“Don’t Be Bashful!”: Anyone Here Miss Dick Cheney? Neither Do I
As Iraq ruptures into fragments, none other than Dick Cheney has shambled forth to blame Barack Obama.
“Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong so much at the expense of so many,” the former vice president huffed in a Wall Street Journal column, blind to the irony of his own toxic self-righteousness.
No American political figure in recent history has been dead wrong as consistently as Cheney, or as loath to admit it.
It was he and George W. Bush who set in the motion the catastrophe now unspooling in Iraq. The decision to invade was peddled to Congress and the American people with a campaign of myth making that Cheney still refuses to disown.
Long after Bush was forced to concede that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and long after U.S. intelligence agencies affirmed that Saddam Hussein had no connection to al Qaeda, Cheney continued to promote these discredited scenarios to justify his own hyperbolic cheerleading for the war.
Remember, this is the same arrogant boob who predicted that U.S. troops would be welcomed as “liberators.”
It took nine years and a new administration to finally get our ground forces out of that sad and awful mess. Now Cheney is pathetically trying to elevate his lowly place in history by attacking Obama for letting Iraq go to pieces.
In truth, the collapse began March 19, 2003, the day we started the “shock and awe” bombing.
Hussein was a rotten guy who ruled with an iron first, but he had no tolerance for jihadist terrorists. Eleven years ago, al Qaeda steered clear of Iraq. Today the country is overrun by al Qaeda-inspired insurgents, leaving the United States at a far greater risk than before.
Thank you, George and Dick.
Unlike his retired vice president, Bush has shown the calm decency — and good sense — not to stir foreign-policy debates. Cheney’s whining and jeering only serves to remind Americans of his own disastrously bad judgment and needy ego.
The hero’s legacy that Cheney craves for himself belongs instead to those men and women who were sent by his administration to fight in Iraq.
Cheney himself never served in uniform, having avoided Vietnam by securing numerous draft deferments. His appetite for war arose later in his life, when he was no longer at personal risk, and has followed him into his spiteful old age.
His views on Iraq have provoked mass public eye-rolling. It would be hard to find someone with less credibility, or someone more callous to the sacrifices that have already been made.
Beyond the $2 trillion-and-counting price tag, the cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation has been enormous.
Officially: 4,486 American soldiers died in combat there, and 32,226 were wounded in action. The unofficial toll is much higher — nearly a million veterans of the war have sought medical or psychological treatment at VA hospitals since their return.
The exact number of Iraqi civilians killed during the long conflict is impossible to determine, but estimates start at 115,000 — and still there’s no peace. The country is being split by ancient religious feuds that were barely held to a simmer during the U.S. occupation.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has resisted U.S. pressure for him to include Sunnis in the government, and now he’s paying the price. His hold is so weak that many Iraqi troops (the ones we spent billions to train) dropped their guns and surrendered immediately to the insurgents.
Cheney’s op-ed column, written with his daughter Liz, dishonestly blasts Obama for abandoning Iraq. Actually it was Bush, Cheney’s own boss, who signed the agreement requiring all U.S. troops to be gone by 2011.
And it was still too long.
Obama won the White House campaigning on a promise to end the war, which he did. No one who’s been paying attention to the Mideast seriously expected peace and harmony to ensue. Only the Iraqis can fix Iraq.
Surprisingly, the two opining Cheneys didn’t call for a brand-new invasion. Liz probably talked the old man out of it. Brushed the crumbs off his bathrobe. Sent him upstairs for a nap.
Note to future presidents: Whatever advice Dick Cheney offers, do exactly the opposite and you’ll never go wrong.
By: Carl Hiaasen, Columnist for The Miami Herald; The National Memo, June 24, 2014
“Pesky Niceties Just Aren’t Important”: Cheney Doesn’t Want To Talk About ‘What Happened 11 Or 12 Years Ago’
It was discouraging last week when discredited conservatives, who failed spectacularly on U.S. policy in Iraq, were given a media platform to talk about U.S. policy in Iraq. Last week’s Sunday shows alone, featuring the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Bill Kristol, led James Fallows to argue, “In the circumstances, they might have the decency to shut the hell up on this particular topic for a while. They helped create the disaster Iraqis and others are now dealing with. They have earned the right not to be listened to.”
And yet, these discredited voices remain ubiquitous. Kenneth Pollack, for example, was on CNN yesterday, presented to viewers as a credible expert. Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, and went on serve on the Bush/Cheney National Security Council as head of the Mideast bureau, had a lengthy piece in Politico yesterday describing President Obama as “the man who broke the Middle East.”
And then there was ABC’s “This Week,” which welcomed Dick Cheney for his third Sunday show appearance since March. It went about as expected, though I was struck by the failed former vice president’s response to some of his catastrophic errors of fact and judgment.
“With all due respect, Jon, I was a strong supporter then of going into Iraq, I’m a strong supporter now. Everybody knows what my position is. There’s nothing to be argued about there.
“But if we spend our time debating what happened 11 or 12 years ago, we’re going to miss the threat that is growing and that we do face.”
In “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” there’s a scene in which John Cleese’s Sir Lancelot, certain he’s doing the right thing in behalf of a damsel in distress, storms into a castle during a wedding party, indiscriminately slaughtering most of the guests with his sword. The castle owner, eager to curry favor with Lancelot, urges the survivors to let bygones be bygones.
“Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed whom,” he tells his few remaining guests.
Cheney’s rhetoric is similar in its own pathetic way. Sure, he failed miserably, helping launch a disastrous war under false pretenses, the consequences of which we’re still struggling with today, but let’s not bicker and argue about who lied to whom about a deadly and unnecessary catastrophe. Pesky niceties such as accountability, credibility, and responsibility just aren’t important at a time like this, the argument goes
The difference is, in Monty Python, it was funny.
In the same Sunday show appearance, ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Cheney about his recent op-ed in which he argued that Obama is trying to deliberately undermine the United States’ global standing, effectively suggesting the president is guilty of treason.
“I don’t intend any disrespect for the president, but I fundamentally disagree with him,” Cheney said.
Of course. All Cheney did was accuse a war-time president in the middle of a crisis of wanting to hurt the country on purpose. Why would anyone think the failed former V.P. intended “disrespect”?
Nevertheless, the divisions within the Republican Party on foreign policy were also on display over the weekend. While Cheney was condemning the president who’s tried to clean up Cheney’s messes, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was doing largely the opposite, arguing that it’s a mistake to point fingers at the White House.
“I don’t blame President Obama,” Paul said. “Has he really got the solution? Maybe there is no solution. But I do blame those who are for the Iraq War for emboldening Iran. These are the same people now who are petrified of what Iran may become, and I understand some of their worry.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 23, 2014
“In The Name Of All That’s Good”: Why Can’t The Media Just Ignore Dick Cheney?
It is said that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Unfortunately in politics one of the oldest tricks in the book is to say and do something so insulting to the common sense and intelligence of the opposition that they completely abandon reason and strike back in an irrational and ultimately self-defeating manner. Dick Cheney is an old dog and is up to his usual dirty tricks, but I will not allow him or the bile that exits his mouth to incite me to irrational words or actions. Imagine a world without Dick Cheney in it. What a better place it would be. Well, at least can we just ignore him while he is here?
I have written pieces on several occasions decrying his inane ramblings on affairs domestic and international. The latest incendiary barrage leveled against the president, defending Dick’s War in Iraq. This ill-conceived and grossly mismanaged plan is universally acknowledged to be the deadliest miscalculation in modern history except by those who created it. The natural inclination in response to its continued defense is a sharp rebuke filled with profane invectives. But we will not go there; it only humors those who are immensely frustrated with the enormity of their failure.
Going to war is without a doubt the most serious decision that a leader must confront. It requires every ounce of intellect, reasoning, factual examination, political dexterity, diplomatic consideration, compassion, and strength of conviction that a mere mortal possesses. The Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was strong on conviction and marketing and short on all other counts. It was a bad decision that has seriously put this nation in a position of weakness and suspicion internationally, has shortchanged the American people by redirecting considerable financial resources away from investment in them and to wartime profiteers, has created a class of military veterans who struggle with deep wounds that have not been and may never be adequately treated, has energized a worldwide jihadist movement, and has left the millennial generation with no conception of a world without war.
Imagine a surgeon who removes the wrong limb, then picture the patient continuing to consult the doctor for additional surgical advice. Absurd you say, who in their right mind would do such a thing? The answer is the news media. That’s right, our information outlets. I don’t care what qualifications or credentials the doctor possesses or claims to possess — would you take your child back to this quack? Of course you wouldn’t, yet here we are being buffeted by the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Kristol and other architects and apologists of a policy so fraught with miscalculation that in another setting it would qualify for criminal prosecution.
Dick Cheney has not the least amount of credibility on the Iraq situation, either this one or the one 11 years ago. He has audaciously illustrated time and again that he has no capacity for self-reflection, introspection, analysis or questioning on issues that involve life and death on a large-scale. These qualities are important to human growth; Dick’s growth was stunted at a very early age.
He has every right to speak his mind, which is the hallmark of a free democratic society. But he also has a responsibility as both a leader and a former leader in such a society to evolve, to contribute to the betterment of society by examining his actions and thoughts, and correcting his mistakes. Refusal to admit mistakes and challenge one’s own assumptions is the most selfish, irresponsible, and immature behavior that any leader, whether of a nation or a family, can exhibit and is reflective of insufficient capacity to lead.
No human is infallible; everyone makes mistakes, true leaders own up to them. Dick Cheney’s childishness does not deserve the print either he or his co-conspirators regularly receive. The only way to shut him down is to pay him no attention. That would be far more devastating to him than hurling verbal jousts that are richly deserved and instinctual to the well-adjusted and reasonable among us.
So I offer this plea that in the name of all that is good, can we please refrain from giving Dick and his droogies a platform? The world would be a better place.
By: Lance Simmens, The Huffington Post Blog, June 19, 2014
“The Cheneys’ Continuing Iraq Disaster”: Dick And Liz Are Trying Desperately To Justify The Unjustifiable
On the heels of Father’s Day, we get a Wall Street Journal missive from none other than Dick and Liz Cheney, the father-daughter duo. Really?
For those who thought they had seen the last of Liz and her ill-fated and absurd challenge to Republican Sen. Mike Enzi from Wyoming, the state she hardly lived in and didn’t know, she’s back! And Dick, who can’t resist a diatribe to justify his ill-fated and disastrous policy in Iraq, has never learned to zip it.
The worst part is the supposed substance of their piece: Iraq is all Obama’s fault. He is “willfully blind,” “he goes golfing,” “he abandoned Iraq,” he is guilty of “simple -minded appeasement.” The Cheney team’s conclusion: “President Obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom.”
What drivel.
There is absolutely no discussion of the dynamics of the Middle East in their article. There is no mention of the deeply religious conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. There is no mention of the Kurds. There is no substantive exploration of the involvement of other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, in this conflict. There is not one reference to policy options that should be considered in response to the attack by terrorist groups associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL or ISIS.
In short, this is an article devoid of substance, let alone a reasonable discussion of public policy.
So, aside from being a vitriolic attack against President Obama, why did they write it? The answer is pretty straightforward, I think. The Cheneys are trying desperately to justify the unjustifiable.
Dick Cheney lied to get us into Iraq: weapons of mass destruction; Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; the people want us there; we’ll be greeted as liberators; chemical weapons are ready to be unleashed. On and on. Dick Cheney was one of the architects of one of the most extraordinary disasters ever in the history of American foreign policy: more than $1 trillion spent, thousands killed, a country destroyed. Al-Qaida was not present in Iraq before the invasion, but what about now? Because of the Bush-Cheney policy, we created more terrorists than we could ever have dreamed of killing.
The line from Dick and Liz that is truly astounding, and they seem most proud of, is: “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.” It is truly sad that they don’t recognize that such a line applies so much more completely to them and what they did. Their preferred policy was a complete disaster, and most people know it.
President George Herbert Walker Bush surely understood, when he wrote these words in his book about the policy decisions he made on Iraq back in the early 1990s: “We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. … There was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”
Yes, Mr. and Ms. Cheney, and that is precisely what you did and what you recommend now. A disaster then, a disaster now.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, June 18, 2014
“The Damage The Neocons Did Lives On”: Armchair Hawks Still Cling To Fantasies About Iraq
Once upon a time, I believed that if a mature adult made an obvious mistake, he would own up to it, apologize and take responsibility. I believed that if he were a leading political figure who had willfully led the public into disaster, he’d work tirelessly in an attempt to make amends, preferably in some low-key role in which he avoided attention and applause. I believed that if he had made a catastrophic mistake — one that cost tens of thousands of people their lives — he’d spend the rest of his life in quiet reflection, seeking to atone for his sins.
I’ve long recognized my naivete, but Dick Cheney has recently reminded me just how wrong I was.
Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops and more than 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives during a misguided occupation that Cheney helped to mastermind. Now, that country is disintegrating, torn apart by bloody sectarian warfare that was a foreseeable consequence of the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Yet, Cheney and his neocon allies have come out blasting Obama for Iraq’s woes.
Last week, Cheney and his chip-off-the-old-block daughter Liz published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that bears witness to their alternative reality universe.
“When Mr. Obama and his team came into office in 2009, al-Qaida in Iraq had been largely defeated, thanks primarily to the heroic efforts of U.S. armed forces during the surge. Mr. Obama had only to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory,” they wrote.
That is breathtaking — stunning — in its deceit, its gall, its malevolence. Before George W. Bush invaded Iraq, al-Qaida in Iraq was just a jihadist fantasy. Deposing Saddam Hussein — a sadistic tyrant, but the glue that held together that fractious country — allowed terrorists to bloom.
Cheney’s ahistorical analysis reminds me of the old Soviet Union, where apparatchiks routinely erased previous party leaders out of photographs in an effort to persuade observers that they never existed. But evidence of the former vice president’s attempts to rewrite the past abounds. For example, a 2002 speech he delivered to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in which he was wrong about, well, everything:
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. … Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. … Extremists … would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced,” he said.
The Cheneys are not the only neocons on the rebound. They are joined by several discredited names from the past, including Robert Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby. Indeed, Dick and Liz have launched a new fundraising group, The Alliance for a Strong America, to propel armchair hawks into political office.
No worries. The public is war-weary and wants nothing to do with further military interventions abroad. They are unlikely to win many converts.
But the damage the neocons did, not only abroad but also at home, lives on. The United States is left with a huge budget deficit, a result of Bush’s two wars with tax cuts, and thousands of veterans who still suffer severe physical injuries, significant emotional trauma or both. No one should be surprised that the Veterans Administration has had trouble keeping up with its caseload.
But that may not be the worst of it. Polls show that Americans’ trust in their government has fallen through the floor; in a recent survey, only 19 percent of people told Gallup they trust the “government in Washington” to do the right thing most of the time.
It’s probably no coincidence that the last time many Americans trusted their government was during the Bush/Cheney “war on terror.” They left us with a dangerous cynicism toward our democratic institutions.
By: Cynthia Tucker, Visiting professor at the University of Georgia; The National Memo, June 21, 2014
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