Cheney's Editorial: A Total Detachment from Responsibility and Reality

by Nomad

Minds were boggled this week as ex-vice president Dick Cheney managed to flip history on its head in order to escape his record in advocating the invasion of Iraq. 

In yet another example of Republican delusional thinking, former vice-president Dick Cheney penned an op-ed for the (Rupert Murdoch-owned) The Wall Street Journal this week, blasting President Obama on  foreign policy. 

Specifically he accused the president of "'fantasy' policies that weaken the US armed forces, embolden terror networks like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and reduce Washington's ability to influence global events."

It was a startling piece of writing, given the source. For a full appreciation of the text, an experienced mental health expert is perhaps required. Psychological projection is evident throughout and frankly, it's a little frightening to see how detached from reality the man has become.
(If Liz Cheney truly loved her father, she would keep as far  from access to the media as she could. Even Nancy Reagan had the common decency to do that for her husband.)

Hypocrites on Parade: Pat Robertson Slams George Bush for Lying about Iraq

by Nomad

Recent remarks by the evangelist Pat Robertson about George Bush and the pretext for the Iraqi invasion were interesting.
Yet, before you shake Robertson's hand, it's important to hear the whole story.

America's Bill of Goods

Yesterday Raw Story delivered this interesting news:

Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday blasted former President George W. Bush for selling Americans a “bill of goods” before the Iraq invasion, which led to the violence that is currently sweeping across the country.

Robertson, a former ardent Bush supporter, is the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the Christian Coalition. Broadcasts of his 700 club reportedly reach a daily audience of one million viewers, both on cable and through syndication.  

Arming ISIS: The Danger of Listening to Warhawks

by Nomad

Two years ago, as the Syrian Civil War dragged on, Republican war hawks had the answers about what President ought to do in Syria. Sending weapons to the freedom fighting rebels was the only answer. 

Today we can see the folly of McCain's foreign policy solutions.

Back in February 2012, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham were indulging in their favorite hobby, telling President Obama what he ought to be doing in the seemingly insolvable Syrian Civil War.
Their answer was to send American weapons to the anti-Assad rebels.

McCain's Folly

“I believe there are ways to get weapons to the opposition without direct United States involvement,” McCain told reporters at a news conference during a visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul, “The Iranians and the Russians are providing Bashar Assad with weapons. People that are being massacred deserve to have the ability to defend themselves.”

“So I am not only not opposed, but I am in favor of weapons being obtained by the opposition.”

In other words, the best policy was to return to the proxy wars of the Cold War.

(Nobody on the Republican side bothered to inform the senators that arming rebels in any country is a violation of international law. The International Court of Justice has in the past ruled that such shipments violated the UN charter. The last time this matter came up was curiously enough in the Reagan era with the covert arming of the Nicaraguan contras.)

According to a Wall Street Journal article (behind a firewall), legal advisers to President Obama repeatedly warned that aiding the Syrian rebels probably "violated international law and risked a direct conflict with the Assad regime."

Furthermore, it could easily lead into a larger conflict involving Turkey, Iran, Russia, Israel and other regional neighbors. The President had every reason to proceed with extreme caution. It's the kind of thing a president- as Commander in Chief- is paid to consider.

It was clear that the Obama Administration was never fully committed to the idea of sending weapons. In any event, it made no sense to openly discuss that option. What is the benefit of publicizing such a policy? 

The then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also a little less hawkish about the idea. However according to one source, (her own recently-published memoirs) suggests that early in the country's civil war, she thought the proposal was one option.
Importantly, she adds, that view was overruled by the president.

"The risks of both action and inaction were high, [but] the president [Obama]'s inclination was to stay the present course and not take the significant further step of arming rebels," she added.

"No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the president's call and I respected his deliberations and decision," she wrote, according to CBS News.

As we shall see,  Hilary's version of events was not exactly the final chapter in the whole story. Ultimately, everybody in Washington and in Europe agreed that the Syrian President Assad had to go but nobody could decide how it should be done.
For the war hawk Republicans, the most expedient way seemed to be shipping weapons into the country covertly. It had worked in other cases. After all, it worked for Reagan and the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan...hadn't it?

Radio Talk Show Host Ingraham Says Cantor Lost Because He had No Sense of Humor

by Nomad

Right wing talk show commentator, Ms. Laura Ingraham, has been blamed for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's stunning defeat in the Virginia GOP primary. She resented the charge and explained that there was a much more logical reason for his defeat. 

Conservative radio hotshot Laura Ingraham thinks she knows precisely why Eric Cantor lost his primary last week. It had nothing to do with the overall weakness of his party which has been running counter to American voter opinion on issues like immigration, same-sex marriage and marijuana law reform.

Nor the fact that he constantly undermined the Speaker of the House Boehner's attempts to work out any kind of deal with the president on a host of issues.

One conservative site offers this insight into the minds of some in the Republican party: 

Republican insiders — fed up with the scorched-earth tactics of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor — privately fear the fiery Virginia right-winger could destroy the party’s majority in the House of Representatives with his constant undermining of Speaker John Boehner’s attempts to reach a debt deal with President Barack Obama.

 The article adds:

“Whether Eric Cantor likes it or not, John Boehner is the leader of our party in the House of Representatives,” one frustrated GOP consultant said Tuesday. “If Cantor continues his infantile actions, there won’t be a Republican majority in the House after 2012.”

And it wasn't even that. Despite appearing to press the right buttons, Cantor simply did not abide by the wishes of his ultra-conservative voters in his state. Could that have been the reason?

The Iraqi Invasion, The French Warning and Fox News

by Nomad

As the Republic of Iraq faces its first existential crisis since the evacuation of American troops, it is important to take a look back to the time before the invasion, to the days before the crossing of the Iraqi Rubicon.
The events of this week shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who has a memory. After all, the French warned us that this would probably happen.  

With Iraq is such a mess, and Republican conservatives attempting to blame the Obama administration, it is a good time to review things. Let's go back to the months before the invasion of Iraq. The US worked hard to get the UN on board to approve of military action, to sanction the use of force. US troops had already been deployed and were waiting in the Saudi Arabian desert for the "thumbs up" sign. 

But that is when France and, to a lesser extent, Germany, threw a monkey wrench into what had seemed to be a solid coalition of the West. Colin Powell had pulled out all stops to convince the members, with diagrams of mobile chemical weapons factories and even holding up a fake bottle of anthrax.
This form of persuasion, (scare tactics, some said at the time), did not have the desired effects. 

The French ambassador to the UN at the time, Dominique de Villepin, gave his famous speech, in which he told the UN that while nobody was ruling out the use of military action, the inspections and the use of crippling sanctions on Saddam's government should be allowed to continue. Hans Blix, the UN chief inspector, had so far found no chemical weapons and should be allowed to continue the systematic search.

In a calm and cool delivery, he proposed regular meetings of the security council to review the progress. Here is an excerpt of that speech.

In that 14 February 2003 speech, he warns what that any direct military intervention would naturally also involve a difficult peace. It could, he pointed, out also lead to greater instability and provide a suitable environment for the spread of terrorist groups in that region.

Naturally the Bush administration was shaken by this formidable challenge to the Anglo-American war plan for Iraq. Without UN approval, the invasion of Iraq- even with a coalition, could be considered an aggressive and illegal action.