Mainstream Media Forgets Cheneys and Their Torture Are Still With Us
"The New Arab" suggests Dick Cheney should've died haunted by Abu Ghraib. A compelling thought, perhaps, but what about the institutions that sanctioned the torture, the lawyers who drafted the memos, and the politicians today who continue to use 'enhanced interrogation' as a playbook? This isn't just about a dead man; it’s about a political culture that rewards moral flexibility and war
profiteering. For instance, according to reporting by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Bush administration’s own legal memos, like the August 2002 'Bybee Memo,' redefined torture to allow practices like waterboarding, effectively granting legal cover to what the world recognized as war crimes. John Yoo, a legal architect of these policies, still holds a professorship at Berkeley Law. While
we muse on Cheney's fate, his spiritual descendants are still approving weapon sales to regimes accused of civilian massacres (as reported by outlets like The New York Times concerning recent US-Israel arms deals), all while advocating for 'decisive action' abroad. The lessons of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and boundless military budgets, now normalized, appear to have been absorbed not as cautionary
tales, but as operational guides. One might wonder if the real haunting isn't of the torturers themselves, but of a public perpetually fed selective outrage.