The Still Faithful, Faithful Old Retainer
Yes, there’s something unseemly about someone in this day and age defending the use of torture. Perhaps even grotesque.
Officially sanctioned torture, after all, is closely associated with the Spanish Inquisition, and with activities by regimes headed by Stalin and Hitler. The efforts of former Vice-President Dick Cheney to justify its use by a country that has always officially damned the practice may thus appear to be rather…rather…alright, I’ll say the word, rather disgusting.
Still, Mr. Cheney’s very public defense of torture in the present context might also be viewed in another way. As the heroic last gasp service of a faithful old retainer.
As a long-time associate of the Bush clan, someone put on the George W. Bush ticket to guide an inexperienced new president through the turbulent waters of the Potomac, he performed this task with great diligence. Wildly inappropriate, massively hurtful, costly almost beyond measure as his advice may have been from the perspective of this country’s well-being, it served the president, whose care he was given, quite well. It helped get him reelected and popular enough for at least his first six years in office to fundamentally change the course of this nation’s history and standing in the world.
Cheney thus proved himself the faithful old retainer he was delegated to be during President Bush’s tenure. And now, in the wake of the fast-growing torture scandal, he continues to serve in that capacity.
Dick Cheney is not ultimately responsible for America’s post-9/11 torture policies. The buck didn’t stop at his office. President Bush is ultimately responsible. In recent days, however, you would be hard-pressed to find the guy really at the top of the ordering chain taking the heat for torture carried on during his watch and almost certainly with his total knowledge.
Dick Cheney has come forward to take the heat. To absorb the public’s distaste. To be the still faithful, faithful old retainer. What a guy. When will we ever see his like again?
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2 Responses to “The Still Faithful, Faithful Old Retainer”
“Dick Cheney has come forward to take the heat. To absorb the public’s distaste. To be the still faithful, faithful old retainer. What a guy. When will we ever see his like again?”
LOL! Dick Cheney's trying to save his own ass.
If he were really coming forward to take the heat he would say, “Yes we tortured, yes we broke the laws and we did it because we thought we were protecting America.”
The problem with the “world changed” talk is that none (Yes, none) of the “high-values” people produced any information that stopped an attack.
Bush applogized to the WHOLE world for the torture in Iraq.
The water boarding torture was done for politics. Get into a war with Iraq so we could control that part of the world.
Now we have
around 4,000 US People dead, 100,000 dead Iraqis .. 2,000,000 refuges hiding in countries close to Iraq.
So much for your Reagan's last hope and light in the night.