Is Cheney Pushing Us into a New Cold War?

[kerrygoddess]

Is Cheney Pushing Us into a New Cold War?
May 5th, 2006 @ 11:53 pm

On Friday, the Russian media described Dick Cheney’s harsh criticism of Russia and President Vladimir Putin as the beginning of a new Cold War. It’s interesting that this story has received little play on the very day that Porter Goss resigned. As the Bush administration unravels the CIA, “an agency that helped win the Cold War,” it appears that Dick Cheney may be instigating a new Cold War…

{snip}

Cheney’s words Thursday at a conference in Lithuania drew a comparison to Winston Churchill’s famed “Iron Curtain” speech and reflected the deepening distrust between Washington and a newly assertive Kremlin.

The official Russian response to Cheney’s speech has been cautious. But angry reaction from politicians and pundits allied with the Kremlin reflects a chill between two presidents who seemed to hit it off early in their relationship.

In his speech, Cheney accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights and of using its energy reserves as “tools of intimidation or blackmail.”

Opponents of reform in Russia, the vice president said, “are seeking to reverse the gains of the last decade” after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet empire.

{snip}

It’s all about the Oil (and the military bases) — On Friday, the day after “chastising Moscow for its use of oil and natural gas as “tools for intimidation and blackmail,” Vice President Dick Cheney visited Kazakhstan,” on Russia’s southern rim, “to promote export routes that bypass Russia and directly supply the West.” The NY Times reports…

The United States is also concerned about maintaining its military presence in Central Asia. The need became acute after Uzbekistan reacted to American criticism of its violent suppression of a demonstration last summer by expelling the Americans from an air base supporting operations in Afghanistan.

MORE & LINKS - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2888

[grasswire]

1. It's time for Republicans to hobble this dangerous man.

Oversight.

Oversight.

Oversight.

Oversight.

Impeach him if you have to, Republicans. He's crazy.

[kerrygoddess]

5. No shit!

Very dangerous man!

[cyclezealot]

2. Repugs have been stumbling about ever since the wall came down

To bring back the Cold war what a diversion. Maybe they could get the defense budget up to one trillion/year. something to celbrate.

[Kutjara]

3. Cold War = big money

Vice President Haliburton and President ExxonMobil will make out like bandits if we start another Cold War. Our military will grow, needing all kinds of new equipment and bigger bases. All that equipment and personnel will have to be moved around the world, using lots and lots of lovely oil. All those bases will need all kinds of services, which Haliburton will joyfully provide to its usual abysmal standard at grossly inflated cost. The economy will boom as we make new planes, tanks and guns, guns, guns.

It's all part of BushCo's economic miracle.

[Greenpeach]

4. Is there any doubt?

He loves it. Hot, cold,..."War is Heaven"

[CatholicEdHead]

6. Peace = low profit time

They want war to keep the profits up.

[sutz12]

7. Looks dangerously like a HOT war to me.... nt

[leftstreet]

8. Aren't some of Crashcart's parts about to expire?

[TheCentepedeShoes]

9. Cheney is pushing the PNAC

clown car over the cliff. Too bad the rest of us are locked in the trunk.

[Hekate]

10. I've assumed all along that's what he's doing; Bush wants WW3 tho

I remember when "uniter not divider" started announcing his first WH appointments, and all these familiar names cropped up -- there was Cheney, of course, for VP, but the roll call of Rumsfeld and the rest was kind of eery, because I remembered them as Cold Warriors and the Cold War was supposed to be over. I'd never heard of Condi, but it was given out that she was a Sovietologist by trade, and again, those echoes of the past -- not the future I thought we were headed for with Clinton.

Now it seems clear to me that Cheney may want the CW back -- you know, for fun and profit in the military-industrial complex, and because he appears to have a deeply warped soul -- but Bush, whether for ideology or religion or just because he's nuts, wants all-out war on all fronts.

God help us. (See? we are a nation of prayer, just like Dubya says.)

Hekate

[kerrygoddess]

13. Bush called the war on Terra

WWIII today.

[Vidar]

11. Why not? Increased corporate profits & excuse for secrecy & suppression.

[caligirl]

12. He's creating a new boogey man to try to win Nov elections