Inside Junior’s War Room by Philip A. Farruggio (2003)

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Originally published on Counterpunch on January 28, 2003
28 April, 2010

Deep deep deep inside the bowels of the White House is this private, very private chamber. Some say its the place where REAL PRESIDENT Cheney stays, and operates the REAL government. Today, on this cold, bitter cold Sunday, Super Sunday, the top elite from the cabinet are conducting a very important meeting–the prospect of war with Iraq, or rather the need to have a war with Iraq. Let’s be a “fly on the wall” and listen in.

Powell–“Mr. President…”

Junior–“Ah yes Colin…”

Cheney (over Junior’s voice)–“Yes General Powell…. please Junior..”

Col. Morris Davis Defends the Rule of Law, Calls for Prosecution for Torturers

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
14 April, 2010

Yesterday, I was delighted to receive an email from Morris Davis, the retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantánamo Bay, who asked if I had a contact at the Huffington Post for an op-ed he had just written defending the importance of the rule of law — and how it applies to everyone — written in a blistering style that America needs more of.

Moe also pulled no punches when it came to explaining why torture is a criminal offense, and why those who authorize it must be prosecuted — an unsurprising, but important opinion, given that he resigned as chief prosecutor when placed in a chain of command under Pentagon counsel Jim Haynes, who, as he explained in December 2007, had been involved in “authorizing the use of the aggressive interrogation techniques” — in other words, torture — which conflicted with his own insistence that prosecutors in the Military Commissions “would not offer any evidence derived by waterboarding, one of the aggressive interrogation techniques the [Bush] administration … sanctioned.”

Lawrence Wilkerson Demolishes Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s Lies About Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
13 April, 2010

Those of us who have been studying the recent career of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson were not surprised when, last week, he submitted a declaration (PDF) in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the US government that was filed by former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad. A Sudanese hospital worker, Hamad was sold to US forces by their unscrupulous Pakistani allies in the summer of 2002, but was only released from Guantánamo in December 2007.

In the declaration, Col. Wilkerson, who served in the US military for 31 years and was Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from August 2002 until January 2005, stated that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld all knew — and didn’t care — that “the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent.”

Seven Years of War in Iraq: Still Based on Cheney’s Torture and Lies

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
21 March, 2010

Friday marked the seventh anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, but by now, it seems, the American people have become used to living in a state of perpetual war, even though that war was based on torture and lies. Protestors rallied across the country on Saturday, but the anti-war impetus of the Bush years has not been regained, as I discovered to my sorrow during a brief US tour in November, when I showed the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and myself) in New York, Washington D.C., and the Bay Area.

Obama: A Man After Dick Cheney’s Own Heart by Sibel Edmonds

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
16 February 2010

Cheney Fully Supports Obama’s Afghan Strategy

I couldn’t resist posting this article. I know it’s nothing new to  our readers and commenters here at Boiling Frogs, but I thought maybe, just maybe, a few Obama backers who still hold on to their ‘Man of Supposed Changes’ will end up here and get to read it. You know who I’m talking about; right? The blinded ignorant Obama groupies who’ve been vehemently defending his booboos. Those who in the beginning whined about giving the man a chance since he had been in office for only 10 days, then 20 days, then 50 days, then 100 days… Those who later made lame excuses such as ‘what do you expect, he inherited this mess from Bush-Cheney and is trying hard to clean it up.’ The ones who are still busy bashing the long-gone Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal, rather than facing their own ‘man.’ Let’s rub their noses hard in the following article, and demand that they add their man’s picture to the same Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal…

Cindy Sheehan and Bruce Gagnon at CIA Headquarters Protest + Going To Dick Cheney’s House

with Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

with Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
January 16, 2010

toxoid

more about “Cindy Sheehan remarks at CIA Headquar…“, posted with vodpod

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Bruce Gagnon partial remarks at CIA headquarters protest (01/16/10)

The Decade of Distrust: No Accountability, No Confidence, No Change By Robert S. Becker

By Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
January 12, 2010

Okay, let’s all play “name the decade.” Trivial or profound, labels matter, even if absurdly minimizing infinitely convoluted webs.  When discombobulated, we reach for handles to unpack jaw-dropping, mind-boggling real-life.  Sweeping generalizations have their place, and one idiot savant among us will capture the significance of the incomparable Bush-Cheney Error, may it never rest in peace.

From the Internet comes the “Decade from Hell,” which could have legs but only if we eventually ascend from current “darkness visible,“ in John Milton’s mots justes.  Getting out of hell is proving harder than getting in.  There’s the Decade of Treachery, or Tyranny of the Minority, or Doofuses on Parade.  Let’s see: The Decade That Went From Bad to Really Bad?  The Decade When the Right Stomped on Everyone Else?  So many choices, so little time.

Guantánamo and Yemen: Obama Capitulates to Critics and Suspends Prisoner Transfers by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
7 January 2010

For the last 12 days, since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab slipped through every security net going, and tried and failed to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, Republican critics of Barack Obama have tried every trick in the book to undermine the President’s authority, with former Vice President Dick Cheney claiming that the incident demonstrated that Obama’s “low key response” to the failed attack “makes us less safe,” and numerous lawmakers and pundits — joined by a few easily frightened Democrats — stating that no more Yemeni prisoners should be released from Guantánamo, following the transfer to Yemeni custody of six men the weekend before the failed attack.

The first of these assaults on the administration was dealt with robustly, in response to Dick Cheney’s statement to Politico, when the former VP claimed:

Rachel Maddow: Bush and Cheney justifying Iraq War through torture! + Sen. Carl Levin refutes Cheney’s claims

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

im4wur2
December 30, 2009

Rachel Maddow – questioning during KSM’s torture 1/2

Rachel reveals that the questioning of KSM was “focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between al Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link… there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.”

more about “Rachel Maddow – questioning during KS…“, posted with vodpod

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Rep. Kucinich: Congress has responsibility, too + Rep. Maxine Waters + Kucinich vs O’Reilly

Dandelion Salad

firedoglake
December 01, 2009

more about “Rep. Kucinich: Bush Should Have Been …“, posted with vodpod

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Countdown: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA35) on Obama’s Afghanistan speech

Kevin Phillips: American Dynasty (2004)

Dandelion Salad

talkingsticktv
November 10, 2009

Interview with Kevin Phillips author of “American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush” recorded January 16, 2004.

more about “Kevin Phillips: American Dynasty (2004)“, posted with vodpod

see

The Secret Global Empire(s): Russ Baker & John Perkins

from the archives:

Bill Moyers Journal: Changing Times + Obama + Racism + Studs Terkel

Bill Moyers Journal: Wall Street Woes + Kevin Phillips + Yankee Stadium

The Cheney-Libby lies and memory loss about Wilson, Plame, everything

Dandelion Salad

Hardball-Isikoff &  Corn – The Cheney-Libby lies and memory loss about Wilson, Plame, everything

firedoglake
November 02, 2009

more about “Hardball-Isikoff & Corn – The Cheney-…“, posted with vodpod

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The Ed Show – David Shuster cuts through the Cheney-Libby ‘memory issue’ muck

Justice At Last? Guantánamo Uighurs Ask Supreme Court For Release Into US by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
21 October 2009

One year and two weeks ago, District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered that 17 Uighur prisoners at Guantánamo be released into the United States. Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province, the Uighurs were seized and sold to US forces by Pakistani villagers in December 2001, after they had fled a settlement in the Afghan mountains, where they had ended up after fleeing Chinese oppression.

One of the men had secured a resounding court victory last June, when appeals court judges ruled that the government had failed to prove that he was an “enemy combatant,” involved in any way with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and in the wake of this ruling the government abandoned all pretense that any of other 16 men were “enemy combatants” either.

On Guantánamo, Lawmakers Reveal They Are Still Dick Cheney’s Pawns by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
6 October 2009

I like to believe that, despite studying Guantánamo for four years, I still have a sense of humor, but last Thursday I lost it, after 258 members of the House of Representatives (including 88 members of President Obama’s own party) voted for an idiotic, paranoid and unjust motion proposed by Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ken.), which was designed to “Prohibit the transfer of GITMO prisoners, period” (those were his exact words). Just 163 Representatives voted against the motion, which, as JURIST described it, also supports “adding Guantánamo detainees to the federal ‘no fly’ list, and adopting Senate language forbidding the release of photos showing detainee abuse.”

The Dick Cheney Defense by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
September 16, 2009

So Dick Cheney is going around the country justifying torture, (without any proof whatsoever, and anyway in terms of the law, that argument is irrelevant) saying how many hundreds of thousands of lives it saved, that the U.S. is, or at least was when he (ooops, he means Bush) was in power, really a nation with a Unitary Executive that can over-ride domestic law, the Constitution, and international law whenever the President thinks that that is justified for “reasons of national security.” (Sorry Dick, but if you would only read Article II, which defines the Executive Branch, you would know that such a doctrine is not even distantly implied in it, but that’s another story.) Furthermore, he charges that the bringing of any charges against folks who, for example, actually engaged in torture, even of the type not approved specifically by himself, is just pure politics.