Wednesday, December 21, 2005

This is Instructive

From a Nightline interview:

TERRY MORAN (ABC NEWS): Are you troubled at all that more than 100 people in US custody have died, 26 of them now being investigated as criminal homicides, people beaten to death, suffocated to death, died of hypothermia in US custody?

DICK CHENEY (VICE PRESIDENT): I won't accept your numbers, Terry. But I guess one of the things I'm concerned about is, that as we get farther and farther away from 9/11, and there have been no further attacks against the United States, there seems to be less and less concern about doing what's necessary in order to defend the country.

A reasonable followup, alas, an up not followed: So, tell me, Mr. VP, just how many criminal homicides are necessary to defend our country? Are you saying we should be encouraging our armed forces and intelligence agencies to commit more criminal homicides, so we'll be even safer?

My question: If defending our country means throwing away the constitution, is it really worth saving?

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