Gens. Krulak & Hoar, on 9/11 Anniversary, Go After Cheney on Torture

9/11 had many horrendous consequences, and among them was the Bush administration’s descent into embracing torture in the name of preserving freedom. Some, like Vice President Dick Cheney, continue to defend the uncivilized practice. In response to that defense, two retired four-star generals, former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak and Central Command chief Joseph Hoar of the Air Force, write in the Miami Herald:

[W]e never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas — and his scare tactics.

We have seen how ill-conceived policies that ignored military law on the treatment of enemy prisoners hindered our ability to defeat al Qaeda. We have seen American troops die at the hands of foreign fighters recruited with stories about tortured Muslim detainees at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. And yet Cheney and others who orchestrated America’s disastrous trip to “the dark side” continue to assert — against all evidence — that torture “worked” and that our country is better off for having gone there.

Read the whole thing.