More of Cheney's Fingerprints

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/9231

More of Cheney's Fingerprints
by Gary Leupp | Aug 8 2007


It seems that practically every outrage committed by the Bush administration has Dick Cheney's fingerprints all over it.

Recall how Sen. Hillary Clinton last month asked the Defense Department for information about military contingency plans for withdrawal from Iraq. It was the sort of request that someone in her position as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee might routinely make. But Eric Edelman, Douglas Feith's successor in the Defense Department, responded to the request by contending that "public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda." Clinton found this reply "outrageous and dangerous" and wrote Secretary of Defense Robert Gates directly, asking if this was the official view of the Defense Department. Gates responded in conciliatory fashion, somewhat distancing himself from the notorious neocon.

Cheney, however, asked by CNN's Larry King about the exchange, pronounced Edelman's dispatch "a good letter." Jim Lobe has suggested that the letter was actually written by Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington. Once again, it seems, Cheney circumvented the normal chain of authority, using his well-placed neocon minions to deal with his enemies and perpetuate a climate of fear.

Recall the infamous visit of Alberto Gonzales, then Bush's top lawyer and now the Attorney General, to the sick-bed of his predecessor John Ashcroft in March 2004. The Justice Department had concluded that the administration's wiretapping program was illegal and should not be extended, and Ashcroft (while a religious nutcake and reactionary) agreed. But Gonzales -- sidelining the acting Attorney General James B. Comey -- sought to twist the sick man's arm and get him to sign off on continuation of the program. Gonzales went with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to the hospital, to urge a man just out of surgery to sign off on a continuation of the criminality. Comey, learning of the bizarre mission, "rushed to the hospital with emergency lights flashing and a siren blaring, to intercept Gonzales and Card" according to the New York Times.

Fearing that Gonzales and Card might demand his own removal from the hospital, Comey arranged for FBI director Robert Mueller to meet him there. Comey told Congress he "literally ran up the stairs" of the hospital to thwart Gonzales' effort. So a combination of the ailing Attorney General, the acting Attorney General, and the FBI chief, thwarted the attempt to get Ashcroft's signature. Soon thereafter, Comey, Ashcroft, Mueller and their aides threatened a mass resignation if the spying program wasn't modified, and Bush agreed to make some changes. We still don't know what this all entails, and it's safe to assume that a lot of unconstitutional surveillance is going on. But plainly at the very summit of political power dramatic confrontations are unfolding.

Cheney is at the center of these conflicts. As Lobe notes, a New York Times editorial on July 29 indicated that the administration's wiretapping program was a pet project of the vice president, and that "unwilling to accept" the Justice Department's conclusion, "Vice President Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr. Ashcroft's hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping."

snip//

These are frightening times. Less so because angry Muslims want to vent their rage about U.S. foreign policy than because homegrown nazis feel the time is right to attack -- in the name of anti-terrorism and national security -- any law or person standing in the way of their world-transforming goals. Cheney sits at the center of a web of neocons desperately working to perpetuate the occupation of Iraq, regime change in Iran and Syria, and the establishment of long-term bases to encircle rising China. They want to make sure that their work is furthered under the next administration, and are maneuvering tirelessly to achieve that end.

Sirens should be blaring, emergency lights should be flashing everywhere. Instead a business-as-usual Congress hands Bush his spy bill that he gleefully signs in the quiet privacy of his latest Camp David retreat.
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[rodeodance]

1. more like big cheney bootprints STOMPING on all he does not like!