Cheney Puts His Dick In A Wringer

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the unintended consequences of the Bush torture regime, but a vivid imagination helps.

How else to square the following?

* The 9/11 attacks gave Dick Cheney the excuse to fulfill the neocon web dream of invading Iraq.

* But there was a teensy problem with that. Iraq didn't have jack to do with 9/11 so Dick concocted a twofer fantasy: Those dirty rotten bastards were in cahoots with Saddam.

* And to prove that Dick ordered the torture of a terrorism suspect to make his fantasy whole and the suspect dutifully complied after being waterboarded.

* Alas, the confession was vague in the extreme and demonstrably false as those extracted by torture so often are.

* Nevertheless, that has not stopped Dick from demanding that the CIA release memos that he claims will exonerate his fantasy and prove that zillions of lives were saved. (As opposed to the 4,000-plus American and 100,000-plus Iraqi lives lost.)

* Not so fast there Dick, replied the CIA. Classified stuff like the memos cannot go through a mandatory declassification review if they contain information that is the subject of litigation. This is so the review process is not used to disrupt that litigation.

* There are, in fact, two court cases pending that involve the memos, both brought by flamingly liberal groups that include Amnesty International and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

* So Dick can't get the memos until the groups do and then he'll have to ask them pretty please for copies.

Wait! It gets better.

* If the court agrees to the release of the memos, this will open the door to the release of other memos that will reveal, among other things, that the CIA's own inspector general concluded the use of torture raised grave ethical issues. And didn't work.

Don't believe me? Check it all out here.