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THE AXIS OF EVIL LOSES A SPOKE / CHENEY NEXT
As vice president, Cheney has been the decisive force pushing America into war. In the inner councils of the administration, it was he who emasculated Colin Powell, cut the State Department out of effective policymaking, foisted fake reports on the intelligence agencies and supplanted the National Security Council. It was also Cheney who placed appointees personally loyal to him, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, in charge of the Pentagon and speckled the warmaking bureaucracy with desk officers culled from neoconservative Washington think tanks -- ideologues with no military experience : T.D. Allman / Rolling Stone
And then there were two ~ but don't even begin to think that these last two members of the Axis of Evil have gotten the message of the mid term elections.
Exit polls showed that 57% of voters expressed dissatisfaction with the war and the Democratic takeover was led by candidates who strongly denounced the Bush administration's handling of Iraq ~ but Cheney and Bush are still in denial and incapable of hearing this message and even now, still cloaked in self righteousness, they are trying to push through their stooge John Bolton to be reappointed as UN Ambassador.
Remember, it was Dick Cheney who said " The natural state of man is war " and he is not about to let a Democratic Congress, the American people or the world, for that matter, get in the way of his grand vision of a world at war.
A recent Guardian UK research poll shows that British voters see the Cheney/Bush administration as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both countries were once cited by the US president as part of an "axis of evil", but it is Mr Bush who now alarms voters in countries with traditionally strong links to the US. . . In Britain, 69% of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7% thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased global security. The finding is mirrored in America's immediate northern and southern neighbors, Canada and Mexico, with 62% of Canadians and 57% of Mexicans saying the world has become more dangerous because of US policy.Even in Israel, which has long looked to America to guarantee national security, support for the US has slipped. Only one in four Israeli voters say that Mr Bush has made the world safer, outweighed by the number who think he has added to the risk of international conflict, 36% to 25%. A further 30% say that at best he has made no difference. . . As a result, Mr Bush is ranked with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1938434,00.html
We must be especially watchful now ~ so beware of the Cheney/Gates connection for Cheney's fingerprints are all over Robert Gates appointment as Secretary of Defense. Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, writes of his deep reservations about this appointment yesterday in Tom Paine;
" Gates is the one most responsible for institutionalizing the politicization of intelligence analysis by setting the example and promoting 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 Mis-Estimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He instructed them to adhere to the guidelines set by Vice President Dick Cheney in his infamous, preemptive speech of August 26, 2002, and complete it in three weeks—in order to force a congressional vote before the mid-term election. To their discredit, the managers complied and issued the worst NIE in the history of American intelligence.
All those quoted in the press yesterday and this morning regarding the Gates nomination seem blissfully unaware of this history—all, that is, but Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Pointing out Gates’ reputation for putting pressure on analysts to shape their conclusions to fit administration policies, Holt told the press yesterday that the nomination is “deeply troubling,” and stressed that the confirmation hearings “should be thorough and probing.”
As to the war on terror ~ when Bush says, as President he has taken an oath to protect the country he is incorrect and still talking to his vanishing base. As President he has taken the oath to protect the Constitution ~ a constitution he considers just a piece of paper and a constitution which he and Cheney neglect at the nation's peril.
For the very foundation of our freedom and security is the Constitution.
The oath to be taken by the president on first entering office is specified in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So, by substituting the country for the constitution the Cheney/Bush administration apparently justifies preemptive attacks on sovereign nations ( such as Iraq ), torture and illegal imprisonment under the guise that they are protecting the country from terrorists.
But the cold reality, which the rest of the world already recognizes, is that they are the terrorists who are dismantling the constitution for their own neocon global agenda ~ and making us more vulnerable and powerless in the process.
Rumsfeld served as a convenient scapegoat for the Cheney/Bush blatant Iraq Oil grab and resultant quagmire but now all blame for the Iraq debacle finally rests where it originally started ~ on the desk of the President and Vice President.
And in that regard, we will eventually realize that the chief culprit himself has been Dick Cheney and George W Bush has been his loyal oblivious subordinate as well as his more than willing cheerleader of a deeply flawed and failed policy.
With the coming advent of a Democratic House and Senate ~ this pandora's box will eventually be opened and the true extent of White House lies, deception and abuse of power by both the President and Vice President will be obvious to all Americans and the world.
As such, Cheney ironically could well be in his ' last throes '.
My prediction: The rapidly developing insider power faceoff between Jim ( The velvet Glove ) Baker and Dick ( Darth Vader ) Cheney will end, probably next year, with Cheney resigning ( for health reasons ) or facing Democratic subpoenas ~ and then, drum roll please, John McCain will be appointed VP going into the 2008 Presidential campaign.
The beat goes on ~
Allen L Roland
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net
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