Sonny
Leopards don’t change their spots — and Pappy’s coming to the rescue of Sonny Jim means a kinder, gentler same-old … so the Honorable Mr. Gates, the new Rummy, needs to be looked at carefully — and many on the left are doing so. Ray McGovern, ex-CIA, has plenty to say — and it’s important to remember that Dubby learned his “craft” at Pappy’s knee as he was head of the CIA. It was a no-brainer that “covert” has been Bush’s m.o. — it’s been the main theme of the entire Bush Dynasty, pulling strings behind the scenes. Here’s some reads about Rummy’s replacement … and the Old Guard facing off with Uncle Dick, the remaining Hardliner and NeoCon.
The Left needs to be very, very skeptical about this whole project. Nancy Pelosi evidently agrees — backing John Murtha for Majority Leader.
Jude
Robert Gates-Gate
Ray McGovern
Saturday, November 11, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Full disclosure: I am in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s debt for TV notoriety on May 4, when my impromptu questioning of him elicited denials easily shown to be false. I have known Robert Gates, whom the president has picked to succeed Rumsfeld, for 36 years, starting when Gates was a journeyman analyst in CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy branch which I headed.
As the occupation of Iraq chews up a more and more of our troops, President George W. Bush has jettisoned “stay the course” in favor of “necessary adjustments.” This week he showed how quickly he can adjust to the mid-term election results when he jettisoned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, barely a week after telling reporters Rumsfeld was doing a “fantastic job” and that he wanted him to stay on for the next two years.
It had been clear for weeks that the election would be a referendum on the war in Iraq and that Republican losses would be substantial. And Rumsfeld and Bush saw a mutual need to avoid the acute political embarrassment that would inevitably attend Rumsfeld’s grilling by congressional committees chaired by Democrats. Besides, who better to try to blame for the “long, hard slog” in Iraq than the fellow who not only coined the expression but made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Rumsfeld may even have been willing to acquiesce reluctantly in serving as scapegoat for the Iraq fiasco. He would have seen merit not only in avoiding another acrimonious tangle with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), but also in helping Bush project an image of flexibility and decisiveness in the face of the post-election sea change in Congress. And one cannot rule out possible pangs of conscience for the horrific human cost resulting from his supreme arrogance and his susceptibility to the illusory strategic dreams of “the crazies”—the so-called “neo-conservatives” whom President George W. Bush brought back to Washington.
Neo-Conservatives Eat Their Own
Former allies are the most prominent among the legions now denouncing Rumsfeld. The abandonment is enough to pin down even an old wrestler like Rumsfeld. Perhaps the most unkindest cut of all came from longstanding supporter “Cakewalk-Ken” Adelman who, like other neo-conservatives, have turned mercilessly on their old, now discredited friend and colleague. In an interview for David Rose’s “Neo Culpa” in Vanity Fair, Adelman comes across as feeling jilted.
- “We’re losing in Iraq… I’ve worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I’ve been to each of his houses in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I’m very, very fond of him, but I’m crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don’t know. He certainly fooled me.”
As the saying goes, with friends like that, who needs Hillary?…or the kind of pummeling Rumsfeld has already received from the likes of the Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps Times?
I almost feel sorry for Donald Rumsfeld. And I’m not just saying that because, with the “Military Commissions Act” now signed into law, he can declare me—or anyone—an unlawful enemy combatant, “disappear” me into some black hole, and have me tortured for the rest of my days. Rather, it is a conspicuous case of betrayal by fair-weather friends—and chutzpah-laden disingenuousness. Et tu, Cakewalk-Ken! The neo-conservatives are attempting to push the blame onto Rumsfeld for the debacle of which they were the intellectual authors. Parallel attempts by administration officials to scapegoat Rumsfeld will be equally transparent and unconvincing.
The “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” (coined by Col. Larry Wilkerson who, as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, was in a position to know) is now down to one. And how much clout the vice president has lost with the election results and departure of his bosom buddy is perhaps the largest unanswered question. But if Cheney remains éminence grise and if past is precedent, Gates will defer to Cheney—probably even more than the president does. For if there is one distinctive hallmark of Eagle Scout Gates’ career, it is that he has always earned what might now be called the “Colin Powell Loyalty Patch”—loyalty to the next person up, whatever the content of their character.
A Fresh Approach?
Gates will help bring, in the president’s words, “a fresh perspective and new ideas on how America can achieve our goals in Iraq.” How could he not? But there are distinct limits to what he can contribute, and he has never been one to adopt positions independent of what the boss thinks or says. Most important, as noted this week by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), prospective chair of the House International Affairs Committee, “You can’t unscramble the omelet and the tremendous mistakes that were made after major military operations; I don’t see any magical solutions.”
It seems only fair at the outset to give Gates the benefit of the doubt. He could conceivably whittle away some of the influence Cheney has enjoyed over the past six years—the need for a fresh approach to Iraq being so obvious and urgent. At very least, Gates can hardly match the disaster Rumsfeld wrought with his fancy language and fanciful ideas; but this amounts to damning with faint praise. Unless Gates’ years outside the Beltway have wrought major behavioral change, it is highly likely that in the end he will bend obediently to the wishes of Cheney and Bush. Those close to Gates now say he has been privately critical of the way the war has been conducted. But he is the consummate chameleon, with an extraordinary capability to change colors quickly in adapting to a new environment.
Clearly the beneficiary of the compared-to-what syndrome, Gates has been getting unduly positive press treatment since the announcement of his nomination. It is one thing to give him the benefit of the doubt; it is quite another to ignore the considerable baggage he brings with him from past service.
Character Counts; So Does Integrity
Those of us who had front-row seat to watch Gates’ handling of substantive intelligence cannot overlook the manner in which he cooked it to the recipe of whomever he reported to. A protégé of William Casey, President Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director, Gates learned well from his mentor. In 1995, Gates told the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus that he watched Casey on “issue after issue sit in meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he wanted pursued.” Gates followed suit, cooking the analysis to justify policies favored by Casey and the White House.
The cooking was consequential. Among other things, it facilitated not only illegal capers like Iran-Contra but also budget-breaking military spending against an exaggerated Soviet threat that, in reality, had long since passed its peak.
I was amused to read in David Ignatius’ Washington Post column this week that Gates “was the brightest Soviet analyst in the [CIA] shop, so Casey soon appointed him deputy director overseeing his fellow analysts.” He wasn’t; and Casey had something other than expertise in mind. Talk to anyone who was there at the time (except the sycophants Gates co-opted) and they will explain that Gates’ meteoric career had mostly to do with his uncanny ability to see a Russian under every rock turned over by Casey. Those of Gates’ subordinates willing to see two Russians became branch chiefs; three won you a division. I exaggerate only a little.
To Casey, the Communists could never change; and Gorbachev was simply cleverer than his predecessors. With his earlier training in our Soviet Foreign Policy branch (and a doctorate in Soviet affairs no less), Gates knew better. Yet he carried Casey’s water, and stifled all dissent. One consequence was that the CIA as an institution missed the implosion of the Soviet Union—no small matter. Another was a complete loss of confidence in CIA analysis on the part of then-Secretary of State George Shultz and others who smelled the cooking. In July 1987 in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair, Shultz told Congress: “I had come to have grave doubts about the objectivity and reliability of some of the intelligence I was getting.”
Iran-Contra
And well he might. In the fall of 1985, for example, there was an abrupt departure from CIA’s analytical line that Iran was supporting terrorism. On November 22, 1985 the agency reported that Iranian-sponsored terrorism had dropped off substantially in 1985, but no evidence was adduced to support that key judgment. Oddly, a few months later CIA’s analysis reverted back to the pre-November 1985 line, with no further mention of any drop-off in Iranian support for terrorism.
It could be more than coincidental that the US illegally shipped Hawk missiles to Iran in late November 1985. When questions were raised later about this zigzag in intelligence, Stephen Engelberg of the New York Times quoted senior CIA official Clair George saying this was “an example of a desperate attempt to try to sort of prove something was happening to make the policy [arms to Iran for hostages] look good, and it wasn’t.”
Also in 1985 Gates commissioned and warped a National Intelligence Estimate suggesting that Soviet influence in Iran could soon grow and pose a danger to US interests. This provided additional “justification” for the illegal arms-for-hostages deal with Iran.
More serious still was Gates’ denial of awareness of Oliver North’s illegal activities in support of the Contra attacks in Nicaragua, despite the fact that senior CIA officials testified that they had informed Gates that North had diverted funds from the Iranian arms sales for the benefit of the Contras. The independent counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation (1986-93), Lawrence Walsh, later wrote in frustration that, despite Gates’ highly touted memory, he “denied recollection of facts thirty-three times.”
In 1991, when President George H. W. Bush nominated Robert Gates for the post of Director of Central Intelligence, there was a virtual insurrection among CIA analysts who had suffered under his penchant for cooking intelligence. The stakes for integrity of analysis were so high that many still employed at the agency summoned the courage to testify against the nomination. But the fix was in, thanks to then-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, David Boren and his staff director, George Tenet. The issue was considered so important and the damaging evidence so abundant, however, that thirty-one Senators voted against Gates when the committee forwarded his nomination. Never before or since has a CIA director nominee received nearly as many nays.
A highly respected former CIA station chief, Tom Polgar, offered the following at the 1991 Gates nomination hearings:
- “His proposed appointment as director also raises moral issues. What kind of signal does his re-nomination send to the troops? Live long enough, your sins will be forgotten? Serve faithfully the boss of the moment, never mind integrity? Feel free to mislead the Senate—Senators forget easily? Keep your mouth shut—if the Special Counsel does not get you, promotion will come your way?”
“Fixing” Intelligence Can Be Career Enhancing
Gates is the one most responsible for institutionalizing the politicization of intelligence analysis. He set the example and promoted malleable managers more interested in career advancement than the ethos of speaking truth to power. In 2002, it was those managers who then-CIA Director George Tenet ordered to prepare what has become known as the “Whore of Babylon”—the October 1 National Intelligence Misestimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He instructed them to adhere to the guidelines set by Vice President Dick Cheney in his Aug. 26, 2002 preemptive speech and to complete it in three weeks (in order to force a congressional vote before the mid-term election). To their discredit, senior sycophants saluted and produced the most fraudulent—and consequential—NIE in the history of American intelligence.
Those commenting on the Gates nomination so far seem largely unaware of this history. The exception is Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), who worked in the State Department’s intelligence bureau and now sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Pointing out Gates’ reputation for putting pressure on analysts to shape their conclusions to fit administration policies, Holt called the nomination “deeply troubling” and stressed that the confirmation hearings “should be thorough and probing.” Too bad Holt is not in the Senate.
Confirming Gates Must Not Be a Slam Dunk
There are early indications that Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), ranking Democrat on the Armed Forces Committee, intends to acquiesce in the maneuvering of the White House’s cat’s paw chairman of that committee, Sen. John Warner (R, VA), to rush the nomination through the lame-duck Senate before a new Congress is in place. At times in the past Levin has shown considerable courage, but so many years in the minority seem to have dulled his edge, prompting him to acquiesce in compromises to which he would have been allergic in the past—the unsavory deal with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) on the rights of “detainees,” for example. Not to mention Levin’s sudden cave-in, in the aftermath of 9/11, on funding for the National Missile Defense program, which he earlier recognized as obscenely expensive, of unproven reliability, and of dubious utility given the changing nature of the threats to our security.
Whether Levin steps up to the plate on Gates will be an early indication of whether the election has implanted any spine into Democrats—whether they still have it in them to act like winners. Levin has had a running dispute with the Bush administration regarding what he calls a lack of candor (the correct word is “lies”) in sworn testimony on Iraq. If he allows the Gates nomination to sail through without a thorough investigation of Gates’ record, he will be giving a nihil obstat to the practice of no-fault dissembling before Congress.
In 1991, Levin joined 30 other Senators in voting against Gates’ confirmation as CIA director because Gates was a good deal less than candid about his role in Iran-Contra and unconvincing in his denials that he had politicized intelligence. But Levin said this week that he wanted to give Gates a “fair and fresh look; a lot of time has passed.”
Fair enough. If Levin wants to know what has happened in the interim, he can start with the fresh, documentary evidence adduced in award-winning investigative reporter Robert Parry’s recent article, “The Secret World of Robert Gates”
Parry’s article contains unique and highly damaging information on Gates’ role in the original “October Surprise”—the successful Republican effort to prevent the release of the 52 American hostages imprisoned for 14 months in the US embassy in Tehran until Ronald Reagan had won the election in 1980—and on Gates’ involvement in the illegal sale of weapons, including cluster bombs to Iraq in the early eighties.
Another excellent source of updated information on Gates’ involvement in the secret arming of Saddam Hussein (yes, the same Saddam) and the Iran-Contra scandal is the transcript of an interview of Robert Parry and former CIA analyst Mel Goodman on Democracy Now, November 9th.
Gates knew about many of Oliver North’s illegal activities, but under oath, he just couldn’t remember. And Gates has been able to escape close scrutiny of his own involvement in extralegal and illegal activities largely because there are far too few journalists with the enterprise and courage of Robert Parry. While all the above-mentioned escapades are significantly damaging, the corruption of intelligence should be placed front and center, given the huge role this played in 2002 in deceiving Congress in to voting for an unnecessary war.
Whether or not Levin is fully aware of it, Gates is the archetypal intelligence fixer, employing all the tricks of that dishonorable trade—including memory loss, when caught. I find myself wondering if Levin still has it in him to stand up and say, “Never Again.” Even before he formally becomes chair of Armed Services, Levin has the power to require a serious vetting of Gates’ past behavior and to make “Never Again” stick.
At a hearing on his first (abortive) nomination to be CIA director in 1987, Gates denied that he had tailored intelligence to please his superiors, adding, “Sycophants can only rise to a certain level.” Whether that was an unintentionally prophetic observation or not now depends largely on Carl Levin and his newly empowered, but apparently not yet emboldened, fellow Democrats.
Walking through the Gates of a well-laid trap
Bush nominates ideological body-double to replace Rumsfeld
Sean Gonsalves, Cape Cod Times
11.13.06
“Stay the course”: a played-out phrase that’s become synonymous with the Bush administration bungling of Iraq.
Bogged down in a guerrilla war to which there is no military solution short of genocide, the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld was supposed to be a signal from President Bush that he’s finally listening — that the thumpin’ the Grand Ol’ Party took in the mid-term elections was supposed to signal an end to stay-the-course-ness.
Then he goes and nominates Robert Gates to be the new Defense Secretary. It’s a pretty clever desperation move — a trap really. Rumsfeld is gone. Bush comes off as a lot more humble in his press conferences. He’s talking bipartisanship.
But, peep the trap.
Gates and Rummy sip from the same ideological Kool-Aid jug. And if the Dems shoot down the nomination, Bush and wounded Republicans can accuse Democrats of not acting in a spirit of “bipartisanship.” Even worse, should the Democrats not confirm Gates, they would be — are you ready for this — “playing politics” with the all-important position of Secretary of Defense during a war! Voila — the stage for the 2008 presidential race is set.
Brilliant, in a Machiavellian kind of way.
Now, if you really do want to see a change of course, you have to be asking: Gates? Are you serious?
Gates joined the CIA in the late 1960s but left to serve on the staff of the National Security Council in 1974. He went back to the CIA in late 1979 and worked his way up the ranks, serving as deputy director from April 1986 to March 1989.
He was nominated to become the head of CIA in 1987, but withdrew his name after it became clear the Democratically-controlled Senate would reject the nomination because of his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
Gates was nominated again for CIA director in May 1991. The second time was the charm. He was confirmed, despite questions about his alleged role in giving intelligence to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war.
Two years later, Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel investigating the Iran-Contra affair, issued his final report. Gates wasn’t indicted but he wasn’t exactly exonerated either. Walsh wrote that he was skeptical of Gates’ repeated denials. “In blunt terms,” journalist James Ridgeway reported for Mother Jones, “Walsh thought Gates was a liar. It was only for a lack of evidence that he eventually gave up trying to indict him.”
It would be worth asking Gates now if he thinks his efforts to overthrow a democratically-elected government in Nicaragua were successful given Daniel Ortega’s recent comeback. And why does he think he’ll fare better with Iraq?
But these aren’t the only questions hanging over Gates. According to investigative reporter and author Robert Parry, who tracked the CIA in the 1980s, Gates was involved in “a special team to push through another pre-cooked paper arguing that the KGB was behind the 1981 wounding of Pope John Paul II,” despite evidence that CIA analysts knew that the claim was bogus.
No surprise, then, that it was on Gates’ watch that the CIA failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union — probably the most embarrassing moment in CIA history.
This politicizing of intelligence is what led Sen. Tom Daschle, in the 1991 confirmation hearings, to say: “My questions regarding whether or not Robert Gates participated in the politicization of intelligence culminate in my deep concern about what we can expect from Robert Gates if he is confirmed as the next director of Central Intelligence.
“Again, I ask my colleagues,” Daschle continued, “if Robert Gates cooked the books to advocate the ideological position of the administration while serving as deputy director for intelligence and deputy director of Central Intelligence, is it possible that U.S. intelligence under his guidance will continue to politicize intelligence? My answer is, ‘We cannot afford to take that chance.’”
Rumsfeld was also criticized for distorting reality and only wanting to hear intelligence that suited his narrow ideology.
Bush says he’s in a bipartisan listening mood, but nominates Rumsfeld’s ideological body-double? A well-laid trap for staying the course.
No Exit Strategy
Ray McGovern, Tom Paine
November 13, 2006
President George W. Bush meets today with members of the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group against a background of chaos in Baghdad, a quisling Iraqi government demonstrably incapable of stemming the violence, and a resistance emboldened by the vote of no confidence given to the president’s Iraq policy last Tuesday.
The Iraq Study Group project was forced on a reluctant president by members of Congress last March, with Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., pushing the initiative. I had a brief conversation with Wolf in front of the House Rayburn office building in March. He had been to Iraq and echoed the party line that “We cannot withdraw our troops quickly”—but it seemed to me, without whole-hearted conviction. I had the impression that, even then, he sensed that neither could we stay.
Wolf moved mountains to set the study group in motion as a way of providing cover for the president if/when it became clear even to Bush that the approach authored by the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal was not only amateurish but politically nonviable. In view of the upsurge in violence in Iraq and the midterm election results, the president may be able to recognize that that time has now come.
Today’s meeting with the president will be mostly White House photo-op, like the one orchestrated in early January with a dozen former secretaries of state and defense, who were given all of 10 minutes—that would be 50 seconds a piece—to “advise” the president on Iraq.
The Iraq Study Group is headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and the always eager to co-chair, co-star of the 9/11 commission whitewash , former Democrat Congressman Lee Hamilton. Other members of the Iraq Study Group are: Lawrence Eagleburger (who just replaced Robert Gates), Vernon Jordan, Edwin Meese, Sandra Day O’Connor, Leon Panetta, William Perry, Charles Robb and Alan Simpson.
Also “bipartisan” are the group’s “Expert Working Groups” and “Military Senior Advisor Panel.” There sit a truly remarkable congeries of ideologues, think-tankers and captains of industry—sprinkled all too lightly with non-ideological former government officials with substantive expertise—like Larry Diamond, Chas Freeman and Wayne White.
We are told that all are sworn to secrecy on the substance of ISG discussions. But some are speaking openly about the issues at hand. Baker has said publicly he thinks it would be wise to include Syria and Iran in discussions on Iraq. And Panetta has commented on what he learned from U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic briefers when the ISG spent three days in Baghdad in early September. “We left some of those sessions shaking our heads over how bad it is in Iraq,” said Panetta, adding that private assessments are “much more grim” than what one hears from the administration in public.
One member of the “Economy and Reconstruction” sub-group, Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at Brookings, is speaking freely about what he calls the “mess” in Iraq and told ABC News that the administration will probably opt for incremental “pragmatic approaches, including involving Iran and Syria” to improve the situation in Iraq. The things being proposed, says O’Hanlon, are “a lot of second-level ideas that hopefully all together add up to something notable.”
Ret. Gen. John Keane of the “Military Senior Adviser Panel” takes a different tack. He recommends that 40,000 additional U.S. troops be sent to secure Baghdad. And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., too, continues to press for sending more troops to Iraq as the only way to “salvage” the situation. McCain, a likely contender for president in 2008, seems to be positioning himself to avoid the blame that inevitably will be pinned on those who “lost Iraq.”
His comments echo the views of die-hard “neoconservatives” like Bill Kristol , which merit the Ralph Waldo Emerson label, “a foolish consistency.” Kristol is strongly against “staying the course,” but he presents the administration with an un-nuanced choice: “Do what is necessary to succeed or quit.” Kristol wants 50,000 more troops sent to Iraq to secure the capital and then conduct “clear and hold operations,” accompanied by “rapid steps to increase the overall size of American armed forces.
Emerson’s comment aside, don’t rule out a troop increase. That’s Vietnam deja vu , of course, but such untutored strategizing, with no adult supervision, is common among those who never took “Insurgency and Civil War: Vietnam 101.”
The contrast between the Iraq Study Group and the group of “Wise Men” who advised President Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam, after the Vietnam Tet offensive in early 1968, could hardly be starker. The Iraq group is touted as “bipartisan,” but this is the kiss of death. To be effective, such a group should be nonpartisan. Such was the group put together by presidential adviser Clark Clifford, at Johnson’s request, when Johnson could no longer avoid the conclusion that he had been badly advised by his generals and his always-up-beat inner circle.
Not only were the “Wise Men” nonpartisan, but the group was also comprised of experienced old hands—hardly an ideologue among them: Clifford, Harriman, Acheson, Generals Omar Bradley and Maxwell Taylor, McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Douglas Dillon, Rusk and Justice Abe Fortas. Equally important, they were supported not by a cast of thousands but a small group of military, diplomatic and intelligence officials dripping with expertise and courageous enough to speak truth to that powerful president.
The result? Within less than a month Johnson was persuaded the war was lost and so was his presidency. He curtailed the bombing of North Vietnam, chose the path of negotiations—yes, direct negotiations with the “insurgents”—and announced that he would not run again for
president.
Cheney’s Revenge
Mike Whitney
11/12/06
When Dick Cheney woke up on Wednesday mourning, his entire world had changed. The House and Senate was in control of the Democrats, Bush Senior’s buddy Robert Gates had taken over at the Pentagon, and his most-trusted ally, Don Rumsfeld, had been thrown overboard.
Cheney knows that the story about a “Democratic sweep” is utter nonsense. He knows who operates the voting machines and how get the results he wants. The normal procedures for rigging the election were simply put on hold.
He also knows that the Justice Dept had sent out over 80 attorneys to various parts of the country where the Republicans anticipated legal challenges after the elections, but there were no legal challenges. Someone decided that there would be no fight at all, even in the close senatorial races where recounts might have made a difference.
Why?
Is anyone gullible enough to believe that Republican big-wigs have given up cheating as a vital part of their strategy for winning elections?
I doubt it.
Cheney knows why there were no challenges; just like he knows why Rumsfeld was thrown to the wolves AFTER the elections rather than before when it might’ve hurt the Democrat’s chances for victory.
Cheney was betrayed and his plans for one-party rule have been intentionally subverted. Even his seat next to the throne has been jettisoned to make room for Papa Bush’s friend and CIA-alum, Robert Gates.
So, what does it all mean?
Well, as many of the political wags are finally admitting, the adults are stepping in and taking back their government. The establishment “old school” Republicans and country club plutocrats put-together a plan to sabotage the Cheney administration and put an end to the Iraq debacle. The scheme first became apparent when Bob Woodward, the establishment’s number one scribe, released his book “State of Denial”. That was followed by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Lancet’s Iraqi casualty report, the Mark Foley page fiasco, and a steady barrage of ethics and corruption scandals.
The Democrats had nothing to do with the ferocious media-blitzkrieg which pummeled the Bush team day-in and day-out. It was all the handiwork of big-money Republicans who lost their place at the policy-table when Cheney and Rummy decided they would run the whole shebang by themselves.
The only way they could be certain of undermining the Sec-Def and the Veep’s powers was by attacking their political base and destroying the “rubber stamp” congress. And, that is precisely what they did. It’s a classic case of the parent killing its own offspring or, as Dostoyevsky said, “One reptile devouring the other.”
The election simply proves that one should not expect to take the country away from the people who really own it.
It’s theirs, and the political parties are merely the temporary security guards who are paid to watch over their prized possession.
Betrayal
What’s interesting in this case, is that Cheney was betrayed by Bush. It was Bush who fed Rummy to the crocodiles and replaced him with Gates, and it was Bush who broke his oath of loyalty to people who put him in office.
Cheney doesn’t like to be betrayed, in fact, Cheney hates to be betrayed. Loyalty is the only virtue among thieves, and Bush has violated that basic bond. That probably means big trouble for George W. Bush in the future.
Understandably, the country is breathing a sigh of relief after the midterm elections, but it may be a bit premature. Cheney may be down, but he’s not out. And, unfortunately, nothing has really changed. Cheney hasn’t abandoned his plan for global domination and he still has plenty of agents lurking in the shadows who will carry out his agenda. His problem now is how to get back “in the game” and settle scores with the people who screwed him over.
Ironically, his biggest obstacle is George Bush, the man who knifed him in the back and put the brakes on the global crusade. Bush is now under the influence his father’s chief-advisors who are determined to get the troops out of Iraq, forestall any attack on Iran, and (probably) undermine the powers of the unitary executive.
So, how far will Cheney go to remove the obstacles for realizing his dark vision? Would he be willing to incite a war with Iran to restore himself to power?
William S. Lind, Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation, assures us in his latest article “Iraq Disaster Warning” that “something big’” will happen “between Nov 7 congressional election and Christmas. That could be the long-planned attack on Iran”.
Dr. Elias Akleh supports this theory in his article “War on Iran” providing the worrisome details of the military build-up currently taking place in the Gulf beyond the knowledge of the American people. Akleh states:
“The US and NATO countries had amassed the largest military armada in the Middle East. The US armada consists of carrier Strike Group 12 led by nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, Eisenhower Strike Group—another nuclear powered aircraft carrier with accompanied military vessels and submarines, Expeditionary Strike Group 5 with multiple attack vessels led by aircraft carrier USS Boxer, the Iowa Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, and the US Coast Guard. Canada has sent its anti-submarine HMCS Ottawa frigate to join the American Armada in the Persian Gulf. On October 1the USS Enterprise Striking Group has crossed the Suez Canal to join NATO armada at the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
The NATO force is composed of troops and naval vessels from several countries and is lead by Germany. It includes German command naval forces, Italian navy, 2 Spanish warships, 3 Danish warships, 10 Greek warships, 2 Netherlands warships, and French, Belgium, Turkish, and Bulgarian troops in South Lebanon.”
Akleh adds ominously, “This is the largest massing of military power in the region, and it is gathering for a reason.”
Indeed.
So, Iran is still very much on the table just as America is still in danger of deteriorating into a militarized police state. Cheney’s dream of global hegemony and absolute rule continues to move forward regardless of the elections’ results. He remains committed to his original plan whatever the cost to the country in terms of blood and treasure.
Do not underestimate Dick Cheney. He is a dogged “bare-knuckled” street-fighter with a will of tempered steel. He will stop at nothing.
All he needs is a means of getting back into the seat of power.
Do we need to remind ourselves that he is only a “heartbeat” away from the most powerful position in the world?
That’s something that should concern us all.
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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