A heartbeat away from Armageddon
by digby
The potential 2016 GOP candidates all trudged out to Vegas last week-end to kiss Shelly Adelson’s ring. And some, like Chris Christie, weren’t all that well schooled in how you’re supposed to talk about foreign policy to win over the GOP faithful.
This guy showed them how it was done:
Mother Jones has obtained a recording of Cheney’s talk, during which he once again derided President Barack Obama on foreign policy, blasted the isolationists within his own party, assailed critics of the National Security Agency, and seemingly endorsed the idea of an Israeli strike against Iran.
Speaking about the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Cheney dismissed Obama’s negotiations with Tehran, and he recalled a dinner meeting he had in 2007 with Israeli General Amos Yadlin. Yadlin had flown in the Israeli Defense Force’s mission in 1981 that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, and he was the country’s military intelligence chief in 2007 when the Israel Defense Forces obliterated Syria’s nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region. Recalling his conversation with Yadlin, Cheney said, “He looked across the table over dinner, and he said, ‘Two down, one to go.’ I knew exactly what he meant.”
“One to go” was an obvious reference to bombing Iran’s nuclear program. The crowd responded approvingly with laughter and applause. (Last October, Adelson publicly proposed that the US drop a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert to show Tehran what will happen to Iran if it develops nuclear weapons.)
A mere five years ago this man was the most powerful man in the world. (Let’s not kid ourselves about Junior.) He was barely restrained by a system that anticipated the inevitable symbiosis of sociopathy and power, which put some roadblocks in the way. He has admitted to war crimes (“it’s a no-brainer”), has expressed no remorse and says he would do it again.
But never let it be said that there is no basis for bipartisan agreement with this fine fellow. There are many Democrats who apparently support this Cheney position with no qualms:
Cheney devoted much of his speech to defending the National Security Agency and its massive collection programs. There is the belief, he said, “that we have created in the National Security Agency this monster bureaucracy that’s reading everybody’s mail, listening to everybody’s phone calls, infringing upon our civil liberties and civil rights. Hogwash.” He claimed that there has not been a single case of NSA abusing its authority. (Cheney must have missed this and this.) And he asserted that if these programs had been in place, “it probably would’ve allowed us to stop 9/11.”
He then said that President Obama can’t defend the program because nobody believes him. Which is just silly. Millions of people believe him. Mostly Democrats, of course, but you’d think Cheney would be happy about that.
You can hear all his remarks at the link. It will make you sick. It’s hard to trust politicians or either party. But Dick Cheney is uniquely evil. It says something about us as a nation that he’s still running around giving speeches and being lauded as a respected elder statesman.
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