Rogue Superpower

Rogue Superpower

by digby

So, releasing the torture report is going to make foreign governments leary of the US and question our commitment to international norms and laws:

[C]ritics of the Senate panel’s report, meanwhile, have used the global calls for justice as proof that the report was misguided from the beginning.

“This is that collateral damage now, where countries are going to take full advantage of it and try to kick around the United States,” outgoing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) told reporters at a briefing hosted by The Christian Science Monitor on Friday.

“We ought to push back on any opportunity, on any effort that they would make to go after U.S. citizens who were working on behalf of the United States government to protect the United States and stand up for our national security,” he added.

If that makes us less safe what do you suppose the rest of the world thinks of the unrepentant psychopath former Vice President Dick Cheney going on TV this morning and saying:

CHUCK TODD:

25% of the detainees though, 25% turned out to be innocent. They were released.

DICK CHENEY:

Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are--

CHUCK TODD:

Well, I'm asking you.

DICK CHENEY:

--you going to know?

(OVERTALK)

CHUCK TODD:

Is that too high? You're okay with that margin for error?

DICK CHENEY:

I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective. And our objective is to get the guys who did 9/11 and it is to avoid another attack against the United States. I was prepared and we did. We got authorizing from the president and authorization from the Justice Department to go forward with the program. It worked. It worked now for 13 years.

We've avoided another mass casualty attack against the United States. And we did capture Bin Laden. We did capture an awful lot of the senior guys at Al Qaeda who were responsible for that attack on 9/11. I'd do it again in a minute.

In other words, the most powerful nation on earth has no limits and has no obligation to follow any rules, laws or norms. As Emptywheel commented this morning on twitter:

Cheney has turned American exceptionalism from false claim to higher ideals into insistence that our crimes are OK.

And that makes the world a much more dangerous place for Americans than it otherwise would have been. After all, everyone in the world knows that half the US population, at a minimum, think this guy is terrific and supports his views. They know it's entirely possible that someone like him could be in power again. In fact the brother of the president under whom this hideous regime was carried out is considered a leading candidate for president. Our current president has worked to help cover it up.

The US is a rogue superpower. And that makes us vulnerable because despite the hype we don't actually have super-powers. In fact, this whole episode shows that our leaders are incompetent boobs. If this keeps up, at some point the rest of the world is going to feel that we are the greater threat. That's not good. To say the least...


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