OBAMA: DON'T LET CHENEY GET AWAY WITH HIS BASELESS SLANDER

Dick Cheney is continuing to make the defenseless and unsupported claim that the changes wrought by Barack Obama in ending torture, such as waterboarding, in the interrogation of suspects is setting the U.S. up for another terrorist attack. Cheney claims his harsh methods paid off by stopping inchoate attacks before they matured.

The Washington Post web site carries an AP story on Cheney's claim.

Writes the AP:

"Since becoming president, Obama has ordered the closing of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and banned certain methods of interrogation for suspected terrorists.

"To Cheney, those changes are raising the risk of attacks on the U.S."

The fatal flaw in Cheney's claim is that no one has any idea of what incipient attacks the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime of torture stopped. Everything is classified, and Bush never ordered such material declassified. Cheney wants the American people to accept his word, that's all. The only support Cheney has for his grand assertions is his own opinion. He thus feels immune from any counter-argument.

Therefore I call upon Barack Obama to order the Department of Justice to begin a thorough criminal investigation of the use of torture by the Bush administration. So far Obama has said he is not inclined to do this, but in the face of repeated accusations by Cheney, Obama does not have any choice. He can either stand by while neo-cons and warmongering Republicans like Cheney claim he is weak on defending against radical Islamists or else he can fire back against these guys with their non-existent evidence and let all the people see how Bush and Cheney almost destroyed the bill of rights of the U.S. constitution in their overreaction to the dangers posed by a very few screwballs.