'It's Not Just About Iraq' By Dan Froomkin

'It's Not Just About Iraq'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/06/23/BL2006062300772_pf.html

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, June 23, 2006; 12:40 PM



Vice President Cheney yesterday offered an unusually revealing glimpse of his worldview -- one in which a withdrawal from Iraq may have less to do with Iraq, and more to do with the message it would send to the world about the limits of American power.

In Cheney's view, withdrawal from Iraq would first and foremost make the United States look weak. And that, in turn, would have cataclysmic domino-style effects across the globe: Afghanistan could fall, and so could Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The Iranians could get nukes. And the United States itself would become dramatically more vulnerable to attack, not to mention lose its ability to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests.

Cheney really loathes weakness. And like his fellow neoconservatives, he is consumed with the conviction that an all-powerful United States is both imperative to American security and the best thing for the world. Moral leadership, multilateralism, containment, human rights -- those are all less crucial than maintaining unquestioned power, at the point of a gun if necessary.


The problem with Cheney's philosophy, of course, is overreach. In Iraq, as in Vietnam before it, the United States may have started something we can't finish.
Now, if we stay in Iraq, we appear weak, too. In fact, if we withdrew, we might be stronger. (See, for instance, former National Security Agency director Gen. William Odom 's contributions to NiemanWatchdog.org .)

the word pricipals?

It is not about American Power.

It is about the power of the American PEOPLE.

It is time for the American People to show the world REAL power by removing Bush and Cheney from office.

A rogue regime seized the power of the American presidency on January 6th, 2001. The people of other nations can no longer appeal to good will of the American people because we surrendered the sovereignty of We the People.

It is THAT fact that is having destructive effects -- not just here, but across the globe.

For nations that are struggling with crisis and conflict, a critical option -- appealing to the United States -- is off the table. As options become more limited, actions become more extreme.

Every day, more of our fellow citizens are seeing the truth about this regime, but far to few understand that as long as we leave governing power in the hands of men who are a law onto themselves, options that would be available to a legitimate American President will remain closed.

The conflict and chaos that is spreading inhumanity and destroying lives in the Middle East is not inevitable. We can transform resignation into hope right now by reasserting our collective sovereignty, forcing Bush and Cheney out of power, and turning them over to the Hague to answer for their war crimes.

If we restore legitimate leadership in the White House, the doors of possibility that are closed to the fascist war criminals will open

Legitimate American power can be transformed into a force for good overnight. We can commit our nation to the task of engaging the critical players (Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish blocs, ourselves, the EU, Turkey, Russia, China, the Arab League. . . ) and helping them to find solutions that can work because all the parties have a stake in making them work.

If, because of our complicity in the horrors committed by this regime, our continued involvement is rejected, we must get out of the way, withdraw our troops, and begin to redeem ourselves by setting aside reparations that would be paid as negotiated milestones and conditions are met.

It always comes back to the absolute necessity that we remove them from power for nuking the constitution with their treasonous claim to absolute power.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2694898&mesg_id=2694898

Cheney should never be taken at face value. He does not have a patriotic bone in his body -- he could not care less about America or its interests around the world, except insofar as he can make a buck off of it for his circle of cronies.

Here we have a Nixon era political functionary who toiled in the GOP vineyards until the Disaster of 1993 came to Washington and Slick Willie took over the Federal Government.

Cheney, who had never held down a real job in his life got hired to be "Chief Executive Officer" of Halliburton. Yeah, right. His business expertise was just what the company needed. . . .

This came shortly after Halliburton had merged with Kellog, Brown and Root, nee Brown and Root, once the sponsors of Lyndon Johnson and the prime movers behind the Texas Good Roads Association. By investing in Cheney, Halliburton simply cranked the business model up a notch to the Federal level.

The game of hiring politicians to deliver government contracts is as old as democracy -- and the railroad barons honed it to a tidy little party during the Gilded Age.

Dick Cheney is the "connection" that delivers money from the treasury to Halliburton and a few other allied corporate brothers to the lodge. His bullshit about American "power" is a smokescreen for this real agenda -- the same agenda of Tammany Hall: stealing the taxpayers blind.