DETROIT -- President George W. Bush's administration embraces a simple, predictable creed in exercising power: Conceal the truth. All matters of public importance are state secrets. When pressed to reveal the truth, cover up or lie. Those who dare speak the truth are summarily punished. Bush and his people believe they alone decide what the law is and how it should apply.
The Bush administration employs these totalitarian tactics every day, almost matter-of-factly. The mainstream American media yawns. Calling Bush the tyrant he truly is just doesn't get ambitious talking heads invited to inside-the-Beltway power parties.
Vice President Dick Cheney's latest claim of secrecy, supremacy and unrestrained power is a perfect illustration of how this vile administration operates and the disdain and utter contempt these criminals have for democratic principles and institutions.
An executive order requires government officials to report to the National Archives how much national security information their offices have classified or declassified. The purpose is to assure that sensitive data is properly cataloged and protected.
But Cheney has declared the order does not apply to him. And he was so offended when the office overseeing the program pressed him to comply that he wants it abolished. Cheney -- the most powerful and influential vice president in American history, who has claimed unprecedented executive authority for his office -- now claims that he is not part of the executive branch of government. Representative Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, revealed Cheney's brazen assertions and his attempt to destroy the office that dared asked him to comply.
In a letter to Cheney posted on the committee's Web site, Waxman disclosed how the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office has been denied access to records in Cheney's possession. The rules don't apply to Cheney. He alone decides what secrets he can keep.
Waxman told the New York Times, "I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy. But this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe. His argument is really that he's not part of the executive branch, so he doesn't have to comply."
The Constitution makes the vice president the presiding officer of the Senate with a vote in the event of a tie. Cheney is trying to use this largely ceremonial task to give himself a legislative towel to hide his executive deeds. What a fraud!
Waxman noted the perjury conviction of Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who repeatedly lied to a grand jury about the leak of classified information revealing the covert status of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. The world knows Cheney was behind the move and Libby took the fall for him.
Waxman also pointed to the dirty deeds of Leandro Aragoncillo, the former Cheney aide who pleaded guilty when caught leaking classified information to people plotting to overthrow the president of the Philippines.
Waxman bluntly told Cheney, "Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information."
The Justice Department is supposed to rule on the dispute. Does anyone think that serial perjurer Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will do anything to offend Cheney?
Cheney's political terror tactics are well known in the Justice Department. He easily blocked the appointment of Patrick Philbin to become principal deputy solicitor general. Philbin had the nerve to oppose the warrantless surveillance program the National Security Agency used to spy on millions of Americans.
Cheney got wind of Philbin's principled opposition to the illegal wiretapping and punished him for daring to speak the truth. Former deputy attorney general James Comey, responding to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee about Philbin's aborted promotion, said, "I understand that someone from the White House communicated to Attorney General Gonzales that the vice president would oppose the appointment if the attorney general pursed the matter. The attorney general chose not to pursue it." What big Dick wants, big Dick gets.
Cheney has more influence over what happens in the Justice Department than that hapless liar Gonzales. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, "The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program."
Comey also testified there was "significant dissent" within the Justice Department on the domestic spying program. But just like Libby, Gonzales lied to please his liege lord, Cheney, and his dauphin, Bush.
Gonzales testified before Congress in 2006 under oath about the government eavesdropping program he supported as White House counsel, claiming that "there has not been any serious disagreement about the program the president has confirmed."
Gonzales knew former attorney general John Ashcroft, his deputies James Comey, Patrick Philbin and many others had "serious disagreement" with the program. The attorney general of the United States is a demonstrable perjurer and he should be impeached.
But in the Bush league of loyal liars, Gonzales will endure and Libby will be pardoned and never spend a single night in jail. Lies are meritorious; only the truth will get you into trouble in Cheney and Bush's upside-down world of politics.
Telling the truth about the officially sanctioned American torture and horrors at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ended the career of the Army general who prepared the first report investigating the abuses.
Army Major Gen. Antonio M. Taguba had a distinguished military career, noted for his integrity, honesty and competence. Such character traits were sure to clash with people in the Bush administration, who created their own reality and truth.
Enter former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The New Yorker" magazine's Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of Abu Ghraib, explains how Rumsfeld and his Pentagon minions punished and ultimately forced Taguba out of the military because of his work in exposing the abuses at the prison.
Hersh's piece is a searing indictment of Rumsfeld's vindictiveness and the coverup of his own knowledge of what was happening on his watch.
Taguba was forthright and minced no words on what he learned investigating Abu Ghraib. He discovered that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees -- systematic and illegal abuse." The word "systematic" indicated what was happening at the prison wasn't just some rogue soldiers, but actions approved up the chain of command.
Taguba didn't sugar-coat what he found out. In a meeting in Rumsfeld's office, he was asked, "Is it abuse or torture?" Taguba told Hersh, "I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum and said, 'That's not abuse. That's torture.' There was quiet."
But Rummy broke the silence and showed his real concern and preoccupation.
"General," he asked, "who do you think leaked the report?"
Taguba said he speculated that "perhaps a senior military leader who knew about the investigation has done so."
Rumsfeld's wrath was directed not at those responsible for the abuse but at those who took the lid off the dirty secret.
Rumsfeld then whined to Taguba that he had to testify to Congress the next day and had seen neither the general's report nor the terrible photographs of the torture.
Taguba told Hersh he long before had circulated "more than a dozen copies of his report through several channels at the Pentagon and to the Central Command headquarters, in Tampa, Florida, which ran the war in Iraq."
Rumsfeld, a notorious control freak and micro-manager, either was lying about not seeing the report or deliberately distanced himself from it to cover his own ass.
Former friends and colleagues shunned Taguba after his report was made public. Gen. John Abizaid, then the head of Central Command, told Taguba in flat-out intimidation, "You and your report will be investigated."
Hersh makes the compelling case that high-ranking military officers, the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House knew what was going on at Abu Ghraib. The evidence points to the likely suspects -- Rumsfeld, Cheney, Gonzales and Bush -- all up to their necks in approving torture.
In January 2006, Taguba got a phone call from the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, who delivered a crisp message: "I need you to retire by 2007."
Taguba was a proud, dedicated soldier who reported lawless torture and abuse that "violated the core of our military values."
For honorably doing his duty, he was punished. In Bush world, the liars are protected and rewarded. Those who speak the truth pay a price.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | June 26 2007 |