By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Beginning with the headline: “Harris ‘honored’ by endorsement from Republican Dick Cheney.” For many who got here in late:

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2001, after Justice Antonin Scalia had chosen former Texas Republican Governor, dry drunk, ritually branded Yalie, and Christianist George W. Bush as President in Bush v. Gore (“good for one time solely“), the nation’s Vice President turned former Secretary of Protection and Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney. (After Bush was nominated, he had arrange a range committee for Vice President, chaired by Dick Cheney, and, maybe surprisingly, ended up selecting Cheney himself.) 2018’s Oscar-winning Vice (with Christian Bale as Dick Cheney) regardless of — or maybe due to — being a “political satire black comedy” provides a fairly correct high-level description of what occurred subsequent. From the Abstract:

The story of Dick Cheney, an unassuming bureaucratic Washington insider, who quietly wielded immense energy as Vice President to George W. Bush, reshaping the nation and the globe in methods which can be nonetheless felt at the moment.

(Cheney has been described as Bush’s Chief Working Officer, although Cheney himself concedes his affect waned in Bush’s second time period). And the Synopsis:

The movie returns to the aftermath of the September 11 assaults, as Cheney and Rumsfeld maneuver to provoke after which preside over the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, ensuing within the killing of civilians and the torture of prisoners. Because the Conflict on Terror mounts, Cheney continues to wrestle with persistent coronary heart assaults. The movie additionally covers numerous occasions from his vice presidency, together with his endorsement of the Unitary government principle, the Plame affair, the unintended taking pictures of Harry Whittington, and tensions between the Cheney sisters over same-sex marriage. Cheney’s actions are proven to result in hundreds of deaths and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, leading to him receiving record-low approval scores by the top of the Bush administration.

On this put up, for these curious as to why Harris could be “honored” by Cheney’s endorsement, I wish to dig slightly bit deeper into a number of of the extra fragrant episodes of Cheney’s tenure, which began simply previous to the emergence of the blogosphere. Right here’s hoping not one of the work performed in these days has succumbed to hyperlink rot! So as of accelerating harm to the nation’s establishments and international standing, I’ll cowl the Harry Whittington taking pictures, Cheney’s adoption of torture as a instrument of statecraft, Cheney’s position in fomenting the Iraq Conflict debacle utilizing what we’d at the moment name disinformation, and the billions gushing to his former firm, Halliburton. All these things was tough and horrid for us “foul-mouthed bloggers of the left” to disentangle on the time, and to see Cheney “honored”… Nicely, it’s a bit a lot. Anyhow, right here’s a photograph of Cheney in case you wish to grasp it in your kitchen fridge or one thing:

The upward gaze into the brighter future that appears compulsory for Democrats today…

Cheney Shoots an Previous Man within the Face

From Dan Froomkin, again when he was a blogger at WaPo in 2006, with the most effective headline ever: “Shoots, Hides and Leaves“:

Why isn’t Dick Cheney on TV proper now?

The vice chairman of america shoots somebody in a looking accident and moderately than instantly come clear to the general public, his workplace retains it a secret for nearly an entire day. Even then, it’s solely to verify a report in a neighborhood paper.

“The taking pictures occurred late Saturday afternoon whereas Cheney was looking with Harry Whittington, 78, a outstanding Austin lawyer, on the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. Listening to a covey of birds, Cheney shot at one, not realizing that Whittington had startled the quail and that he was within the line of fireside.”

Frank James asks within the Chicago Tribune Washington bureau’s new weblog: “How is it that Vice President Cheney can shoot a person, albeit unintentionally, on Saturday throughout a looking journey and the American public not be told of it till at the moment? . . .

“When a vice chairman of the U.S. shoots a person below any circumstance, that’s extraordinarily related data. What is perhaps the excuse to justify not instantly making the incident public?”

Greg Mitchell writes in Editor and Writer that “it isn’t recognized for sure that Cheney’s workplace, the White Home, or anybody else supposed to announce the taking pictures” had it not been for a name from the native paper.

Why certainly? ‘Tis a thriller! (Fascinatingly, Whittington apologized to Cheney.) Seventeen years later, WaPo follows up with “The factor Harry Whittington refused to lie about” and will get the small print of the accident:

When he returned, Whittington was holding an odd object on a hanger. It was an orange security vBy Lambert Strether of Corrente.est, slit down the facet as if somebody was in a rush to take away it. There have been brownish splotches of dried blood on it.

For the subsequent few hours, he informed me what occurred that day — no less than what he might keep in mind of it earlier than he’d handed out from his wounds.

Whittington barely knew Cheney; they weren’t “buddies” or “looking buddies,” as information accounts described them. They’d met only some instances earlier than, and had been invited to the ranch by its proprietor, a mutual pal.

It was late, round 5:30 p.m., and the February gentle was fading when Cheney fired his errant shot. Whittington stated he had been standing barely downhill and off to Cheney’s proper, his physique angled in Cheney’s course.

Although Whittington wouldn’t say so explicitly, his description steered that Cheney had violated two basic security protocols. First, in wheeling on a hen winging from the scrub, Cheney had fired with out checking if his line of fireside was clear. Second, he’d aimed downward, ignoring a rule obliging hen hunters to watch “blue sky” earlier than firing..

The aftermath of the taking pictures was calamitous. The ambulance that carried the unconscious Whittington from the large ranch to a hospital blew a tire. The journey took near an hour.

The accidents he’d suffered had been far worse than initially reported. The blast hit Whittington with greater than 200 items of lead birdshot, inflicting scores of wounds throughout his eye socket, hairline, neck and torso. One piece lodged close to his coronary heart and brought on a gentle coronary heart assault a number of days later. One in every of his lungs collapsed. One other piece narrowly missed his carotid artery. He almost bled out.

Whittington recounted these particulars with out anger or disappointment. It was an accident, he insisted, and Dick Cheney was an excellent man.

After speaking for almost 10 hours, I had one final query. Had Cheney ever apologized?

Whittington leveled his stare upon me.

“I’m not going to get into that,” he stated after a brief pause.

His face was set. I might sense his discomfort.

Harry Whittington wouldn’t lie. He was too gracious for that.

To me, the 24-hour delay reeks. And Cheney’s extraordinary vanity and sense of privilege isn’t all which may have reeked, both. Maybe hunters within the readership could with to touch upon this. So, “honored.” Actually?

Cheney Normalizes Torture

As soon as once more, Froomkin in WaPo from 2008, “White Home Torture Advisers“:

Prime Bush aides, together with Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White Home basement, based on an ABC Information report aired final evening.

Discussions had been so detailed, ABC’s sources stated, that some interrogation periods had been just about choreographed by a White Home advisory group. Along with Cheney, the group included then-national safety adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney basic John Ashcroft.

In line with ABC, the CIA briefed the White Home group on its plans to make use of aggressive strategies in opposition to Zubaydah and obtained specific approval. Zubaydah is likely one of the three detainees the CIA has since confirmed had been subjected to waterboarding, a infamous torture approach that quantities to managed drowning.

Such strategies had been later approved in a controversial August 2002 Justice Division memo, signed by then head of the Workplace of Authorized Counsel Jay Bybee. ABC stories that the memo “was known as the so-called ‘Golden Defend’ for CIA brokers, who fearful they might be held liable if the cruel interrogations turned public.”

However, even after the memo was in place, “briefings and conferences within the White Home to debate particular person interrogations continued, sources stated. Tenet, searching for to guard his brokers, repeatedly sought affirmation from the NSC principals that particular interrogation plans had been authorized.

And the comfortable consequence:

Zubaydah, it seems, was a mentally unwell minor functionary, nursed again to well being by the FBI, who below CIA torture despatched investigators chasing after false leads about al-Qaeda plots on American nuclear vegetation, water programs, buying malls, banks and supermarkets.

(It has at all times been my hypothesis that Cheney had movies of the torture periods streamed on to his workplace. He at all times did like his intelligence uncooked.) Cheney had beforehand organized to “legalize” torture by securing steering from a bent lawyer within the Justice Division’s Workplace of Authorized Counsel, John Yoo

So, [Cheney] established a again channel to John Yoo, the No. 2 man within the Justice Division’s Workplace of Authorized Counsel. Little recognized to the general public, that workplace tells the president and his subordinates what they will and might’t do below present regulation. And with steering from Cheney and his chief counsel, David Addington, Yoo wrote authorized opinions that approved all the pieces from waterboarding and different harsh interrogation ways beforehand thought of torture, to home surveillance by the Nationwide Safety Company with out first getting permission from the courtroom set as much as approve such surveillance.

(This put up gained’t even deal with Bush’s program of warrantless surveillance, which Obama voted to retroactively legalize as a Senator — after promising to filibuster it — and which paved the best way for at the moment’s Censorship Industrial Advanced).

The Democrat Get together platform in 2020 (PDF) rejected torture:

(On unlawful, see right here.)

The Democrat Get together platform in 2024 (PDF) has nothing to say about it:

One may speculate Democrats are actually silent on — i.e., accepting of — torture as a result of they want to appeal to the (unrepentant, pro-torture) Cheney wing of the Republican Get together, or as a result of they don’t wish to upset Israel, which tortures routinely. Or maybe they don’t wish to offend Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel, since the Chicago Police Division’s torture heart at Homan Sq. operated on his watch. Or all three!

On the morality of torture, I believe the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy has an excellent all-round dialogue of the subject, evaluating and contrasting it to homicide:

On the ethical wrongness of torture as in comparison with killing, the next factors may be made. First, torture is much like killing in that each interrupt and render inconceivable the traditional conduct of human life, albeit the latter – however not the previous – essentially endlessly. However equally through the interval an individual is being tortured (and in some instances thereafter) the individual’s world is sort of completely taken up by excessive ache and their asymmetrical energy relationship to the torturer, i.e. the torture sufferer’s powerlessness. Certainly, given the intense struggling being skilled and the resultant lack of autonomy, the sufferer would presumably moderately be useless than alive throughout that interval. So, as already famous, torture is a really nice evil. Nevertheless, it doesn’t observe from this that being killed is preferable to being tortured. Nor does it observe that torturing somebody is morally worse than killing him….. A second level pertains to the powerlessness of the victims of torture. Useless folks essentially don’t have any autonomy or energy; so killing folks is an infringement of their proper to autonomy in addition to their proper to life. What of the victims of torture?

The individual being tortured is all through the torturing course of bodily powerless in relation to the torturer. By “bodily powerless” two issues are meant: the sufferer is defenceless, i.e., the sufferer can not forestall the torturer from torturing the sufferer, and the sufferer is unable to assault, and subsequently bodily hurt, the torturer. …

The conclusion to be drawn from these issues is that torture shouldn’t be essentially morally worse than killing (or extra undesirable than dying), although in lots of cases it might be. Killing is an infringement of the appropriate to life and the appropriate to autonomy. Torture is an infringement of the appropriate to autonomy, however not essentially of the appropriate to life. Furthermore, torture is per the retrieval of the sufferer’s autonomy, whereas killing shouldn’t be. Then again, the interval throughout which the sufferer is being tortured is unquestionably worse than not being alive throughout that point, and torture can in precept prolong all through the rest of an individual’s life.

As at Gitmo (and I’m so outdated I keep in mind when Obama promised to shut it. Oh properly). I don’t wish to sidetrack the put up right into a fruitless dialogue of the “ticking bomb” state of affairs[1]. Pragmatically and within the second, “honored”? We’re honoring torturers now? Actually?

Cheney Foments the Iraq Conflict

The post-9/11 2002-2003 run-up to the Iraq Conflict was marked by a disinformation marketing campaign run by the White Home Iraq Group (WHIG), which orchestrated planting tales within the press (which we poor bloggers performed whack-a-mole with, with nice success, however with no impact on outcomes). Cheney didn’t chair the WHIG, however was above it on the masthead, and propagated its disinformation. From the Atlantic (2011), “Remembering Why Individuals Detest Dick Cheney“:

President Bush bears final duty for the Iraq Conflict, as do the members of Congress who voted for it. However Dick Cheney’s position within the run-up to warfare was uniquely irresponsible and mendacious. And after the invasion, he contributed to the early dysfunction on the bottom. Even Iraq Conflict supporters ought to rue his involvement.

Probably the most succinct assertion of his misdeeds comes from “The Individuals v. Richard Cheney,” a 2007 article by Wil S. Hylton. The piece recounts how Cheney undercut the CIA by instructing subordinates in that company to stovepipe uncooked intelligence on to his workplace. He additionally labored with Donald Rumsfeld to determine an alternate intelligence company inside the Pentagon. Each of those actions immediately contributed to the defective data that knowledgeable the choice to go to warfare.

Hylton then lays out his strongest argument:

(1) In the course of the a number of months previous the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, and thereafter, the vice chairman turned conscious that no sure proof existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a truth articulated in a number of official paperwork, together with: (a) A report by the Pentagon’s Protection Intelligence Company, concluding that “there is no such thing as a dependable data on whether or not Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or the place Iraq has—or will—set up its chemical warfare agent manufacturing amenities.” (b) A Nationwide Intelligence Estimate, compiled by the nation’s intelligence businesses, admitting to “little specific data” about chemical weapons in Iraq. (c) A later part of the identical NIE, admitting “low confidence” that Saddam Hussein “would interact in clandestine assaults in opposition to the U.S. Homeland,” and equally “low confidence” that he would “share chemical or organic weapons with al-Qa’ida.” (d) An addendum by the State Division’s Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis, asserting that Hussein’s quest for yellowcake uranium in Africa was “extremely doubtful” and that his acquisition of sure machine elements, thought of by some to be proof of a nuclear program, had been “not clearly linked to a nuclear finish use.” (e) A report by america Division of Vitality, stating that the equipment in query was “poorly suited” for nuclear use.

(2) Regardless of these questions and uncertainties, and having full consciousness of them, the vice chairman however proceeded to misrepresent the info in his public statements, claiming that there was little question concerning the existence of chemical and organic weapons in Iraq and {that a} full-scale nuclear program was recognized to exist, together with: (a) March 17, 2002: “We all know they’ve organic and chemical weapons.” (b) March 19, 2002: “We all know they’re pursuing nuclear weapons.” (c) March 24, 2002: “He’s actively pursuing nuclear weapons.” (d) Might 19, 2002: “We all know he’s received chemical and organic … we all know he’s engaged on nuclear.” (e) August 26, 2002: “We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to amass nuclear weapons … Merely acknowledged, there is no such thing as a doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no such thing as a doubt that he’s amassing them to make use of in opposition to our buddies, in opposition to our allies, and in opposition to us.” (f) March 16, 2003: “We imagine he has, actually, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

(3) On the similar time, regardless of overwhelming skepticism inside the authorities of a hyperlink between Iraq and Al Qaeda—ensuing within the conclusion of the 9/11 Fee that “no credible proof” for such a hyperlink existed, and the CIA’s dedication that Hussein “didn’t have a relationship” with Al Qaeda—the vice chairman continued to insist that the connection had been confirmed, together with: (a) December 2, 2002: “His regime has had high-level contacts with Al Qaeda going again a decade and has supplied coaching to Al Qaeda terrorists.” (b) January 30, 2003: “His regime aids and protects terrorists, together with members of Al Qaeda. He might determine secretly to offer weapons of mass destruction to terrorists to be used in opposition to us.” (c) March 16, 2003: “We all know that he has a long-standing relationship with numerous terrorist teams, together with the Al Qaeda group.” (d) September 14, 2003: “We realized an increasing number of that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched again by means of many of the decade of the ’90s, that it concerned coaching, for instance, on organic weapons and chemical weapons.” (e) October 10, 2003: “He additionally had a longtime relationship with Al Qaeda—offering coaching to Al Qaeda members in areas of poisons, gases, and traditional bombs.” (f) January 9, 2004: “Al Qaeda and the Iraqi intelligence providers … have labored collectively on plenty of events.” (g) January 22, 2004: “There’s overwhelming proof that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi authorities” (h) June 18, 2004: “There clearly was a relationship. It’s been testified to. The proof is overwhelming.”

The piece additionally fees that “because the warfare devolved into occupation, the vice chairman once more sabotaged the democratic system, creating again channels into the Coalition Provisional Authority, a physique not below his purview, to take away among the best employees and substitute them along with his personal loyal supplicants—undercutting America’s greatest effort at warfare to be able to broaden his personal energy.”

And that’s earlier than we get to PNAC, Curveball, the aluminum tubes… See the timeline: “Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Bought Into Iraq.” Cheney was as much as his eyeballs in all of it. Why would anybody really feel “honored” by the endorsement of such an individual?

Cheney Palms Billions of Federal {Dollars} to His Former Agency, Halliburton

This charming old-school weblog from an nameless laptop scientist at Cornell has a fantastic timeline:

2. Early 1990 to 1993. Cheney, as Secretary of Protection, commissions Halliburton to do a categorised (secret) research regarding changing the U.S. army’s logistics by work performed by personal corporations. Halliburton says, sure, an organization can do the work. In August 1992, with primarily no bidding, Halliburton is chosen by the US Military Corps of Engineers to do all work wanted to assist the army for the subsequent 5 years! Thereafter, Halliburton (or its subsidiary KBR) and its army logistics enterprise escalated quickly. Within the ten years thereafter revenues totaled $2.5 billion.

3. 1995-2000. Cheney is CEO of Halliburton….

9. December 2001. KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) is granted an open-ended contract for Military troops provide and Navy building, wherever U.S. troops go, for the subsequent 10 years (to this point, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Yemen, Iraq). This distinctive contract has no ceiling on price. KBR is reimbursed for each greenback spent plus a base price of 1 p.c, which ensures revenue. Plus, they will get a bonus as a proportion of firm prices.

As TruthDig wrote (2018), “The Blurred Line Between Conflict and Enterprise“:

In 2009, Rand Paul referred to as out Dick Cheney for supporting the invasion of Iraq to profit his former firm, Halliburton, claiming that Halliburton had obtained a billion-dollar no-bid contract. KBR, or Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was neck-deep in army contracts with america authorities, below a no-bid LOGCAP III (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) settlement, a contingency-based contract invoked on the comfort of the Military. Let’s not overlook that the official narrative of weapons of mass destruction was the lie bought to the American folks to justify an oligarchical class rising wealthier by means of creating warfare.

In November 2002, a $7 billion LOGCAP contract was given to KBR for extinguishing oil properly fires in Iraq. In 2003, the Military Corps of Engineers awarded a public bid contract with a most worth of $1.2 billion to KBR to proceed repairing the oil infrastructure in southern Iraq. In 2004, the Military Corps handed KBR yet one more contract, with the worth of $1.5 billion, to cowl engineering providers within the U.S. Central Command’s space of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The contract had a $500 million ceiling for the primary 12 months and 4 one-year choices, every with an annual ceiling of $250 million. In 2004, KBR obtained extra orders below the LOGCAP contract for work in Afghanistan, which added as much as $489 million. After which there’s the $400 million in funds KBR made in subcontracting personal securities providers like Blackwater in Iraq.

In 2004, the general public was made conscious of Halliburton’s monopoly on billions of {dollars} in Iraq contracts and within the accumulation of large affect over state issues. Or as Rand warned: the damaging powers given to giant companies once they “get so huge that they will really be directing coverage.” The funneling of huge fortunes to KBR was an egregious drawback the federal government ignored. Main media additionally gave a cross to those contracts, with no questions requested concerning the bigger constructions inside authorities that made this all doable.

In complete, $138 billion was awarded in federal funds to personal contractors for the Iraq Conflict, with Halliburton receiving greater than $39.5 billion of the federal contracts associated to the Iraq army invasion and occupation between 2003 and 2013.

Again in 2004, Democrat loser John Kerry referred to as out Cheney within the following phrases. From the New York Occasions:

At a neighborhood heart in Albuquerque on Sept. 17, Mr. Kerry declared: “Dick Cheney’s outdated firm Halliburton has profited from the mess in Iraq on the expense of American troops and taxpayers. Whereas Halliburton has been partaking in huge overcharging and wasteful practices below this no-bid contract, Dick Cheney has continued to obtain compensation from his former firm.”

However:

Mr. Cheney’s critics concede that there is no such thing as a concrete proof that he has pulled any strings on Halliburton’s behalf.

I believe each Kerry and the Occasions have gotten maintain of the fallacious finish of the stick. What the timeline I led with implies is that Cheney “set the desk” as Protection Secretary for personal contractors to make huge earnings from warfare, then organized for compensatoin (deferred and in any other case) from a kind of contractors, after which “furnished the warfare” as Vice President (which in addition to financial capital, absolutely gained him huge social capital as properly). Why would Cheney’s endorsement be “an honor?” It’s like being endorsed by Tony Soprano after a profitable bust-out.

Conclusion

I didn’t even get to the Vitality Job Drive. Sorry.

Dick Cheney is a torturer, a mendacity weasel, and corrupt to the bone. (Plus, he’s unhealthy with a gun.) He’s all the pieces that we harmless bloggers, again in 2003, thought that Republicans had been, and that Democrats might by no means be. Cheney is definitely far worse than Trump, and arguably worse than Obama (I’m unsure find out how to weigh rebooting the monetary system after the Nice Monetary Crash vs. the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). As these peaceniks over that the Babylon Bee put it: “‘By no means Has America Confronted A Higher Menace Than Donald Trump,’ Says Man Who Began Two Wars And Shot A Dude In The Face.” But right here we’re. Democrats are all aflutter:

(Ah, “stand with,” no much less focus-grouped than “combating for.”) The Democrats are even hoping for a Bush endorsement:

Sadly, no.

I stay baffled at using the phrase “honored.” How might anybody really feel “honored” by the endorsement of such an individual? Honor: “honesty, equity, or integrity in a single’s beliefs and actions.” Although I suppose it relies on what your beliefs, if any, really are. Hamilton Nolan writes:

I imagine Dick Cheney’s personal rationalization that “We’ve an obligation to place nation above partisanship to defend our Structure. That’s the reason I might be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.” Earlier than you scoff, please permit me to elucidate. Dick Cheney is one in every of America’s greatest residing representations of the fluidity of firm energy. Congressional staffer, White Home staffer, presidential assistant, White Home Chief of Employees, Congressman, Secretary of Protection, company CEO, vice chairman. Dick Cheney shouldn’t be a lot “a Republican” as he’s “a person in energy.” He ascended the ranks of presidency energy in a pleasant administration after which when the administration was gone he received elected to Congress after which he leveled up in one other pleasant administration after which when that was gone he slid over to operating a serious company that was wholly intertwined with america authorities and at last he leveled up into the White Home by standing behind a extra likable patsy who he might management.

All of us who vote for Democrats want to grasp what we’re getting. Our feeling of ethical superiority on home coverage—we’re those in opposition to racism and poverty! We’re those who defend ladies!—is always floating atop an unmentioned sea of weapons pointed at tens of millions of much less highly effective folks outdoors of our personal borders.

Even amongst Democrats, the baseline assumption that America should have sufficient weapons to exert our will on your complete world shouldn’t be questioned. Kamala Harris could push for paid household depart, however she shouldn’t be going to dismantle america intelligence businesses.

It’s not that Donald Trump has any ideological opposition to this dedication, which the Republicans have at all times embraced with relish. It’s simply that he’s insane [disagree] and an unpredictable egomaniac [agree] and subsequently can’t be counted on to satisfy his position on this matter [hard agree]. Trump has discovered himself in a feud with America’s intelligence businesses strictly out of non-public self-importance and prickliness. He’s the type of man who may undermine the CIA or fuck up the Military’s plans for the stupidest, most infantile causes conceivable. This risk is greater than the type of people that dwell in that world can tolerate. . And so Dick Cheney and the lads like him will assist Kamala Harris.

Sure, however honor?!

NOTES

[1] Within the instances we’re discussing, what provides the ticking bomb state of affairs an aura of credibility is the presence of the State (absolutely privatized torture is rarely, ever ethical). However what meaning is that there’s at all times a torturer, and at all times an order-giver. I believe the default setting for the order-giver is that they’re power-crazed fools, for whom our system is optimized. If all state programs are equally and inherently so optimized, then torture can by no means be ethical, not even below probably the most exigent circumstances, as a result of no order-giver can rightly deal with the circumstances as recognized (see Zubaydah above).

APPENDIX Cheney’s Endorsement Assertion

Cheney’s assertion: