Is Dick Cheney America’s “Keeper of the Flame?”
October 24th, 2009 § 3 Comments
On October 21st former US Vice President Dick Cheney became the 20th recipient of the “Keeper of the Flame” Award from a Neoconservative Washington D.C. based think tank called the Center for Security Policy (CSP). The award is given to those who have:
…enhanced American security through their commitment to a strong military, the propagation of democracy and respect for individual rights throughout the world.
Previous recipients include Ronald Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Joe Lieberman.
Never failing to use camera time wisely, Cheney allotted part of his speech at the award ceremony to denying his endorsement of torture as an interrogation technique…
In short, to call enhanced interrogation a program of torture is not only to disregard the program’s legal underpinnings and safeguards. Such accusations are a libel against dedicated professionals who acted honourably and well, in our country’s name and in our country’s cause. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future, in favour of half-measures, is unwise in the extreme. In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.
…while simultaneously declaring that Americans maintained their moral purity and were in fact made safer because of the Bush Administration’s policies:
For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings – and least of all can that be said of our armed forces and intelligence personnel. They have done right, they have made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.
Cheney also criticized the Obama Administration of “dithering” and “waffling” with regards to America’s war on and occupation of Afghanistan.
The following day CSP founder and president Frank Gaffney appeared on Hard Ball with Chris Matthews along with progressive political pundit Ron Reagan, one of the first mainstream voices against America’s war on Iraq prior to the invasion.
Matthews started out the show by asking Gaffney to explain why he also awarded convicted felon and former chief of staff to the vice president, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, with the “Service Before Self Award:”
Release the tapes. When will Dick Cheney release his testimony in the infamous Scooter Libby case? When will we know how he defended his chief of staff‘s criminal behaviour in the outing of a CIA operative, Valerie Wilson, that led to Cheney‘s top guy‘s conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice, and according to the prosecutor, left a dark cloud over Cheney‘s own head?
I ask that question because last night, Cheney and his chief of staff, both in tuxedos, received joint honors from a group of ideological allies, Cheney for being Cheney, and his chief of staff apparently for taking the rap, with a group called His Service Before Self. That sounds about right.
The discussion was heated throughout and Gaffney’s defensiveness progressed to the point of telling Reagan that his father (former US President Ronald Reagan) would be “ashamed” of him.
Matthews ended the show by managing to slip in that:
the group in this country that most resembles the Taliban, ironically, is the religious right.
The following is Cheney’s speech at the CSP award ceremony.
I have published an Open Letter to Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, asking him to either properly investigate the 9/11 Attacks or charge me with libel for accusing Dick Cheney of murdering at least 175 innocent American citizens that fateful September morning. Please read the letter, and show your support by asking that the charges be filed against me if the government will not conduct an open investigation to find the true criminals responsible for murdering nearly 3,000 of our fellow countrymen.
http://www.BlandyLand.com
Thanks in advance for your help!
Daniel Edd Bland III
http://www.BlandyLand.com
Well that was an unintellectual debate if I ever did see one…
Cheney reminds me of Barak “we won’t forsake the little guy who was just following orders, to cover my ass- the one who gave the order.”
Thank God for people like Dick Cheney who have the guts to speak up and thank God for the christians.