RIP Dick Cheney
We’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently deceased. So at this moment, let me pause for another moment to remember the greatness that was George W. Bush’s vice president. No one else, after all, would have accepted the admirably unofficial intelligence supplied by Ahmad Chalabi, an ambitious would-be successor to a dictator, over the findings of his more traditional intelligence sources. Even when those sources publicly denounced Chalabi’s findings as meretricious, it was the courageous spine of Dick Cheney that stood strong against such trivial distractions.
After Iran and Iraq had fought an eight-year war to a standstill in the 1980s, it was the genius of Dick Cheney that launched a decade-long assault on Iraq that left its neighbor and former enemy in a far stronger position.
Sure, hundreds of thousands might have perished in the project. But had Dick Cheney not stayed true to his mission of slightly misplaced vengeance for the attacks of 9/11, Iran would not today enjoy its dominance over its former regional rival. Dick Cheney’s only reward was an intrinsic sense of a job well done.
Harry, you and I got into an email conversation almost 25 years ago, in the run-up to the ineluctable invasion of Iraq, about an Op-Ed in the NY Times, by a former CIA agent, then Army War College instructor, I think named Stephen Pelletiere, who threw the 1980s CIA fake story about the Iranians, not the Iraqis having gassed the Kurds.
I had originally taken the article at face value, but you set me straight. Pelletiere knew that he was, in 2003, recounting a lie, but he was intentionally using a 1980s Cheney/CIA lie against its 2002-3 counterpart, in order to undercut the Kurd narrative as evidence of Hussein's WMDs and justification for the invasion that was going to happen, regardless of what Hussein did in the intervening days or weeks.
It was a clever bit of rhetorical Jiu-Jitsu, using old lies against new. It didn't work, though.
I firmly believe that the lies of the Reagan-Bush-Bush years laid the groundwork for the distrust of government and acceptance of blatant lies that gave us two Trump Presidencies.
The damage done to this country by Cheney and his lies will last 50 years or more.
Bette Davis once said that one should never say anything bad about the dead. He's dead. Good.
Well, I’ve got an idea, “ideas pop into my head, & I keep thinking,” as Mrs. Lovett said to Sweeney Todd:
The passing of Dick Cheney will probably give your Karzai Talk T-shirts a nice bump, at least in the short term.
But I’m thinking of a new item, to combat the saturation of microplastics all over our land and seas: A NET SHOPPING BAG.
Hear me out: A classic French-style net bag, easy to stuff in a raincoat pocket or carry-all, the perfect REUSABLE daily marketing bag.
Mine, which I’ve had for years, is labeled from FRESH FIELDS. So you could come up with some catchy logo, probably just Harry Shearer’s LE SHOW, or something humorous, “Fighting MICROPLASTICS one particle at a time”.
Anyway, the point is, the bag is SIMPLICITY itself, it’s 100% cotton, mine was made in India, it’s washable, and the French tie-in is perfect for Le Show. And inexpensive for you and for us.