“The Unknowns That Are Known”: No One Cares What Donald Rumsfeld Or The Cheney’s Think About Syria
A sneering Liz Cheney, looking to unseat Wyoming GOP Sen. Mike Enzi, told a Tea Party town hall in Jackson Hole Tuesday night that she would not support a congressional resolution to back President Obama’s planned Syria strike, deriding him for “an amateurish approach to national security and foreign policy.”
The daughter of the man responsible for fabricating the case for the Iraq war, the man who famously insisted “we will, in fact, be treated as liberators” and who had no plan for when that predictably turned out not to be the case – the daughter of that man is upset that Obama doesn’t seem to have a clear plan for Syria. This news comes on the heels of disgraced former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney’s partner in war crime, blasting Obama’s plan as “feckless” and deriding him as the “so-called commander in chief.”
So let’s recap: The team responsible for one of the worst decisions in American foreign policy history is kneecapping the president in a time of crisis. Of course, Dick Cheney has been attacking Obama from the beginning, insisting before he was inaugurated that he was making America less safe by promising to end torture and close Guantánamo. But now his daughter is taking her Obama contempt so far that she’s bucking her dad’s neocon friends and resisting the president’s Syria plans.
Cheney’s turnaround is pretty striking. She was a co-founder of the neocon group Keep America Safe, along with always-wrong war-lover William Kristol. TNR’s Marc Tracy has detailed Cheney’s long list of statements backing action against Assad going back to 2007. As an assistant secretary of state she tried to use funds for regime change in Syria and Iran. Just last month, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin (who’s in the running to share Kristol’s title of “always wrong”) listed Cheney as among the rising Republican stars who would buck “the isolationist trend in our party and in the country itself.” But now, running in a state that’s skeptical of more foreign interventions, she’s siding with the isolationists.
Cheney downplays the extent to which she’s split from former GOP allies. “The press will try to portray this Syria debate as a battle between wings of the Republican Party,” she told the friendly right-wing audience. “Don’t believe them.” But in fact there is a split in the GOP, and Cheney is putting herself on Team Rand Paul.
Except she’ll never get to Washington to join Team Rand Paul. Trailing Sen. Mike Enzi by 30 points in recent polls, she sounded a little unhinged in her Jackson Hole remarks, comparing herself to Winston Churchill standing up to Adolf Hitler – although it wasn’t clear who is playing the role of Hitler, Enzi or Obama – and accusing congressional Democrats and Republicans of lying about the depredations of Obamacare. She promised to abolish the EPA, the IRS and the Department of Education.
Cheney also went on a rant against the Jackson Hole News & Guide – the only paper covering her remarks Tuesday – for reporting on the $220 fine she had to pay for misrepresenting her address to get a fishing license.
“Newspapers are dying, and that’s not a bad thing,” she said. “We’re not depending on the Jackson Hole News & Guide to get the news out. We’re depending on ourselves. We’re going to go over their heads.” Cheney then said if each supporter talked to 10 friends about her, they wouldn’t need the newspaper. An audience member then singled out the News & Guide reporter in the crowd, and Cheney supporters refused to be interviewed afterward. Friendly!
That’s the old Cheney charm. Also this past week she got in a fight with her sister Mary when she came out against gay marriage in order to hit the conservative Enzi from the right. The normally quiet Mary Cheney, who is married to her longtime partner Heather Poe, hit her sister back:
“For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage,” she wrote.
Even Dick Cheney has come out in support of gay marriage, citing his daughter’s relationship. Poor Liz can’t even find the courage to join the rest of her family. And it’s sad, because she’s opening the rift even though she has almost no chance of unseating Enzi.
But bashing Obama gets her back on the same page as her father, so family holidays may not be so tense after all.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, September 4, 2013
“Just Do As I Did”: Did Donald Rumsfeld Counsel President Obama To Lie So As To Create The Justification For Bombing Syria?
Every now and then, one sees something happen right before one’s eyes that defies the laws of time, space, reality and reason. Such a moment occurred yesterday during a truly remarkable appearance by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Neil Cavuto’s Fox Fox Business News program.
During the interview, Rumsfeld appeared to criticize the Obama Administration for failing to present a supportable argument as to why an attack on Syria is in our nation’s best interest.
“There really hasn’t been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation,” said Rumsfeld.
On the surface, it would appear that Rumsfeld’s criticism was meant to remind the President that—before tossing in those Tomahawk missiles—he needs to present the American people (who largely oppose any American involvement in Syria) with a solid explanation as to why it is in our nation’s best interest to become involved with the Syrian civil war.
I actually agree with the substance of Rumsfeld remarks on their face. While there is nothing to confirm that President Obama has yet to make a decision to take military action in Syria, it is important that the public know all of the facts and be privy to the administration’s thinking should the President ultimately decide to become embroiled in yet more Middle East madness.
However, I say that I agree with Rumsfeld’s remarks “on their face” because I find it nearly impossible to believe that the one time Secretary of Defense would dare to offer such a remark—given his own stunningly horrendous track record on the subject—unless he had another motive entirely in offering such advice to the President—a motive I would likely not agree with in any way whatsoever.
When one has led one of the most heinous conspiracies in modern American history—a conspiracy to create such a justification for war out of whole cloth and lies for the purpose of tricking the country into supporting an unnecessary invasion—I don’t think it unreasonable to expect that this individual should forever waive the right to advise presidents, politicians or the local street sweeper on such matters. This is particularly true when that individual’s efforts to fabricate and sell a justification for war has led to the death, disfigurement or disability of thousands of Americans while wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars in the process.
Donald Rumsfeld is the perfect embodiment of such an individual and he must know it—so much so that it would seem inconceivable that a man who has committed the crimes against his fellow Americans that Donald Rumsfeld has committed could possibly have the hubris to appear on TV to advise a sitting president on the importance of justifying military action.
That is, unless Rumsfeld had something very different in mind.
Maybe Donald Rumsfeld was attempting to send President Obama a very different message—if you can’t provide the country with a fact-based, valid justification for bombing Syria in retribution for the Assad government’s gassing its own citizens in the dead of night, then do as I did and get busy creating enough facts to make it look good.
After all, who knows how to fabricate a justification for war better than Donald Rumsfeld?
In case you’ve forgotten, here are but a few of Rumsfeld’s greatest hits—
As recounted by former Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O’Neill, the first order of business during the Bush Administration’s very first national security meeting was toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. According to O’Neill, the discussion was “all about finding a way to do it. The president saying, “Go find me a way to do this.”
Bush didn’t need to tell Donald Rumsfeld twice. The record is all too clear that the Secretary of Defense gladly took up his boss’s challenge and went looking for a story he could sell to the country in order to take out Saddam Hussein.
When the 9-11 attacks happened, Rumsfeld saw his opportunity.
Before long, we were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he would use against American interest if we failed to topple his regime. Of course, no such weapons have ever been located.
Then we were introduced to the lie purporting that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium-rich yellowcake from Nigeria in furtherance of his plans to create atomic weapons to be used against American interests—despite ample, proven factual evidence that this was never the case.
And, of course, the greatest hit of them all, Rumsfeld and friends sought to convince us that Saddam was somehow behind the 9/11 attack despite it being crystal clear to the Department of Defense and the remainder of the government that this was never the case.
While the record is clear that Rumsfeld and Cheney sought to tie Saddam to the 9-11 attack within hours of the first plane slamming into the World Trade Center, many supporters of Rumsfeld continue to claim that this was never the case. Yet, the proof of this effort has always been available for all to see, memorialized in writing in the March 18, 2003 letter from President Bush to Congress seeking authorization to use force against Iraq.
“(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”
So outrageous is the notion that Donald Rumsfeld would appear on television and presume to offer his counsel on the importance of the administration setting forth a legitimate case to engage in military action before doing so, one struggles to understand how the irony and stomach churning result of Rumsfeld’s appearance could possibly escape him or anyone else.
Accordingly, a sane individual is left to conclude that either Donald Rumsfeld is either the most despicably clueless man in America—a real possibility, I grant you—or that he was trying to tell the current occupant of the White House to do as he did—if you want to go to war, just lie.
Either way, Donald Rumsfeld has no standing nor right to speak a word on the subject of justifying military action unless it is to provide the nation with a full confession of his own terrible sins. To presume otherwise is an unspeakable offense to the American public, particularly when it comes to those who lost loved ones in a well-packaged, falsely justified and wholly unnecessary war based solely on Donald Rumsfeld’s lies.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, August 29, 2013
“The Old Failed Gang Is Back Together”: After Spectacular Failures And Unprecedented Abuses, Pretending To Have Credibility
Several prominent officials from the Bush/Cheney era have been in the news lately, largely as a result of ongoing controversies, but many of them — Robert Gates, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, retired Gen. David Petraeus — are under fire from the right for not toeing the party’s anti-Obama line.
There are, however, plenty of loyal Bushies stepping up to launch rhetorical attacks. Indeed, they seem happy to pretend they still have credibility and are compelling messengers to express their party’s contempt for the president.
Former Attorney General Mike Mukasey was on Fox News this morning accusing Obama of abusing the power of the executive branch (no, seriously); former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is making the rounds on conservative talk radio; and former Vice President Dick Cheney is, well, doing what Dick Cheney does.
“They lied. They claimed it was because of a demonstration video, that they wouldn’t have to admit it was really all about their incompetence,” Cheney told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Monday. “They ignored repeated warnings from the CIA about the threat. They ignored messages from their own people on the ground that they needed more security.”
“I think it’s one of the worst incidences, frankly, that I can recall in my career … if they told the truth about Benghazi, that it was a terrorist attack by an Al Qaeda-led group, it would destroy the confidence that was the basis of his campaign for reelection,” Cheney added. “They tried to cover it up by constructing a false story.”
As a substantive matter, much of what Cheney said is ridiculous and wrong, as is often the case. If the failed former V.P. has proof of White House lies and a cover-up, he’s welcome to share it, but the fact that preliminary intelligence out of Benghazi was wrong isn’t evidence of either.
But more to the point, does Dick Cheney, of all people, really want to have a conversation about national security lies, ignored warnings about terrorist threats, and covering things up by constructing false stories? Because that’s largely a summary of his eight years of spectacular failures and unprecedented abuses in office. Indeed, I’m not sure whether to find it funny or sad that he, Rumsfeld, and Mukasey feel comfortable showing their faces in public again.
As for Cheney seeing Benghazi as “one of the worst incidences” that he “can recall,” I’m not going to play a game of ranking the seriousness of terrorist attacks, but I’m curious if Cheney recalls 9/11. If he doesn’t think that counts — and there’s some evidence to suggest he doesn’t — and he only wants to focus on attacks on American outposts abroad, I wonder if Cheney might also recall the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that left 241 American servicemen dead, right before Reagan cut and ran.
Any of this ring a bell, Dick?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 14, 2013
“A Classic Dick Cheney Modifier”: Ready For The Anniversary, But Never The Actual Day
Dick Cheney won’t let a little thing like the absence of credibility stand in the way of cheap shots, as he hopes to exploit the deaths of Americans abroad for partisan gain.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the Obama administration on Tuesday for its handling of the September 11, 2012 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, calling it ‘a failure of leadership.’ Cheney said U.S. leaders should have been better prepared for violence on the anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.
‘They should have been ready before anything ever happened,’ Cheney told MailOnline exclusively during a party in Georgetown celebrating the launch of a new book by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. ‘I mean, it’s North Africa – Libya, where they’ve already had major problems,’ Cheney said.
Actually, “North Africa” is a pretty big place, as Cheney may recall. To say the Obama administration, the U.S. military, and all U.S. diplomatic outposts in the region “should have been ready” is easy for a failed former official to say from his Beltway home, but in practice, it’s a little more complex. Indeed, we’re talking about Benghazi, Libya, where support for the U.S. is strong and we were arguably less likely to face a violent attack.
But this was the part of Cheney’s harangue that struck me as especially noteworthy.
‘When we were there, on our watch, we were always ready on 9/11, on the anniversary,’ he recalled.
Yes, “on the anniversary” is an instant Cheney classic, because on their watch, they certainly weren’t ready “on 9/11” itself.
George W. Bush received an intelligence briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, at which he was handed a memo with an important headline: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Bush, however, was on a month-long vacation at the time. He heard the briefer out and replied, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” A month later, al Qaeda killed 3,000 people.
“On the anniversary,” however, Cheney wants us to know they were ready, presumably everywhere, for everything.
Honestly, isn’t it about time this guy enjoyed a little quiet time?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 8, 2013
“Surrounded By Hacks”: Scott Walker Hires Torture Apologist To Ghostwrite Campaign Book
Looks like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is going to try to be president now. Robert Costa reports that Walker is “collaborating on a book with Marc Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.” It’s not like a sci-fi robot murder mystery that takes place in the distant future on Ganymede, either: It is an I would like to be president sort of book, “with stories about his family, his values, and his rise to power.” It will probably be boring.
But just because it will be a boring book doesn’t mean that its existence isn’t interesting.
Thiessen is a very poor Washington Post opinion columnist who wrote a book in which he strung together a series of distortions in support of the thesis that torture is great. Before the book and the column gig, he was a speechwriter for George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. (Before that, Thiessen spent six years as a spokesperson and “policy adviser” to unreconstructed white supremacist Sen. Jesse Helms, which is another thing that should effectively bar him from participating in civilized society.)
Thiessen likely got the job because he’s written a bunch of columns lauding Walker as a leader at the forefront of the “GOP revolution.” In 2012, he called for Romney to select Walker as his running mate, writing, “Barack Obama is afraid of Scott Walker.” (Thiessen also wrote that a victory for Walker in his then-imminent recall election “would make Walker the instant front-runner for the GOP vice presidential nod.” Walker won, and did not become a front-runner for the vice-presidential nod.)
The book is clearly more about national ambition than it is part of Walker’s 2014 reelection campaign. He does not need help with name recognition in Wisconsin, and Thiessen has no connection to the state at all. Walker also just went to CPAC and plans to visit Iowa and give a speech to one of their thousands of random GOP groups this spring. He’s a Midwestern governor, roughly half of his state approves of him, and the conservative activist base loves him. It would almost be stupid if he didn’t give running for president a shot.
Walker’s decision likely got a bit easier this month, when the three-year investigation into the unusual amount of illegal campaign activity carried out by some of his appointees and fundraisers concluded without Walker facing any charges or specific allegations of wrongdoing. Six individuals connected to Walker were charged with crimes. Two of his aides each separately looted a fund intended for a picnic for veterans and their families. Timothy Russell, who worked closely with Walker in various jobs for a decade, was sentenced to two years in prison.
Walker’s repeated appointment of Russell to various positions suggests that a Walker administration would be, like the Bush administration, full of political hacks whose only qualifications for their posts will be either ideological certitude or fundraising ability. His hiring of Marc Thiessen is evidence that he has no strategic or moral issues with the Bush administration’s foreign policy. For a party that’s desperate to reform its image without changing a thing about its policies, he’s as good a candidate as any. He just better make sure his book doesn’t accidentally express any opinions about immigration reform.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, March 25, 2013
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