Cheney's Legacy: Honesty Still in Short Supply

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cheney-s-Legacy-Honesty-S-by-Ray-McGovern-Al-Qaeda_Cheney-Dick_Lies-Cheney_WMDs-140826-629.html



Cheney's Legacy: Honesty Still in Short Supply
By Ray McGovern
OpEdNews Op Eds 8/26/2014 at 12:52:56

As the world marks the centennial of World War I, the guns of August are again being oiled by comfortable politicians and the fawning corporate media, both bereft of any sense of history. And that includes much more recent history, namely the deceitful campaign that ended up bringing destruction to Iraq and widened conflict throughout the Middle East. That campaign went into high gear 12 years ago today.

On August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney -- who remains something of a folk hero on Fox News -- formally launched the lies leading to the U.S.-UK attack on Iraq seven months later. And on August 30, 2013, Syria was 20 hours away from a similar fate after Secretary of State John Kerry claimed falsely -- no fewer than 35 times -- to "know" that the government of Syria was responsible for using sarin nerve gas in an attack outside Damascus on August 21, 2013.

Unlike 12 years ago, when the Pentagon was run by Field Marshal Donald Rumsfeld and the military martinets who called themselves generals but danced to his tune, war with Syria was averted last year when Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey talked sense into a young President who was on the verge of making a terrible mistake by bending to the Cheneyesque hawks now perched atop the State Department.

As if to mark Cheney's day of deceit a dozen Augusts ago, this morning's Washington Post editorializes: "Stepping back into the fray: Stopping the Islamic State will require 'boots on the ground.'" As is its custom, the Post offers no enlightenment on what motivates jihadists to do unspeakably evil things -- in other words, "why they hate us" -- or why Gulf allies of the U.S. fund them with such largesse.