© Veracity Stew
Dick Cheney is back in the news this week, and for once, he kept his warmongering to a minimum. Cheney is, like most politicians, trying to cash in on his lifetime of destroying the country and enriching his friends by publishing a book. His version of the truth, titled In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, is published by Simon & Schuster. I guess the original title, "How I Escaped From the Death Star" was rejected for copyright reasons. You can buy it at Amazon at 45% off (already?) or wait a few more weeks and pick it up at your average dollar store.
The book itself is a stunning display of psychological twisting, as Cheney tries in vain to defend the indefensible: The Bush Administration in general, and specifically, the War in Iraq. Cheney defends Guantanamo Bay, the massive military buildup, the torture of innocent Muslims, the loss of American freedom at home (in the name of security, of course), and the general fear-baiting, terror-hyping security state he built on the backs of an attack that I believe he knew was coming.
That's right. I think Dick Cheney knew an event LIKE 9/11 was going to happen on American soil, and he was fully prepared to enact his fascist agenda as soon as the crisis emerged. How do I know that? It's in his own words, if you read with a little insight.
Cheney was chatting with The American Enterprise Institute about 9/11, and moderator Stephen Hayes delved into what Cheney's immediate, emotional reaction to the events was. Hayes said that President Bush nearly cried in public, and that Condoleeza Rice wept at home. Cheney's reaction as the events unfolded? Not a single human emotion.
Nope. Cheney's first thoughts were all about war and who we got to kill, and which brown people we'd get to bomb, now that they were dumb enough to attack us. Cheney focused on "what the targets might be and how we might go after him."
Look, if your first reaction to the sight of planes crashing into, and knocking down, the World Trade Center is anything other than "Oh my god" followed by tears, something is fishy. When your response is "Cool, we get to go kill some Muslims," well, it's safe to say you're probably playing for the other team on this one.
I know some are quick to say it was a deliberate false-flag attack, or that it was a controlled demolition and purposefully enacted to drag America into a wider Middle East war. Those questions cannot be answered here. But Cheney's response? It's sketchy, it's creepy, and it sends off all kinds of spidey signals.
In case that is not clear enough: Yes, I am calling Dick Cheney a traitor to his country. Why? Because he's a traitor to his country. It's not really rocket surgery. He lied us into war, lied about why we were there, and authorized (and to this day defends!) the use of torture. You could conceivably make a case for the War in Iraq being based on bad intelligence, and that he acted in good faith.
I happen to think otherwise; he and the other neoconservatives had been itching to kick some Muslim butt for over a decade. They just needed a good excuse. But the torture? How can anyone, in good conscience, support torture? How can you take who we claim to be as a nation, and look at our actions in torturing people, and claim that's acceptable behavior? So, yes...Dick Cheney is a traitor.
He should also be prosecuted for the war crimes, in particular for the torture of civilians, the cover-up of torture, and the violations of decades of international law. He, along with President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and others in the administration, authorized and accepted the sort of behavior that we hung Nazis for two generations ago.
Naturally, the Republican Party embraces Dick Cheney. As I said earlier this week, Americans (in particular conservatives) are shockingly cruel people. For all the talk about being the part of life, they do more to kill and harm than any other group in the history of the world.
Let's look at the body count. Cheney's Republican Party advocates ending Social Security, so old people can die on the streets. That's probably for the best, since they'll be without medicine, as they want to cut Medicare out too. They advocate cutting off food benefits and unemployment insurance for people who cannot find work - the lack of jobs being a side effect of Republicans pushing "free trade" agreements that do little but move jobs overseas.
They are in favor of any war, any time, in any place. They're responsible for the deaths of over one million Iraqis - the people we're allegedly helping in Iraq. They support torture of innocents in pursuit of terrorists that simply do not exist. They support the death penalty, and even cheer one man (Rick Perry) who knowingly executed an innocent man and then covered it up.Their health care plan is, quite literally, the "**** off and die" plan.
You want to get a conservative like Cheney really excited? Don't give him viagra. Tell him you're building a new prison. He'll be full mast before you can explain how it's maximum security and for "repeat offenders".
You'd think these beliefs would get one booed out of any public office, with at least one tarring and feathering. But no, the mouth-breathers of America can't get enough of Cheney, and seek to re-live the Bush-Cheney years with four years of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann.
Even Mitt Romney, who I am willing to bet is a decent human being on the inside, is trying to move in on the crazy bloodthirsty crowd. Romney is currently courting Dick Cheney, telling a crowd of supporters that he thinks Cheney is a man of wisdom and courage.
"I think it was last weekend I was watching C-SPAN, and I saw Vice President Dick Cheney and he was being asked questions about a whole host of issues -- following 9/11, the affairs in various countries in the world. And I listened to him speak and said whether you agree or disagree with him, this a man of wisdom and judgment, and he could have been president of the United States," Romney told the crowd to their loud approval. "That's the kind of person I'd like to have -- a person of wisdom and judgment."
If two unnecessary wars, trillions of dollars wasted, millions killed and a sinking economy are not the legacy of failure, and are instead reflective of "wisdom and judgment", I think the country as a whole might be doomed.
When you bow and kneel and kiss Lord Vader's ring, the taint of the dark side stays with you forever, Mitt. Remember that. This voter certainly will.
But the invective never stops.
I can totally sympathize with this writer's criticism of Cheney's maudlin attempts to re-write history. But my point is: What he started is now being continued by others. So attacking Cheney is like inflicting a scratch on your opponent's little finger. Why bother?
When I hear hate mongering, or fear mongering, from any corner of the political arena I suspect the intentions behind it. Because that's what is poisoning us.
The crazy arguments that Bush and Cheney foisted on the world to justify warlike actions in Iraq, etc., have been proven by history to be deceptive. But what if they had been true? The public would have gone for the wrong reaction - fear and hate - regardless. So Bush and Cheney were just taking advantage of a dysfunctional way of thinking that is built into our culture.
If that way of thinking were not present, no amount of war mongering after 911 could have resulted in war. Because other proven methods would have been in place that would always be chosen before any type of armed intervention would be considered.
The extremity of the situation would not have mattered. We would know full well what role red-flag events have played in our history and we would know better than to let them push us into war on a knee-jerk basis. It is this conditioning that we really have to deal with. There will always be someone there trying to take advantage of it. Until such time at it is no longer something that can be taken advantage of. And that is the real challenge of the peace-and-truth movement: How to remove that conditioning.