Copy cat chronicles

The torture underway in Iran right now mirrors some of the methods perfected by Cheney and company... Of course, the Iranians go a little further - there is a good chance that they would execute the person afterwards...

With the distressing news of so many democracy activists being rounded up by the Iranian regime, the specter of torture for false confessions emerges. The confessions "prove" that the demonstrations were entirely a function of a foreign plot. And, more to the point, the torture techniques include those adopted and championed by the neocon right in the US. Among the Cheney techniques that are used by the Khemenai regime are sleep deprivation, forced nudity, beatings, solitary confinement, and stress positions. The torture also exceeds Cheney techniques in many cases: beating with cables, which was barred by Cheney in favor of beatings that did not leave such scars or "walling". The Tehran regime does not have a record of waterboarding. Khamenei's regime, like Cheney's program, denies outright that they torture anyone.

Laugh break

David Rees' take on the Cheney speech yesterday is hilarious...

As far as I could tell, his speech was actually some weird kind of mouth-yoga where you keep returning to "9/11" position every thirty seconds.

Cheney: "For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour."

Actually, no, Mr. Face-sliding-off, I don't recall that on 9/11 you were "in your office" (at the RadioShack where you work?). You could have been bussing tables at Applebee's, or stuffing envelopes from home, or drinking a protein shake made of your own bile. How would I know? I have no idea who you are. Why are you on my television?

But then Cheeny started talking about how "rounding up random Afghan teenagers and torturing them in Cuba's armpit has saved trillions of American lives," and "if we let a bunch of scraggledy-bearded douchebags into the American penal system, somehow they'll hypnotize the guards and convert the wardens and build a mustard-gas-Islam-fart-bomb," or whatever, and I started thinking, "Wait a minute, this guy looks familiar."

Then he started in about "dark days" and "gathering threats" and "nefarious enemies" and "the desert-people are scheming" and "even a piece of cheese can be a mighty weapon" and then I remembered:

This is the guy everyone in America deemed a total asshole and decided to ignore about five years ago.

When O' When?

Reading this bit of news, I was thinking at what point of time will it dawn upon this individual

• that he was the former vice President?
  
• that he is no longer running for any elected office..
  
• that he makes sane Republicans (the few left) look unhinged..
  
• that waterboarding is torture and it is illegal and un-American..
  
• that it is about time to retire and try his hand at fishing or something (not hunting!)..
  
• that he has had his moment in the sun and maybe it is time to get the new guy to try his gig..
  
• that he is starting to make Mr. Bush look like a saint!
  

Image from here.

A new Conciliatory Phase??

"Too often the United States starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues — and we don't always know all the factors that are involved, what we want to do is to listen, set aside some of the preconceptions that have existed and have built up over the last several years. And I think if we do that, then there's a possibility at least of achieving some breakthroughs." - Barack Obama in an interview to Al Arabiya on Jan 26 2009

The erstwhile neo-cons who ruled us till recently will not be able to sleep tonight... or possibly for many nights henceforth...