Petraeus Opposes Cheney And Limbaugh On Torture And Guantánamo

We all know physical cowards (and draft dodgers) Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh love belittling and denigrating the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend our country. Their scurrilous attacks on Colin Powell have even been supported by the fringy base of the Republican Party. But what about General David Petraeus? He's been a GOP icon who they're praying will run for president and bring them back to power. Well Limbaugh, Rove and Cheney may all prefer each other over Colin Powell, but General Petraeus is in line with the mainstream of American thought that torture is the wrong approach and that Guantánamo should be shut down.

He was interviewed on Radio Free Europe Sunday and he broke Dick Cheney's heart.. whatever contraption he's got in there. Like Colin Powell and most military men Petraeus opposes torture and opposes keeping Guantánamo open.

"I think, on balance, that those moves help [us]," said the chief of U.S. Central Command. "In fact, I have long been on record as having testified and also in helping write doctrine for interrogation techniques that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention. And as a division commander in Iraq in the early days, we put out guidance very early on to make sure that our soldiers, in fact, knew that we needed to stay within those guidelines.

"With respect to Guantánamo," Petraeus added, "I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice-- I talked to the Attorney General the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary-- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees."

Of course, Petraeus is hardly the only one pointing out how wrong Cheney and Limbaugh are. "Matthew Alexander," a pseudonym for an actual official Air Force interrogator in Iraq, is especially important to listen to-- and his perspective shows what a lying sack Cheney is. Torture cost us thousands of lives and was a major recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. Cheney and Bush need to be put on trial. Take a look: