Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Who Really Ran Pottersville?


Thanks to the Washington Post, we now know that Dick Cheney led four briefings to lawmakers defending enhanced interrogation techniques, according to congressional and intelligence community leaders. What we don't know is who exactly was present at these meetings and what exactly was discussed, including waterboarding. All we know is that, contrary to the red-handed GOP's mantra, future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not present at any of them.

These revelations, if you wish to call them that, shouldn't be earthshaking. After all, Dick Cheney has been making the talk show rounds defending torture almost to the point of bringing to the soundstage a mockup of an Iron Maiden. What is curious about this article is that only once is the name "Bush" ever mentioned and that was in the beginning to give the administration's name the Bush brand. Yet Bush was curiously absent, one would be tempted to say oblivious, during all this scuttling back and forth on the part of his more industrious co-president. In fact, Senator Lindsey Graham said, "His office was ground zero. It was his office you dealt with at the end of the day."

Once again, one has to wonder: Who the hell was running the country while Don Rumsfeld was busy spicing up Bush's daily Defense Intelligence reports with Biblical quotations? Who was shaping our government's moral character while Bush was off bike riding in the Maryland woods in the middle of the day?

And who was giving torture the official Cheney seal of approval on a tour of Guantanamo Bay? None other than David Addington, Cheney's second and final chief of staff, a Frankenstein in every way imaginable and someone who actually carries around a pocket-sized version of the Constitution with him, no doubt to clean food from between his teeth.

When I first began blogging almost four and a half years ago, I didn't wholeheartedly subscribe to conspiracy theories about who was really running this government. A book had even been written advancing the idea that Dick Cheney was really the top banana. But now that we've been given just enough objective room to look back on the last eight years, it's more possible than ever to gauge Cheney's influence over the rest of the government.

It all started during Bush's 2000 campaign when HW Bush appointed Cheney the head of a vice presidential scavenger hunt. Within a few weeks, Dick Cheney chose Dick Cheney to be Bush's running mate, curtly saying he thought he was the best man for the job.

On 9/11, Dick Cheney allegedly had a life-altering moment in his bunker and proceeded to craft the response to the terrorist attacks based on his pants-pissing terror (in other words, to judge by Cheney's reaction to 9/11, the terrorists had already won). Meanwhile, Bush was sitting in a tiny chair in a Florida classroom, paralyzed with indecision for seven minutes. Rudy Giuliani became our new President pro tem for the next 24 hours.

During and after Hurricane Katrina, while Bush was helping John McCain celebrate his birthday and giving speeches in San Diego comparing the war on terror to WW II, Dick Cheney was telling power companies to divert power from hospitals and to the refineries.

Through Sy Hersh, we now know that Dick Cheney's office was also "ground zero" for channeling slush funds to three Sunni insurgent groups with the intention of fomenting sectarian civil war between Shias and Sunnis in Iran, advocated false flag missions off that country's coast and led JSOC death squads in their assassination missions all over the world.

Dick Cheney thought the OVPOTUS was a separate branch of government accountable to no one and Bush let it stand unchallenged.

We know that Cheney was directly involved in outing Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent whose portfolio including assessing the weapons infrastructure of nations such as Iraq and Iran while Bush said he'd fire anyone who was involved then didn't even after Patrick Fitzgerald's two grand jury investigations revealed who was involved.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq on which Bush had officially yet to decide, Dick Cheney held a series of energy task force meetings behind locked doors. All we know is that Iraq's oil and natural gas fields were divvied up. We do not know to this day what was discussed or who besides Cheney had attended these meetings. But consider the re-emergence of the four Anglo-American oil companies that were kicked out by Saddam Hussein 35 years ago and then form your own conclusions about the minutes of those meetings.

Meanwhile, Bush was begging Saudi oil ministers and the King of Arabia to increase oil production and was politely laughed at and patted on the head, meaning that Dick Cheney has influenced the oil market of the Middle East more than Bush ever did.

So who really ran the United States of Potter during the past eight years? And since we now know the origin of much of America's moral putrefaction, why is Dick Cheney still an honored guest on soundstages instead of being clapped in irons and frog-marched to Holland?

6 Comments:

At June 3, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Anonymous Comrade Rutherford said...

Back when Reagan was in the White House, it was painfully obvious that he never really was actually in charge of anything.

For example, Reagan would say something and the press secretary would have to come out and contradict everything.

I started calling the former Hollywood star "Acting-President". It was clear that Bush Sr was the actual President from 1981 - 1992 -he had three terms!

When Bush Jr was 'elected' it was once again perfectly obvious that George W. Bush was also the "Acting-President" for the last 8 years and that Cheney had far more control for most of that time.

When asked what her greatest achievement was as Prime Minister, Conservative Margaret Thatcher said without hesitation "New Labour". She meant that she had tricked the Left into moving rightward in reaction to her extremist positions.

So, too, we have Obama, a right-of-center moderate Republican winning on the Democratic ticket. The GOP here has manipulated the Dems into abandoning everything left of the centerline.

The Conservative dream of turning the globe into one big Pottersville is ever closer to fruition.

 
At June 4, 2009 at 4:49 AM, Blogger Juan Moment said...

"why is Dick Cheney still an honored guest on soundstages instead of being clapped in irons and frog-marched to Holland?"

The $64'000 question. My answer: In a country in which one war criminal as head of state is being replaced with another ruthless murderer, the arrest of the former is highly unlikely.

There are simply not enough people in the US who seriously want to see that happen. A small fringe minority maybe, but not the masses. It would be an indictment of their democratic credentials, I mean who would like to admit that he or she has voted for an alleged war criminal to hold office?

Look at Obama's choice of new Prince of AfPak, General McCrystal. This man has torture written all over him, following Cheney's ideology like a snake would trail a bitten mouse, but instead of being called up on his inhumane stands, is promoted by the alleged one hope for change to run the war on Afghanistan and Pakistan. What a joke. Obama, while carrying on about Gitmo, never mentions Baghram, or any of the other torture camps the US mil is running around the globe. Only 4 months into his presidency but he is already as guilty of war crimes as Bush or Cheney.

 
At June 4, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Blogger Juan Moment said...

American Theory of Relativity

Looks about right.

 
At June 4, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What does it take to convince even the most sceptical that Bush/Cheney have lied from day one.
The mushroom cloud statement? Iraq's enormous stockpiles of wmds? Not allowing the IAEA to complete its job? Saddam was an evil leader? The Yellowcake fiction? The outing of a CIA agent? "We do not torture"? Enhanced interrogation (torture) has saved 10's of Thousands of American lives without providing how, who, when, where data?

 
At June 4, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Anonymous Don Alejandro said...

Cheney was greasing the wheels for torture well in advance of having any prisoners because torture was known to be a reliable way of producing what Cheney refers to as "actionable intelligence."

Of course, "actionable intelligence" need not have been true or even remotely accurate as long as it was useful for Cheney’s purposes. Torture (especially repetitive torture) was uniquely suited to fabricating "actionable intelligence" as Cheney’s victims eventually learned to create whatever sort of details the Torturer in Chief sought (such as a link between 9/11 and Iraq).

 
At June 4, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

...which, even after 183 waterboardings, KSM never gave them.

 

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