh in my memory. SAD! So many innocent lives were lost on that tragic day.

Take care, my dear friend (((HUGS))) Ann.

Sunday, September 13, 2009 8:37:00 AM