# Cheney criticizes Geneva Conventions -- to West Point cadets **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 27, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738 "2007-05-27T23:56:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/101 "2007-05-29T05:54:04Z")
Considering the very small appetite I have for being perceived as hiding behind another’s response, nevertheless, I’m going to have to let **Princhester** ’s speak for me. With the added observation that Cheney’s history is a significant contributor to the sense I have that my suspicions as to his implications are at least educated (as opposed to pulled-out-of-my-ass) guesses. Vegas? Well, if I ever have a reliable reason to believe that a specific roulette wheel in a specific casino is rigged to **always** come up “00”, dam’ right I’ll check in for a couple of hours and pick up some free money… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/102 "2007-05-29T06:00:43Z")
I rather mangled my last para, sorry. Typing too fast. What I meant to say was: “One of the key messages you convey by what you say is not what you say about something, but that you have said something about it at all. The explicit message Cheney conveys is that evil terrorists are hypocrites in claiming the GC’s benefits. This suggests that the soldiers he is talking to will be fighting evil terrorists, which is very largely incorrect. What Cheney does not talk about (and therefore downplays the importance of) is that mostly the soldiers will not be fighting evil terrorists, and mostly the people they capture are not hypocritical in expecting to be treated well.” ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/103 "2007-05-29T06:21:13Z")
I used to teach reading skills. Some of you seem to have forgotten that there is more to the meaning of words than just their literal definition. > [@](#): > > **magellan01** : Not only do you chose to say that he is implying something, but you even know what it is. Nice trick. Actually, that “trick” was one of the basic reading skills that was covered on the proficiency test that my students had to pass to graduate. Of course you are supposed to be able to catch it when someone is implying something! Orators don’t like to have to spell out everything word for word. They like to be able to presume upon your intelligence. It’s a little perplexing to think that **John Mace** and **Martin Hyde** graduated from high school believing that Mark Anthony actually thought that “Brutus is an honorable man!” After all, that’s exactly what Anthony said repeatedly. Could it be that the Romans were to leave that speech believing something else? Was he implying that Brutus was not an honorable man? In this thread, my old friends **duffer** , **Little Nemo** , and **Liberal** have been real winners. :dubious: :rolleyes: Sorry, **luci**. The smilies were a necessary evil. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/104 "2007-05-29T10:18:47Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Lao] You’re right, Liberal, it is impossible for anyone to make their opinions about something clear without making it the subject of a sentence. [/quote] I disagree with that. Cheney could have said, for instance, that “the killers want to use the cursed and damnable Geneva Conventions against us”. It’s a matter of what modifies what. If you don’t believe it just because I say it, then post Cheney’s quote in General Questions, and ask the board’s grammarians whom or what he was criticizing. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/105 "2007-05-29T10:32:31Z")
The thread title is an outright lie. **Brain Glutton** who launched the thread, has contributed precisely nothing else in the last hundred plus posts. Why hasn’t this thread been gassed? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/106 "2007-05-29T13:14:25Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] I’m far from a Bushista, but I can’t help but to decipher what someone says by referring to the words they actually use. [/QUOTE] Well, there’s your problem. All that you need is to look at whoever said something, and then assign whatever meaning to it you like. Saves a lot of time otherwise wasted actually reading. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/107 "2007-05-29T13:34:40Z")
I don’t think Cheney explicitly showed contempt for the Geneva Conventions, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind at all if you inferred it. What I think is more disturbing is the constant waving of the bloody flag of 9/11 and attempts to tie it to the current war: [QUOTE=Deadeye Dick] America is fighting this enemy in Iraq because that is where they have gathered. We are there because, after 9/11, we decided to deny terrorists any safe haven. [/QUOTE] What a crock. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/108 "2007-05-29T14:14:27Z")
When most of your argument consists of patting yourself on the back and ignoring the actual arguments made by others, perhaps its time to retire from posting. Accept for Shodan, who would be nearly careerless without his drivebys and long diatribes about the bias of the boards. It’s sad too, because we was almost halfway to making at least an attempt to stay in an argument for more than a few sneers in the debate about morality. Again: Cheney is a man who has spent the last couple of years beating his many wives. Now he stands up to give a speech about “those wives that deserve it” and making fun of all their whining about being beaten ya’ll think that’s a perfectly reasonable limitation of scope. Sorry, but that’s all a bit too much. The fact is, this is a man with an long track record of failing to properly identify who the “killers” are. He has labeled many hundreds of people “bloodthirsty killers” who were probably not, and fought to deny them any legal process, and here he is scoffing and ridiculing the idea that people we capture demand such rights. There’s no issue of inflection there. There’s no missing words I’m reading into things. When a police chief has falsely imprisoned hundreds of people he accuses of drug possession and denied them their rights, and then gives a speech about how drug possessors are vile and stand for everything evil and then makes fun of them demanding fair hearings, that’s obscene. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/109 "2007-05-29T15:03:36Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] **Accept** for Shodan, who would be nearly careerless without his drivebys and long diatribes about the bias of the boards. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > because **we was** almost halfway to making at least an attempt to stay in an argument … You forgot my tendency to mock your spelling and grammatical errors. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/110 "2007-05-29T15:18:49Z")
Case in point. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/111 "2007-05-29T17:12:23Z")
Well, Andrew Sullivan is the farthest thing from a knee-jerk liberal, and I think [his reading](http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/cheney_at_west_.html) of the event is on the nose: > [@](#): > > Here’s the key passage: > > > [@](#): > > > > As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he’ll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away. > > Cheney, as usual, is careful with his words. He is, of course, right that our enemies are barbarians. Their torture manual confirms what we already knew. But the way he expresses this is very telling. He portrays the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution as devices by which al Qaeda can defeat the United States. The effect can only be to undermine respect for both Geneva and the Constitution among West Point cadets and the military in general. In the current debate, Cheney is using a West Point graduation to urge the military to support his disavowal of Geneva and his interpretation of a unitary executive in which the president has indefinite dictatorial powers with respect to “enemy combatants” in the war on terror. Invoking Geneva and the Constitution in a time of war, Cheney implies, is only something terrorists or terrorist-supporters would do. Sticking by Geneva and the Constitution is a function of “delicate sensibilities,” which, in Cheney’s faux-macho worldview, is about as contemptuous an expression as can be imagined. > > Cheney represents the GOP establishment consensus, as expressed in the recent South Carolina debate, and across the Bush-blogosphere. He views both the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution of the United States as obstacles to be overcome in fighting the war on terror, the kind of obstacles only wimps defer to. After all, the Constitution might be read as forbidding the executive branch from detaining a U.S. citizen on American soil, bringing no charges for years, and torturing that citizen in solitary confinement until he is a quivering wreck of a human being. But in the battle between Cheney, Padilla and the constitution, Cheney won - and Padilla and the Constitution lost. > > Cheney seems to believe that the military and the president have taken oaths to defend American lives and American territory and American interests. But of course, presidents and vice-presidents and U.S. servicemembers take no such oath. Servicemembers take the following oath: > > > [@](#): > > > > “I, \_\_\_\_\_, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend **the Constitution of the United States** against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” > > Does Cheney understand this oath? Do the Republicans? The Constitution - not the territory, not the people - is what the U.S. government is constructed to defend. And yet the current administration clearly views that Constitution as very September 10. We have a year and a half to go under a president and vice-president with this view of the Constitution. If you are not worried, you should be. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/112 "2007-05-29T19:24:40Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] In this thread, my old friends **duffer** , **Little Nemo** , and **Liberal** have been real winners. :dubious: :rolleyes: Sorry, **luci**. The smilies were a necessary evil. [/QUOTE] What the hell did I do to you? 😕☹ (just to needle **'luci** ) :dubious: 😃😛🙂😛 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/113 "2007-05-29T19:54:54Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] It’s a little perplexing to think that **John Mace** and **Martin Hyde** graduated from high school believing that Mark Anthony actually thought that “Brutus is an honorable man!” After all, that’s exactly what Anthony said repeatedly. Could it be that the Romans were to leave that speech believing something else? Was he implying that Brutus was not an honorable man? [/QUOTE] Quoted for the benefit of the slow readers who missed it the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/114 "2007-05-29T20:06:07Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Quoted for the benefit of the slow readers who missed it the first time. [/QUOTE] One needn’t read slowly to know that it was an asinine comparison. Shakespeare used literary and rhetorical techniques to express irony in Mark Antony’s speech that have nothing to do with Cheney’s speech. Just because something is a speech doesn’t mean it’s like all other speeches. Otherwise, we’d have to stipulate that Cheney has a dream about all God’s children. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/115 "2007-05-29T20:09:27Z")
Cheney’s comments about the unfair appeal of protections of the Geneva Convention is nonsensical, because it shouldn’t matter how other people apply our standards. They should be our standards because we believe in them ourselves. It’s childish and reflective of low levels of moral reasoning (actually, Stage 2) to apply the Golden Rule in reverse - saying or implying that we should do unto others what they do unto us. I have much more problem, however, with Cheney’s extreme bullshit from a part of the speech just after (or just before, I don’t recall for sure) the part in question. Specifically, he says: > [@](#): > > Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian empire, a caliphate, with Baghdad as its capital. They view the world as a battlefield and they yearn to hit us again. And now they have chosen to make Iraq the central front in their war against civilization. > > In Iraq today, the al Qaeda network that struck America is one of the elements trying to destroy a democratic government. They are surging their capabilities, attacking Iraqi and American forces, and killing innocent civilians. America is fighting this enemy in Iraq because that is where they have gathered. We are there because, after 9/11, we decided to deny terrorists any safe haven. We are there because, having removed Saddam Hussein, we promised not to allow another dictator to rise in his place. > > And we are there because the security of this nation depends on a successful outcome. The war on terror does not have to be an endless war. But to prevail in the long run, we must remove the conditions that inspire such blind, prideful hatred that drove 19 men to get onto airplanes and come to kill us on 9/11. We know from history that when people live in freedom, answering to their own conscience and charting their own destiny, they will not be drawn to the ideologies of hatred and violence. We know, as well, that when people are given the chance to live in freedom, most of them will make that choice. > > The people of Iraq now have a chance to secure their country’s future. More than 300,000 of them have joined security forces – despite all the threats, and murders, and car bombs at recruiting stations. And when it was time for national elections, the Iraqi people defied the killers and voted at a higher rate of turnout than we have here in the United States. In the struggle against terror, no country has had more battlefield deaths, or lost more civilians, than Iraq itself. They and their elected leaders are striving to preserve democracy against direct attack by merciless enemies. And they can know that our country, as in other times and other places, stands firmly for the cause of democracy. Look at the deft manipulation of concepts there, so that it is not clear how Iraq was not involved in 9/11, how Iraq was not meaningfully involved in terrorism before we completely destabalized it… Cheney is an evil, manipulative fuck, and this portion of the text of his speech demonstrates that fully. This was not a stock speech, nor a good speech. It was more Cheney shit, and America will be the better when he fucks off back to Texas or Wyoming or wherever the fuck he wants to claim to be from. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/116 "2007-05-29T23:29:08Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] No, because he isn’t disparaging it at all. [/quote] What do you think Cheney meant by “delicate sensibilities”, then? :dubious: > [@](#): > > The point was, **BrainGlutton** wanted to make a thread to start some good old fashioned admin bashing To you, perhaps that was the point. To a civilized human being, the point was the current administration’s contempt for the things that \*make \* us civilized. > [@](#): > > You’re the worst kind of partisan, Goebbels-esque parrots whose minds only work one way. Says the guy who doesn’t have a problem with torture. > [@](#): > > **BrainGlutton** is hardly “some random anonymous poster.” Okay, “pseudonymous” then. But still just some ordinary guy. Like the rest of us here. Including you. > [@](#): > > (even the ones based on their legitimate misdeeds are more or less useless at this point, the whole “Bush is bad” thing has more than gotten its share of space on the forums long before we start to delve into "invented misdeeds.) “Invented” ? Just how ignorant \*are \* you? :dubious: As ignorant as you want to be, it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/117 "2007-05-30T01:41:17Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] Well, Andrew Sullivan is the farthest thing from a knee-jerk liberal, and I think [his reading](http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/cheney_at_west_.html) of the event is on the nose: [/QUOTE] Exactly. BrainGlutton’s thread title is a bit hyperbolic, but he is clearly not the only one who read the general thrust of Cheney’s comments as being negative to the GC. Those who don’t want to discuss this but just want to bury it under a chorus of worked up indignation over the thread title are showing their true colours. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/118 "2007-05-30T02:05:32Z")
Did you know Clinton got a blowjob? ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/119 "2007-05-30T02:07:46Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] Did you know Clinton got a blowjob? [/QUOTE] There ya go, bringing up Clinton. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738/120 "2007-05-30T02:08:13Z")
No I didn’t. But if what you say is true, just call me a Bush supporter from now on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheney-criticizes-geneva-conventions-to-west-point-cadets/405738.md?page=7)