In Dick We Trust

Former Vice President Cheney, in reaction to the recent declassification of the torture memos, has defended the previous administration’s actions by claiming that the CIA interrogations provided the government and the Vice President with essential information. Because that information has not been revealed to the public, for obvious national security reasons, we’re just going to have to take Dick’s word for it.

That must be the Cheney Doctrine. We’re just going to have to trust the government. From everything from WMDs to domestic surveillance, Dick thinks we should just believe him. Sorry, but the truth has to remain classified.

But what we have learned since 9/11 is that prior to the attacks, we already had all of the actionable intelligence needed to stop the attacks. It was institutional inefficiency, not the absence of torture or the Patriot Act, that kept us from being safe. Thanks to Dick, though, each and any of my communications (phone calls, emails, letters), as a U.S. citizen living abroad, are subject to warrantless searches by the government.

And if I were a non-citizen, according to the Dick Doctrine, the U.S. government should be able to kidnap me from anywhere in the world, hold me incommunicado indefinitely, and interrogate me as harshly as his lawyers deem necessary. The information, fruit of the interrogations, will be invaluable to our national security, in Dick we trust. How do we know that the non-citizen isn’t some ordinary Joe? We can’t tell you that either, but in Dick we trust.

All I know is that there were no WMDs in Iraq, the great majority of those held in Guantanamo were released without being charged of anything, and Exxon Mobile is now the most profitable company in the country.