Does Cheney want another attack on America? [Archive]

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Serapth

06-15-2009, 04:17 PM

As has been discussed often in the media (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/15/cheney-hopes-panetta-misquoted-claiming-vp-wishes-attack/), CIA director Panetta has suggested that Cheney wants to see another attack on American.

Do you think Cheney wants to see another attack on America?

Lance Uppercut

06-15-2009, 04:19 PM

Yes, if only to say "I told you so" with all the crap he's been spewing lately.

Serapth

06-15-2009, 04:20 PM

This is a man singlely focused on protecting his legacy ( and fortune 500 buddies ), so imho, of course he wants to see another attack on America.

That said, in complete disclosure, I think Cheney is at the heart of every negative decision out of the Republican party in their last 3 terms in power. Point blank, I think this man is the heart of darkness and the world will be a better place when he is dead.

Yes, I wished a man dead... make what you will of me, but I think he is the root of enough evil to support my mindset. If not, I will have my day of reckoning with god, as will DICK.

civil

06-15-2009, 04:30 PM

I wanna see an attack on polls!

Serapth

06-15-2009, 04:33 PM

I wanna see an attack on polls!

I think the Polish people have suffered enough!

civil

06-15-2009, 04:34 PM

Well damn Serapth, that was pretty funny.

National Kato

06-15-2009, 04:35 PM

Do I loathe Richard Cheney? Yes. Do I think he is behind a lot of the negative decisions of the Bush Administration? Yes. Do I think he wants another attack on U.S. soil? No.

torrefaction

06-15-2009, 05:14 PM

I think this is just silly. I think he made crappy decisions, but I do believe Cheney legitimately cares about America.

BigJonno

06-15-2009, 05:19 PM

I think the Polish people have suffered enough!

Don't worry, they're all in Britain now anyway.

Serapth

06-15-2009, 05:37 PM

I think this is just silly. I think he made crappy decisions, but I do believe Cheney legitimately cares about America.

Then why has he been undermining the Commander in Cheif since he took power?

torrefaction

06-15-2009, 05:43 PM

Then why has he been undermining the Commander in Cheif since he took power?

Because I think he honestly believes the shift in policy is hurting America. I think he's stupid and going about it the wrong way, but that's why I think he's doing it. Clearly, the American people disagreed with him.

TheKeck

06-15-2009, 05:47 PM

I can't believe he wants that.

Vermillion

06-16-2009, 09:13 PM

Do I think the policies performed by Obama have made us less safe? No.

Do I think Guantanamo or torture made us any safer? No.

Do I think he really wants an attack on US soil? No.

Do I think he'll be too busy saying I told you so to actually shed a tear for any lives lost? Yes.

Would I love to see how Dick Cheney would have acted had he been in office during the terrorist OKC bombing to prove that he is probably a hypocrite? Most definitely.

BlackPete

06-16-2009, 10:03 PM

What? No option for "Cheney wants an attack on polls"?

RandoM51

06-17-2009, 01:20 AM

I think this is just silly. I think he made crappy decisions, but I do believe Cheney legitimately cares about America.

Sure, the parts of America he and his close friends own stock in.

J Arcane

06-17-2009, 02:04 AM

I think Cheney is plenty Lawful Evil enough to wish for a thing like that, and it's only thankfully enough for us all that he's still Lawful enough he wouldn't go through with actually doing something behind the scenes to cause one.

CappinCanuck

06-17-2009, 08:22 AM

No, of course he doesn't want an attack where thousands, plus or minus, potentially die. BUT, he would most definitely like some incident to have the opportunity to hold an "I told you so," fuckfest on the media. So, I vote yes.

Narradisall

06-19-2009, 01:53 PM

Well damn Serapth, that was pretty funny.

I saw it coming.

roboninja

06-19-2009, 02:15 PM

Gotta say, I agree with Serapth. I see Cheney as essentially a villain, and do not believe he gives one sweet fuck about anyone or anything other than him and his own. Maybe as spectators on the outside we see it differently, but I have to say, many I know agree with me. I do not think he does things "that he believes are good for the country". Not in the least.

Ultima Thulian

06-19-2009, 11:47 PM

I'm not a Cheney fan, but what possible benefit does an attack on American soil benefit him?

ShivaX

06-20-2009, 12:59 AM

I'm not a Cheney fan, but what possible benefit does an attack on American soil benefit him?

[Devil's Advocate]

It reinforces his political ideology and could, in theory, result in policies he supports being used again and would give weight to his statements.
[/Devil's Advocate]

Bingley Joe

06-26-2009, 09:57 AM

I'm not a Cheney fan, but what possible benefit does an attack on American soil benefit him?

I don't think it's any secret that he made oodles of money thanks to the fallout of the 9/11 attacks.

alienmastermind

06-26-2009, 10:15 AM

I abstain from voting, because it's impossible to know a man's heart. But if you look at this:

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e238/supervillain75/BarackObamaSworn44thPresidentUnited.jpg

And don't see a fucking villain, you're retarded. :D

Bingley Joe

06-26-2009, 10:32 AM

06-26-2009, 11:09 AM

I don't think it's any secret that he made oodles of money thanks to the fallout of the 9/11 attacks.
I didn't know that. Evidence, please?

Also, Cheney and I have the same taste in hats.

alienmastermind

06-26-2009, 11:21 AM

I didn't know that. Evidence, please?

Also, Cheney and I have the same taste in hats.

So that's you, Cheney, The Shadow, and Freddy motherfucking Krueger. The guy who invented 'creepy black hats' made what? 80 bucks offa you guys?

Ink Asylum

06-26-2009, 11:23 AM

Don't forget Jack Abramoff:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/01/05/abramoff6106_narrowweb__300x413,0.jpg

06-26-2009, 11:45 AM

So that's you, Cheney, The Shadow, and Freddy motherfucking Krueger. The guy who invented 'creepy black hats' made what? 80 bucks offa you guys?
I assume he doesn't pay the Chinese child laborers very much (only their tiny fingers can make those fine stitches). And since a nice fedora can cost upwards of $100, I'd say he made quite a nice chunk of change.

But look again at that list you ticked off. Me, Dick Cheney, The Shadow, and Freddie Krueger (and Jack Abramoff and a bunch of Orthodox Jews). That's kind of an awesome list. I'll bet you're a little tempted to try one yourself. You can easily get a decent one online for $40. The first thing you notice will be how comfortable it is. Then you'll notice that one out of every three African-American men you pass on the street stops and compliments your appearance. And then you'll be hooked.

alienmastermind

06-26-2009, 12:01 PM

I assume he doesn't pay the Chinese child laborers very much (only their tiny fingers can make those fine stitches). And since a nice fedora can cost upwards of $100, I'd say he made quite a nice chunk of change.

But look again at that list you ticked off. Me, Dick Cheney, The Shadow, and Freddie Krueger (and Jack Abramoff and a bunch of Orthodox Jews). That's kind of an awesome list. I'll bet you're a little tempted to try one yourself. You can easily get a decent one online for $40. The first thing you notice will be how comfortable it is. Then you'll notice that one out of every three African-American men you pass on the street stops and compliments your appearance. And then you'll be hooked.

Full Disclosure: I have a peacoat like the one Cheney's wearing.
and, Ox, with this post, I dub thee Ultra-Honky 3000.

Generation ABXY

06-26-2009, 12:12 PM

Bingley Joe

06-26-2009, 12:18 PM

I didn't know that. Evidence, please?

Haliburton/KBR being the biggest contractor in Iraq + ~1/2 million shares + deferred salary + ahh shucks, just get your Google on -- like I said, it's no secret (well, actually quite a bit of it is, hence the need for the severe headwear, but there's plenty of public information out there still).

Serapth

06-26-2009, 01:01 PM

alienmastermind

06-26-2009, 01:03 PM

That's just cruel, man. I mean, the guy's only been in office for like half a year now.

Ah-HA! There are THREE villains, then.

The Villain of Vapid, the Villain of Vanity, and the Villain...from every silent movie since The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Gen, you missed the other two villains! What's nice, is the pic is non-partisan. But there is a guy in the picture dressed like fucking Darkman. :D

Generation ABXY

06-26-2009, 01:33 PM

Did Darkman wear a hat? I guess he had to...man, it's been forever since I've seen that movie (decades, I dare say, though I don't know for sure).

Serapth

06-26-2009, 01:43 PM

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1989/darkwingducksp3.jpg

Different Dark...

Generation ABXY

06-26-2009, 02:06 PM

"I am the Terror that flaps in the night, I am the hunter who shoots the face of liberty."

Bingley Joe

06-26-2009, 03:00 PM

According to http://www.stockpickr.com/port/Dick-Cheney-Stocks/ Dick holds:

Haliburton
Proctor and Gamble
Lockheed Martin
EDS
Anadarko Petroilium

Of those, all but P&G would benefit from a war in Iraq.

I hear Old Spice literally flies off the shelves in Baghdad.. I'm sure P&G is doing just fine there as well :p

Serapth

06-26-2009, 03:26 PM

Doogie2K

06-26-2009, 09:59 PM

Wow, just starting doing some wiki'ing on P&G to see if they were involved in military spending ( which really wouldn't shock me ) when I learned, Soap Opera's are called Soap Opera's because they were in a segment sponsered by P&G in the 20-30s radio.

... the more you know!!!

Hell, my mom's friends on the old TV Guide Another World board started boycotting P&G products when that show was cancelled in the late '90s. Maybe they are still involved.

06-27-2009, 09:24 AM

Of those, all but P&G would benefit from a war in Iraq.
Sure. But Dick Cheney's stock portfolio is managed by independent managers, and he pledged to give any after-tax proceeds to charity. As for the deferred compensation, anyone who cites that doesn't understand what "deferred compensation" is.

alienmastermind

06-27-2009, 09:53 AM

Ox, thank you for validating my ability to confer titles upon people. :D

Bingley Joe

06-27-2009, 11:24 AM

Sure. But Dick Cheney's stock portfolio is managed by independent managers, and he pledged to give any after-tax proceeds to charity. As for the deferred compensation, anyone who cites that doesn't understand what "deferred compensation" is.

Does he hold stocks in companies that are landing massive contracts in Iraq? Yes.

Do shareholders profit when the companies they hold stocks in prosper? Yes.

Does that answer this question:

I'm not a Cheney fan, but what possible benefit does an attack on American soil benefit him?

[In a roundabout way] Yes.

06-28-2009, 10:29 PM

I must confess, I am confused. You said this:

I don't think it's any secret that he made oodles of money thanks to the fallout of the 9/11 attacks.

I pointed out that Dick Cheney assigned all profits from his Halliburton stock options to chairty. FactCheck has confirmed (http://www.factcheck.org/kerry_ad_falsely_accuses_cheney_on_halliburton.htm l) that Dick Cheney "doesn't gain a penny from Halliburton's contracts, and almost certainly won't lose even if Halliburton went bankrupt." It went on to state that any implication that Dick Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton is "unfounded."

You don't seem to dispute the truth of this. Yet you still seem to think you are right and Dick Cheney made "oodles of money" from his stock options. I don't understand what evidence could persuade you otherwise.

Bingley Joe

06-29-2009, 11:26 AM

I pointed out that Dick Cheney assigned all profits from his Halliburton stock options to chairty. FactCheck has confirmed (http://www.factcheck.org/kerry_ad_falsely_accuses_cheney_on_halliburton.htm l) that Dick Cheney "doesn't gain a penny from Halliburton's contracts, and almost certainly won't lose even if Halliburton went bankrupt." It went on to state that any implication that Dick Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton is "unfounded."

You don't seem to dispute the truth of this. Yet you still seem to think you are right and Dick Cheney made "oodles of money" from his stock options. I don't understand what evidence could persuade you otherwise.

Well he's a crafty old coot, I'll give you that. But there's no way in hell he did any of that for purely altruistic reasons. At the very least, he gets a juicy tax write-off which gets bigger and bigger the better the company does. Not a bad deal, really.

That's on top of the fact that Haliburton isn't the only egg in his basket (this was the 'aw shucks' part of my reply to your first question, because frankly this stuff is pretty tiresome.. I'm still going to bite, mind you, but it's a chore ;):p:)).

So look, I don't have the kind of access to his financial information that I suspect the lawyer in you will demand, so make of my flagrant speculation whatever you will..

The fact is that the man has been making oodles of cash consistently ever since 'severing all ties' with those companies, and it's not from mowing lawns. It's because he holds stakes in companies that are massively profitable at the moment.

As Seraph pointed out earlier - and as I was alluding to with my vague first post - many of those companies are earning those profits thanks in so small part to huge contracts landed in Iraq. Here's the information I do have access to, and I'll draw my conclusions based on this:

[Wall-o-text spoiler. Skip down for the summary version]

As vice president, he earned $227,300 per year between 2001 and 2009. Ok, great. That's a MASSIVE pay cut over the $36,086,635 he earned the year before he took office, so hey -- good for him for being patriotic enough to really scale things back like that.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2001 was $4,308,132 (minus his VP salary is $4,080,832). $48,483 in deductions.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2002 was $945,051 (minus his VP salary is $717,751). $221,684 in deductions.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2003 was $813,266 (minus his VP salary is $585,966). $454,649 in deductions.

'02 and '03 are lean times for the Cheneys indeed. I can scarcely imagine the sort of meagre existence they managed to eke out.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2004 was $1,328,678 (minus his VP salary is $1,101,378). $405,695 in deductions.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2005 was $1,961,157 (minus his VP salary is $1,733,857). $6,857,849 in deductions. Hey lookit -- they gave away all that money and still made oodles more than they did in the three prior years.

2005 is also the last year he earned any deferred salary from Haliburton.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2006 was $1,617,062 (minus his VP salary is $1,389,762). $184,210 in deductions.

- The Cheney's taxable income in 2007 was $2,528,068 (minus his VP salary is $2,300,768). $512,433 in deductions.

There are no more tax returns here (http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/PresidentialTaxReturns?OpenDocument) to look at beyond 2007, but honestly - he should have cleared a total of $1.5 million between 2001 and 2007 as VP.

Instead, he made $11,910,314. $11.5 million if you want to ignore his deferred salary (and no, I don't think sales of the books Lynne has co-authored since then have been that brisk).

That's fucking oodles in my book.

torrefaction

06-29-2009, 11:33 AM

So wait...now we hate the rich?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23796726/

The tax returns are dated between 2000 and 2006, showing a steep increase in family income.

For example, the first return indicates that the Obamas' combined income was $240,505. That included Obama's salary as a young state senator in Illinois, $16,500 in fees as a "foundation director/educational speaker," and his wife's salary as a hospital administrator.

But just six years later in 2006, the Obamas' combined income was $983,826, some $740,000 more. Obama had become a U.S. senator by then, making about $165,000 a year, and his wife's income from the University of Chicago Medical Center had sharply climbed to about $265,000 a year.

Obama's book-writing career had also become profitable, earning him $551,240 in author fees for 2006 alone.

Michelle Obama also made an additional $51,200 that year, as working as the director of TreeHouse Foods. According to the company's website, it's a "food manufacturer servicing primarily the retail grocery and foodservice chains."

The Obamas' best financial year came in 2005, when their total combined income was $1.6 million. That included $1.2 million in author fees for Obama's best-selling books. Michelle Obama's salary that year was $316,962 plus another $45,000 from TreeHouse Foods.

torrefaction

06-29-2009, 11:34 AM

Looks like Cheney, after giving a shitload back to the world in charity, was about on par with Obama in 2005. Funny that.

06-29-2009, 12:48 PM

Well he's a crafty old coot, I'll give you that. But there's no way in hell he did any of that for purely altruistic reasons. At the very least, he gets a juicy tax write-off which gets bigger and bigger the better the company does. Not a bad deal, really.
I don't think you understand how taxes work. If I make $1 million and donate it to charity, I get to write off around $400,000. If I had kept the $1 million, I'd bet roughly $600,000 better off.

Now, I'm sure you believe Dick Cheney has not the slightest fragment of human warmth, and I won't bother to argue about that. But you can't claim he's financially better off by giving his money away.

The fact is that the man has been making oodles of cash consistently ever since 'severing all ties' with those companies, and it's not from mowing lawns. It's because he holds stakes in companies that are massively profitable at the moment.
You're referring to his deferred compensation, and you are mistaken: he made a deal in 1998 not to receive his salary immediately but to spread it out. It's back pay, not an equity stake: he's a creditor, not an owner. And since he had a credit default insurance policy, he didn't even care if Halliburton went bankrupt: he still would have made back his money.

I'm not demanding proof of your assertions, because I already have proof you are mistaken. The lawyer in me finds contrafactual proof to be pretty convincing.

As for the Cheneys' income in the past few years, you are right that it includes more than Dick Cheney's government salary. It also includes, for example, Lynne Cheney's income from book royalties and speaking engagements. Apparently Dick Cheney is a pussy for not being the primary breadwinner of his family but relying upon a mere woman. Do we really want a vice president who doesn't keep his wife chained to the stove?

You say you don't think the source of the income is Lynne Cheney's books and speaking engagements. So your theory is that the Cheneys honestly reported their total income to the government, but falsely listed the hundreds of thousands of dollars as "royalties" rather than "capital gains"? You seem to believe the Cheneys have an oddly stringent set of scruples.

I make no claim that the Cheneys are poor or even middle-class. I only make a claim that the Cheneys received no ongoing financial benefit from Halliburton's fortunes after Dick Cheney took office.

Bingley Joe

06-29-2009, 02:06 PM

You're referring to his deferred compensation

No, I was referring to the numerous other companies in which he has a stake, which is why I subtracted the deferred salary from the total they claimed to have earned between 2001 and 2007. Forget about them if they're truly not relevant to the discussion, he still made more than $11.5 million. That's outside of Haliburton, and after any charitable donations have been made and deducted.

For my part, I am certain that royalties from his wife's shitty books are a pittance compared to his contribution to their household income, and the numbers I've posted show that he's made oodles of money since the 9/11 attacks. Averaging more than $1.6 million a year is oodles for me, at least.

Since he earns his money in no small part from companies that profit from wars, I don't see how that's not an answer to UT's question -- that it's possible he would stand to profit from an attack on America.

alienmastermind

07-02-2009, 03:17 PM

I think the question is foolish to begin with.

He doesn't profit from the attack on US soil. If he owns stock in security systems, firearms and weapons manufacturers, he does profit from the fear of attack on US soil.

Hell, I invested in companies like Lockheed with my 401k, and did well...But I also diversified into other things like Sony and stock in things like movies and comic books (Marvel, to be exact) based on what I thought were solid investments.

What's hinky, is that this guy holds stock and benefitted from energy companies prior to taking office, and then formed policy...and if you believe he didn't take into consideration the millions from those energy companies when deciding on policy, I've got a big floppy black hat to sell you. ;)

Vector

07-02-2009, 03:21 PM

Well according to some Cheney was behind the last attack so I'm sure he's busy planning the next one so he can make a few bucks more...let's ignore the fact that he could have made the same money writing a book or something else that didnt involve killing thousands of Americans ;)

Vector

07-02-2009, 03:22 PM

and if you believe he didn't take into consideration the millions from those energy companies when deciding on policy, I've got a big floppy black hat to sell you. ;)

Cool...and I have a tin foil one for you :p

torrefaction

07-02-2009, 04:06 PM

Vector

07-02-2009, 07:36 PM

I don't think you understand how taxes work. If I make $1 million and donate it to charity, I get to write off around $400,000. If I had kept the $1 million, I'd bet roughly $600,000 better off..

Neither do you would it seem...you get to write off the full amount but you're only eligible to be credited back the taxable portion which is roughly 40%.

(my source is an IRS agent) ;)

alienmastermind

07-03-2009, 05:21 PM

Yes, clearly, he was in collusion with the oil companies...

Oh, wait...

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/01/iraq-awards-oil-contract-to-bp-and-china-firm/
http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_12721234

I wasn't referring to Cheney's current money, just the big fat check that Halliburton cut him prior to becoming the guy running the energy show in the White House.

"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic regimes friendly to the United States" - Richard Cheney

Yeah, that sounds like a guy who doesn't have a thing to do with oil companies, Torre.

I'm saying the man is influenced by his friends when he goes into office, and money buys influence. You think that Obama doesn't have people making claims on his power because of their backing him in the last election? Come on, man.

One's predilictions prior to being in office directly affect policy.

This wall of text is supplied by people who think with the tinfoil hats on...gotta admit there's some damning evidence of something strange going on....
1992

Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root is paid $9 million by the Pentagon (under Cheney's direction as Secretary of Defense) to produce a classified report detailing how private companies (like itself) could provide logistical support for American troops in potential war zones around the world. Shortly after this report, the Pentagon awards Brown & Root a five-year contract to provide logistics for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The General Accounting Office estimates that through this contract, Brown & Root makes overall $2.2 billion in revenue in the Balkans.2

1995

Without any previous business experience, Cheney leaves the Department of Defense to become the CEO of Halliburton Co., one of the biggest oil-services companies in the world. He will be chairman of the company from 1996 to October 1998 and from February to August 2000. Under Cheney's leadership, Halliburton moves up from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon's list of top contractors. The company garners $2.3 billion in U.S. government contracts, which almost doubles the $1.2 billion it earned from the government previously. Most of the contracts are granted by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.3 Halliburton's overseas operations go from 51% to 68% of its revenue. According to the Center for Public Integrity,4 under Cheney's leadership the company also receives $1.5 billion worth of assistance from government-sponsored agencies such as OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) and the Export-Import Bank, a huge increase compared to the $100 million that the company had received in federal loans and guarantees in the five years prior to Cheney's arrival. Years later, during the 2000 campaign in a broadcasted vice presidential candidates' debate with Joe Lieberman, Cheney asserts that "the government has absolutely nothing to do" with his financial success as chairman of Halliburton Co.5 Halliburton pleads guilty to criminal charges of violating a U.S. ban on exports to Libya by selling Col. Qaddafi six pulse neutron generators, devices that can be used to detonate nuclear weapons.6 Halliburton pays a $3.8 million penalty to settle alleged violations of the U.S. trade ban.7

1996

Halliburton subsidiary European Marine Contractors (EMC) helps lay the offshore portion of the Yadana natural gas pipeline in Burma. Several human rights organizations allege tremendous human rights abuses are associated with the project, as thousands of villagers in Burma are forced to work in support of the pipeline and related infrastructure. Many lose their homes due to forced relocation, and there are reports of rape, torture and killings by soldiers hired by the companies as security guards for the pipelines.8

1997

Cheney contributes to the creation of an influential right-wing policy group called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The group advocates for the removal of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime as early as January 1998, and is later revealed to be the intellectual center of the drive to war in Iraq.9

March: The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a U.S. government agency, helps Halliburton by providing "political risk insurance" worth up to $200 million for the development of natural gas in Bangladesh.10 Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root (now Kellogg, Brown & Root, KBR) launches a major Caspian project for the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, despite congressional sanctions against aid to Azerbaijan for human rights violations.11 Indonesia Corruption Watch names Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton's engineering division) as one of 59 companies using collusive, corrupt and nepotistic practices in business deals involving former president Suharto's family.12

Even with the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act in place, Halliburton continues to operate in Iran. It pays the Department of Commerce $15,000 to settle allegations that the company has broken anti-boycott provisions of the U.S. Export Administration Act for an Iran-related transaction, without admitting wrongdoing.13 Halliburton also continues to do business in Libya throughout Cheney's tenure.

The GAO (General Accounting Office), the auditing arm of Congress, reports that KBR overbilled the Army for costs associated with its work in Kosovo. It is revealed that the firm used more workers and equipment than necessary to clean offices and provide electricity and backup power supplies to bases, and charged nearly $86 per sheet for plywood that it bought for $14.06.14 As a result of the GAO's critical report, KBR's logistics contract was not renewed by the military, though the company was re-hired in 1999.

Cheney appears in an Arthur Andersen promotional video praising the firm's accounting practices, saying: "I get good advice, if you will, from their people [Arthur Andersen], based upon how we are doing business and how we are operating, over and above the normal, by-the-books auditing arrangement".15 KBR is later investigated by the SEC for accounting fraud - in a case similar to the charges leveled against Anderson's other client, Enron.

1998

Cheney oversees Halliburton's merger with Dresser Industries, one of the companies that helped Saddam Hussein rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure after the First Gulf War, despite economic sanctions against Iraq. Dresser also had faced major liability issues concerning asbestos which prove to be onerous for the company's financial health.16 Halliburton uses two foreign subsidiaries to do $23 million worth of business with Iraq.17

1999

Halliburton's KBR division is re-hired by the military, after being fired in 1997, for a $180 million a year contract to supply U.S. forces in the Balkans with logistical support. The company is also working on major contracts to build oil infrastructure in Brazil and Nigeria for companies like Chevron, Petrobras and Shell. It has a $200 million contract with Chevron and its partners in the enclave of Cabina (Angola), where the company services over 330 wells in 30 fields, which provide eight percent of U.S. oil imports; the concession is the source of 80 percent of the Angolan government's revenue.18

2000

August: Cheney leaves his position as Halliburton's CEO to run as Bush's Vice President. Halliburton announces that it is giving Cheney a retirement package worth more than $33.7 million.19 Under public pressure, Cheney sells company stock worth $30 million. October 5: In a broadcast debate with Joe Lieberman, Cheney asserts that "the government has absolutely nothing to do" with his financial success as chairman of Halliburton Co.20

Halliburton is by now the world's largest diversified energy services, engineering, construction and maintenance company, with some $15 billion in revenues annually, 100,000 employees, and 7,000 customers in over 120 countries.21

2001

KBR wins a $300-million exclusive contract to supply logistics to the Navy, providing services like cooking, construction, power generation and fuel transportation.22 One of Cheney's largest projects as Vice President is to coordinate the development of a new National Energy Policy (NEPDG). According to the former climate policy adviser in the Environmental Protection Agency, who was present at the task force's sessions, Cheney "continually pushed plans to increase […] oil supplies while paying little heed to promoting energy efficiency and clean energy sources".23 Casting as an inevitability that by 2020, the United States will need to import two-thirds of its oil, mainly from the Arabic peninsula, the NEPDG recommends "that the President make energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy".24 April: After having unsuccessfully requested information on recent secret meetings between the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) and executives of several energy industry companies, Representatives John Dingell and Henry Waxman ask the GAO (General Accounting Office) to request information about those meetings.

July: GAO Comptroller General Walker requests records from Dick Cheney providing the names of the attendees for each of the meetings.25

November: Kellogg, Brown & Root is paid $2 million to reinforce the United States embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, under contract with the State Department.26

December: Kellogg, Brown & Root secures a 10-year deal with the Pentagon with no cost ceiling to provide support services to the Army.27 The contract is known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). This contract is a "cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite delivery/indefinite-quantity service," which means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send Kellogg, Brown and Root anywhere in the world to run humanitarian or military operations for profit.28

2002

February: Kellogg, Brown & Root pays out $2 million to settle a lawsuit with the Justice Department, which alleged that the company defrauded the government in the mid- 1990s by overbilling expenses.29 KBR was accused of inflating contract prices for maintenance and repairs at Fort Ord, California, a now-terminated military installation. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento, alleged KBR submitted false claims and made false statements in connection with 224 delivery orders between April 1994 and September 1998. The false statements were allegedly made during Cheney's term as CEO.

February 27: The New York Times reveals the identity of some of the top executives from the oil and gas industry that met with Cheney on Feb. 8, 2001.30 One of them is Robert J. Allison Jr., the Chairman of Anadarko Petroleum, with which Halliburton has been doing business since 1959. The Times also reports that Cheney's wife Lynne had been a director and significant stockholder of Union Pacific Resources, an energy company that had merged with Anadarko in 2000, and that she received Anadarko stock worth $250,000 to $500,000 from the merger.

March: The press identifies the names of 22 oil and gas companies whose officials met in secret with the NEPDG.31 Nineteen of these were among the top 25 energy industry financial contributors to the Republican Party. Among the nineteen were Enron, ExxonMobil, BP Amoco, Anadarko Petroleum, Shell Oil, and Chevron.32 David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the GAO, as well as Judicial Watch, launch lawsuits against Cheney because he refuses to turn over to Congress documents that reveal the identities of industry executives involved in the National Energy Strategy.33 The GAO's lawsuit will be abandoned in February 2003, after Republican threats to cut the GAO's $440 million budget.34 But Judicial Watch's legal efforts continue. (see below)

May 22: A New York Times article alleges that Halliburton artificially inflated its stock price between June 1999 and May 2002 and counted cost overruns on construction projects as additional revenue.35 Following these allegations, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) launches an investigation into Halliburton's accounting practices.36 The company's then-accountant was Arthur Andersen.37 Despite the ongoing investigation and previous revelations about cost overruns, Halliburton continues to receive government contracts worth billions.

June: Brown and Root is awarded a $22 million deal to run support services at a military camp in Uzbekistan, a country whose leader, Islam Karimov, is a ruthless dictator accused of human rights violations and boiling his political opponents alive. This is the first LOGCAP contract in the "war on terrorism".38

June: Halliburton informs workers its pensions will be reduced in value in order to pay for mergers and acquisitions.

July 15: Newsweek publishes the article, "Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices" revealing that Cheney was aware that the firm was counting projected cost overrun payments as revenues.39

July 29: A New York Times article quotes Cheney about corporate fraud: "The American people can be certain that the government will fully investigate and prosecute any wrongdoers". Cheney says the reform measure will "protect investors, bring more accountability to corporations and toughen controls of the accounting industry".40

July/August: It is revealed that while Vice President Cheney was Halliburton's CEO, the number of its subsidiary companies in offshore tax havens increased from 9 (in 1995) to 44 (in 1999). One of these subsidiaries (Halliburton Products and Services Ltd.), incorporated in the Caiman Islands, is used since 2000 to get around sanctions on doing business in Iran.41 At the same time, Halliburton's federal taxes dropped dramatically from $302 million in 1998 to an $85 million rebate in 1999.42

Despite these revelations, the company continues to be awarded massive government contracts, including a new 10-year deal with the Army with no lid on potential costs. In the year 2002 alone, Brown & Root received $1.3 billion for services to the U.S. government.43 These services include a $115 million contract to design and construct an embassy compound in Afghanistan; $37.3 million to build 816 detention cells at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and $2 million to reinforce the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan.44 As the press and Democratic Party leaders increasingly focus on Cheney's role in alleged accounting violations at Halliburton,45 the Bush administration turns the nation's attention to Iraq.

August 26: Cheney delivers a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville, warning that "seated atop of ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, […] and subject the United States to nuclear blackmail."46

October: A Washington Post article describes Cheney as the "fulcrum of foreign policy", and that his influence for a pro-war policy comes to the fore on the eve of a possible conflict with Iraq.47 Cheney's wife Lynne is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a "right-wing think tank exercising significant influence in Washington circles"48 which is one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy and one of the leading voices pushing the Bush administration's plan for "regime change" through war in Iraq.49 The AEI has received funding from the Bechtel Foundation and ExxonMobil.50

November: Brown & Root begins a one-year contract, estimated at $42.5 million, to cover services for troops at bases in Bagram and Kandahar, Afghanistan.51

2003

January: The Wall Street Journal reports that Halliburton officials met informally with representatives of Vice President Cheney's office back in October to figure out how best to jumpstart Iraq's oil industry following a war.52 Cheney and Halliburton deny it.

March: Congressman Henry Waxman launches an inquiry into the fact that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has secretly awarded a no-bid contract to KBR to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq. The contract has a huge cost ceiling of $7 billion, with additional fees of up to seven percent ($490 million). The mission and the contract have been "awarded without any competition or even notice to Congress, [… and] were entered into on March 8, but not disclosed publicly until March 24".53 This contract is open-ended. It is also a "cost-plus" contract, i.e. the company is guaranteed to recover costs plus an additional percentage of those costs as its profit. It is later revealed that the contract not only includes fighting fires, but also operating the oil fields. The administration replies to Waxman's questions on the lack of competition: "To invite other contractors to compete to perform a highly classified requirement […] would have been a wasteful duplication of effort. […] Only Kellogg Brown & Root Services […] could commence implementing the plan on extremely short notice" and "No other contractor could satisfy mission requirements in the time available".54 However, CBS reports that other qualified companies had attempted to bid on the contracts, but were shut out of the process. Bob Grace, president of GSM Consulting, after having contacted the Pentagon to inquire about the contracts, received a letter from the Department of Defense dated December 30, 2002 saying that it was "too early to speculate what might happen in the event that war breaks out in the region".55 This was "more than a month after the Army Corps of Engineers began talking to Halliburton about putting out oil well fires in Iraq",56 and in fact one month after the Secretary of Defense had granted such a contract to Halliburton.57 Furthermore, KBR did not actually put the fires out itself, but subcontracted the job to other companies: Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc., and Wild Well Control Inc.58

Thousands of employees of Halliburton are working alongside U.S. troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars. KBR is also supporting operations in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Georgia, Jordan and Uzbekistan. The overall anticipated cost of task orders awarded since the contract award in December 2001 (LOGCAP) is approximately $830 million.59

May 8: Halliburton admits having paid 2.4 millions of dollars in bribes to a Nigerian official in return for tax breaks.60

May 30: Twenty shareholder class-action lawsuits accusing Halliburton of using deceptive accounting practices while Dick Cheney led the company is settled for 6 million dollars. Halliburton doesn't admit to any wrongdoing.61

July 8: Following Judicial Watch's attempt to force the White House to disclose the names of nongovernmental officials who were consulted by the task force in 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirms a lower court judge's order and thereby rejects Cheney's bid to keep all the workings of the Energy Task Force secret.62

Sept. 14, 2003: On NBC's Meet the Press, Cheney said, "And since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company [Halliburton], gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." But the vice president conveniently forgot to mention that he continues to receive from the company deferred salary of over $150,000 per year while maintaining 433,333 shares of unexercised stock options.

December 2003: The Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) confirmed in a preliminary audit that Halliburton and a Kuwaiti firm, Altamnia, had overcharged the U.S. government by at least $61 million through Sept. 2003 for the cost of gasoline imported into Iraq. Halliburton's KBR unit had been charging $2.64 per gallon to transport gasoline into Iraq while its competitors were transporting gasoline for less than half that price. The DCCA formerly asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate the overcharges and said the fuel importation contract was given to Altanmia "under unusual circumstances."

2004

January: Halliburton reportedly wants to drill on Mars at U.S. taxpayers' expense.

January 16, 2004: House Democrat Henry Waxman (D-CA) discloses serious irregularities regarding Halliburton Co.'s contract to transport oil into Iraq.

January 17, 2004: The Army awards Halliburton subsidiary KBR a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to rebuild the oil industry in southern Iraq. The Army previously had awarded a no-bid contract to KBR in March 2003 for the purpose of rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure in both the north and south of the country. But, under charges of cronyism and favoritism leveled at Halliburton, the Army subsequently opened the contract for competitive bidding in the Fall of 2003. The Army split the contract into one for northern Iraq and one for southern Iraq. The northern Iraq contract, worth up to $800 million, was given to a joint venture of California-based Parsons Corp. and the Australian firm Worley Group Ltd.

January 23, 2004: In Paris, a French judge warns that Cheney could be charged over allegations that Halliburton paid $180 million in bribes to build a Nigerian gas plant.

January 24, 2004: Halliburton admits two of its employees accepted a $6 million bribe in exchange for awarding Army subcontracts to a Kuwaiti-based company involved in rebuilding Iraq. Halliburton fired the employees.

January 25, 2004: CBS Television's 60 Minutes program shows how Halliburton does business with Iran even though U.S. law bans companies from doing business with the country.

January 26, 2004: New York City's controller accuses Halliburton of taking blood money from state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Libya. Controller William Thompson - who oversees an $80 billion pension fund for city workers - says cops and firefighters are outraged that their retirement portfolios include stock in U.S. firms getting fat off contracts with rogue nations like Iran, which funds the terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas and is suspected of giving sanctuary to Al Qaeda leaders.

January 30, 2004: New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, details how Halliburton evades U.S. taxes and export bans by establishing foreign subsidiaries. Halliburton’s Wendy Hall admits the company paid only $15 million in taxes in 2002 even though the company earned $339 million in profits from continuing operations and $12.5 billion in total revenue.

January 2004: Halliburton discloses that a subsidiary paid a $2.4 million bribe to a Nigerian government official's business in exchange for favorable tax treatment.

January 2004: Halliburton admits in an internal memo that its cost controls for government contracts are "antiquated" and "weak" and its procurement "disorganized" and marked by "weak internal controls." The memo, which was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, contradicts the company's public statements which claim it has a "rigorous system of internal controls" for contracts in Iraq.

January 2004: Halliburton begins an advertising campaign to improve its tarnished image with the public. A television spot running on CNN says Halliburton supplies hot meals, laundry and telephone links for soldiers in Iraq. The ad shows a man in desert camouflage holding a phone, his lip trembling, and shouting, "It's a girl!" "Halliburton: Proud to serve our troops," an announcer says.

February: The Pentagon reports that Halliburton Company would repay the government for overcharges estimated at $27.4 million for meals served to American troops at five military bases in Iraq and Kuwait last year. In one military camp in July 2003, KBR billed the government for an average 42,000 meals a day but served only 14,000 meals. Pentagon auditors found the overcharges during a routine audit of Halliburton.

March: As of March 1, 2004, KBR is awarded reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan worth at least $3.9 billion.

Many thanks to Agnes Christeler of CitizenWorks.org for compiling most of the chronology here.

Endnotes

1 "Defending Liberty in a Global Economy", speech at the CATO Institute, http://www.cato.org/speeches/spdc062398.html, June 23, 1998

2 GAO report, http://www.gao.gov/archive/2000/ns00225.pdf, September 2002

3 Pratap Chatterjee, Dick Cheney: Soldier of Fortune, www.corpwatch.org, May 2, 2002

4 Knut Royce and Nathaniel Heller, Cheney Led Halliburton to Feast at Federal Trough, Center for Public Integrity, August 2, 2000

5 see note 20 below

6 William Baue, Pay Dirt or Payola? How Halliburton Strikes it Rich, http://www.socialfunds.com, April 11, 2003

7 The Houston Chronicle, July 15, 1995

8 Earthrights International, http://www.earthrights.org/halliburton/hallintro.shtml

9 William Bunch, Invading Iraq not a new idea for Bush clique, Philadelphia Daily News, January 27, 2003

10 John Rega, Government Ties Helped Cheney and Halliburton Make Millions, in: Bloomberg News, October 6, 2000 and OPIC press release, http://www.opic.gov/pressreleases/archive/press97/press/press97/7-11.htm

11 ibid.

12 ibid.

13 Jason Leopold, Online Journal, http://www.onlinejournal.com, April 20, 2003

14 David Morris, Congress Daily, April 16, 2003 and GAO reports GAO/NSIAD-97-63 and GAONSIAD-00-225, http://www.gao.gov

15 Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2002

16 New-York Times, August 1, 2002

17 ibid.

18 Pratap Chatterjee, Dick Cheney: Soldier of Fortune, http://www.corpwatch.org, May 2, 2002

19 Robert Bryce, The Candidate from Brown and Root, in: The Texas Observer, October 6, 2000

20 Bloomberg News, October 6, 2000

21 Earthrights International, http://www.earthrights.org/halliburton/hallintro.shtml

22 Jeff Gerth, Van Natta Jr., In Tough Times a Company Finds Profits in Terror War, in: New York Times, August 13, 2002

23 Jeremy Symons, How Bush and Co. Obscure the Science, in: the Washington Post, July 13, 2003

26 Pratap Chatterjee, The War on Terrorism's Gravy Train, http://www.corpwatch.org, May 2, 2002

27 New-York Times, In Tough Times, a Company Finds Profits in War, July 13, 2002

28 Pratap Chatterjee, the War on Terrorism's Gravy Train, http://www.corpwatch.org, May 2, 2002

29 Department of Defense, Criminal Investigative Service, Press Release, February 7, 2002

30 New-York Times, Oil Executives Lobbied on Drilling, Feb. 27, 2002

31 New-York Times, Top G.O.P. Donors in Energy Industry Met Cheney Panel, March 1, 2002; Energy Firms Were Heard on Air Rules, March 2, 2002; and Oil Executives Lobbied on Drilling, Feb. 27, 2002

32 Report of the Minority Staff of the Committee on Government Reform, http://www.house.gov/reform/min, March 22, 2002

33 New-York Times, Top G.O.P. Donors in Energy Industry Met Cheney Panel, March 1, 2002

34 Peter Brand and Alexander Bolton, GOP threats halted GAO Cheney Suit, in: The Hill, http://www.thehill.com, February 19, 2003. For more information on this case, see the Natural Resources Defense Council's website, http://www.nrdc.org, and Judicial Watch (http://www.judicialwatch.org)

35 New-York Times, Under Cheney, Halliburton Altered Policy on Accounting, May 22, 2002

36 New-York Times, Cheney Promises Corporate Crackdown, July 29, 2002

37 William Baue, Pay dirt or Payola? How Halliburton Strikes it Rich, http://www.socialfunds.com, April 11, 2003

38 Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War, http://www.corpwatch.org, March 20, 2003

39 Newsweek, Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices, July 15, 2002

40 New-York Times, op.cit., July 29, 2002

41 Erwin Seba, Reuters, March 20, 2003

42 Arianna Huffington, Holding Dick Cheney 'Accountable' http://www.Alternet.org,, August 5, 2002

43 CBS News, Halliburton: All In The Family, April 27, 2003

44 Keith Ashdown, Halliburton's Road to Riches, http://www.taxpayer.net, May 8, 2003

45 Among others: Wall Street Journal July 11th, 17th and August 8th, Houston Chronicle July 10th, 12th and 29th, Washington Post July 18th, New-York Times July 20th, 29th and August 1st, San Francisco Chronicle August 4th, Boston Globe August 8th.

46 Cheney's speech, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html

47 The Washington Post, October 13, 2002

48 Media Transparency, http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipients/aei.htm

49 Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org

50 Media Transparency, http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipients/aei.htm

51 Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War, http://www.corpwatch.org, March 20, 2003

52 Thaddeus Herrick, U.S. Wants to Work in Iraq, in: Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2003

53 Rep. Henry Waxman, letter to Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers, http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_contracts.htm, March 26, 2003

54 ibid.

55 CBS News, Halliburton: All In The Family, April 27, 2003

56 ibid.

57 On November 15, 2002 the Office of the Secretary of Defense awarded a classified Iraqi oil Field Plan work order to Halliburton, worth $1.8 million. (Work Order number T.O. 0031)

58 Los Angeles Times, After The War: Getting Iraq's Oil Pumping Again, April 22, 2003

59 Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War, http://www.corpwatch.org, March 20, 2003

60 Oliver Burkeman, Cheney firm paid millions in bribes to Nigerian official, in: The Guardian, May 9, 2003

61 Associated Press, May 31, 2003

62 Henri E. Cauvin, Cheney Loses ruling on Energy Panel Records, in: The Washington Post, July 9, 2003

Matthias

07-04-2009, 02:13 AM

07-04-2009, 02:44 AM

This wall of text is supplied by people who think with the tinfoil hats on...gotta admit there's some damning evidence of something strange going on....
Some tips:
1. When someone is trying to build a case about corruption, and he cites revenue rather than profit numbers, he's full of shit.

2. "Several human rights organizations" alleged tremendous violations when I took a dump this morning. Actually, I kind of have to admit it probably counted as hazardous waste. And I'm not saying there isn't any merit to these allegations. But human rights groups whining is like a sunny day in the Sahara -- not really indicative of anything.

May 8: Halliburton admits having paid 2.4 millions of dollars in bribes to a Nigerian official in return for tax breaks.
Yes, this is against American law. But Nigeria is a famously corrupt country with an extortionate civil service. If you want to do business without the cops setting fire to your storefront and the taxman taking 400% of your profits, you pay bribes. Sure, maybe it should be illegal, but it's hardly evil. And it certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with Dick Cheney, unless you think he pioneered the practice of paying protection money.

There's a lot more there, and it's late, but I don't see any reason I have to admit anything about this, much less the notion that it's somehow "damning." But I guess I'm a traitor to the planet.

alienmastermind

07-04-2009, 06:13 AM

Some tips:
1. When someone is trying to build a case about corruption, and he cites revenue rather than profit numbers, he's full of shit.

2. "Several human rights organizations" alleged tremendous violations when I took a dump this morning. Actually, I kind of have to admit it probably counted as hazardous waste. And I'm not saying there isn't any merit to these allegations. But human rights groups whining is like a sunny day in the Sahara -- not really indicative of anything.

Yes, this is against American law. But Nigeria is a famously corrupt country with an extortionate civil service. If you want to do business without the cops setting fire to your storefront and the taxman taking 400% of your profits, you pay bribes. Sure, maybe it should be illegal, but it's hardly evil. And it certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with Dick Cheney, unless you think he pioneered the practice of paying protection money.

There's a lot more there, and it's late, but I don't see any reason I have to admit anything about this, much less the notion that it's somehow "damning." But I guess I'm a traitor to the planet.

Ox, I'm pretty sure I pointed out these guys are the tinfoil hats out there. I'm not saying the man's the devil, just that like all of us he's got the devil in him.

Being a human, he can be influenced by greed. And I think he values his wealth over the country's well-being, as evinced by his complete disregard for contrafactual evidence in the 'Iraq possesses both the means and weapons to harm the United States' question and the 'Iraq had something to do with 9/11' question. (Both things he himself has flip-flopped on, but he's a politician...and blaming them for backstepping or flip-flopping is a fruitless endeavor).

alienmastermind

07-04-2009, 06:19 AM

Not to say I staunchly disagree with you, but that quote is rather weak; it doesn't exactly say he's in cahoots with oil & gas companies or that he endorses invading other countries to get their oil. He simply sounds like a religious person noting the fact that some oil-bearing countries aren't friendly to the US. Not exactly damning, I could have told you as much and might have in virtually the same wording.

Sure, but it's not like he said it in a conversation about oil with a reporter. He said it during a speech on foreign policy in regards to energy.

The man's pragmatic to be sure, and within that wall of text by that whacko website with a severe hate on for Halliburton, they mention PNAC, whose membership seems to be oil companies who would like to see oil-rich nations under the bootheel of the United States.

All of this is conjecture anyway. While I don't believe Cheney benefits from another horrifying attack on the US, I do believe he profits from oil ventures, and has colluded with oil interests in the past.

07-05-2009, 03:38 PM

Being a human, he can be influenced by greed. And I think he values his wealth over the country's well-being, as evinced by his complete disregard for contrafactual evidence in the 'Iraq possesses both the means and weapons to harm the United States' question and the 'Iraq had something to do with 9/11' question. (Both things he himself has flip-flopped on, but he's a politician...and blaming them for backstepping or flip-flopping is a fruitless endeavor).
Huh. You know, I and a lot of other people thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I had no idea I profited from high oil prices.

I don't know why you engage in historical revisionism here. LOTS of people were convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. There was a fair amount of evidence for that supposition. We turned out to be wrong. But being wrong doesn't imply that one values one's wealth over the country's interest. I hope I remember that if, one day, you turn out to be wrong too.

alienmastermind

07-05-2009, 10:02 PM

I don't know why you engage in historical revisionism here. LOTS of people were convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. There was a fair amount of evidence for that supposition. We turned out to be wrong. But being wrong doesn't imply that one values one's wealth over the country's interest. I hope I remember that if, one day, you turn out to be wrong too.

State the evidence, counselor. ;)

As for revisionism, I call it like I see it, man. Operation Iraqi Liberation was the name they rolled with. Then it became something else. I thought it strange that companies that had lots and lots to do with the people in charge were given contracts, and haven't been regulated. As for the 'evidence'...when someone lies, Ox from a position of authority, and presents evidence that proves to be nonexistent, then they weren't just wrong, they were absolutely wrong.

Other than the Bay of Pigs, what other failures on that epic a scale have we had geopolitically in terms of intelligence? Going in with fewer men than we needed? That's a mistake. Saying that 'it's pretty well established that they have WMD' when that's unclear, and when confronted with that statement later saying that you NEVER said it...when live video footage of the person saying that very thing exists...I would call THAT revisionism in the extreme.

I would like you to put forth the evidence you think existed beforehand, because other than Colin Powell's performance in front of Congress and the UN (which didn't seem to convince the international community, by the by), I can't think of one thing we could count on, other than the Right's ability to call someone unpatriotic who dissented with the War Option.

07-06-2009, 07:37 PM

State the evidence, counselor. ;)
'Kay. First, there was undisputed evidence that Saddam Hussein had pursued NBC weapons in the past. I assume I don't really have to go into that in too much detail, but if I do, you might remember such places as Osirak and Halajbah. Also, the Iraqi government repeatedly issued statements admitting increasing levels of chemical weapons development.

Moreover, there was a consistent pattern of attempting to evade UN sanctions. Even punitive military action, such as the 1998 Operation Desert Fox, had failed to secure compliance with UN mandates. In law, there's a concept known as "consciousness of guilt": any behavior which would tend to make apprehension or prosecution for an alleged crime less likely is itself evidence that the alleged crime took place. Or, in layman's terms, what have you got to hide? Into this category I will also place the extensive use of the Oil-for-Food program to bribe Western diplomats and government officials such as George Galloway and Charles Pasqua.

There was also a steady stream of allegations from Iraqi expats and defectors claiming that Iraq's WMD programs were ongoing.

Did all of this evidence turn out to be incorrect? Yes. A cautionary tale about how evidence can lead you in the wrong direction, especially if you allow it to confirm your preconceived notions. But what's interesting here is that your implication that there was no evidence suggests you believe one of two things. Either you believe that (a) I had financial interests in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or (b) I'm an idiot. I'm curious as to which theory you hold.

As for the 'evidence'...when someone lies, Ox from a position of authority, and presents evidence that proves to be nonexistent, then they weren't just wrong, they were absolutely wrong.
I've caught you out in precisely the same sort of utterly unfounded accusations without a shred of substance (against Charles Krauthammer) as you now accuse the former Vice-President of. So what should my reaction be? "Liar, liar, pants on fire"?

Other than the Bay of Pigs, what other failures on that epic a scale have we had geopolitically in terms of intelligence?
Let's see... failure to predict the consequences of Hitler's rise to power, Pearl Harbor, failure to appreciate the dangers of accomodating Stalin at Yalta, our pooh-poohing of Castro's insurgency, Vietnam, the shocking collapse of the Berlin Wall, the even more shocking coup and counter-coup in Moscow in 1991, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, 9/11. Uh, that's all I can think of off the top of my head, but if you let me surf Wiki for a little while, I'm sure I can double or triple that list.

I can't think of one thing we could count on, other than the Right's ability to call someone unpatriotic who dissented with the War Option.
Hey, man. When you learn to stop calling people who decide to offshore industry "unpatriotic," maybe then you will be entitled to get your panties in a twist.

Matthias

07-06-2009, 09:56 PM

ShivaX

07-06-2009, 10:01 PM

To be honest with the sheer amount of delays Hussein threw at us and the fact that he must have known ahead of time that the UN would be looking for NBC weapons, I'm not all that sure he simply didn't create mobile labs and move them out while he was dragging his feet with inspectors.

In fact, am I the only one that remembers a CNN news report that showed satellite pictures of a long chain of trailers crossing the Iraqi border, I think into Kuwait. They showed the pictures extensively for about a week on CNN and Fox, and kept saying they fit the profile of mobile chemical weapons labs then never mentioned them again after that.

Thats because the whole "mobile chem labs" was a bunch of horseshit.

Most of our intel for WMDs in Iraq was from one dude who told us what we wanted to hear (or what the higher-ups wanted to hear). There was a ton of evidence contrary to what this one guy said, but it was all ignored by people who knew better. The public only got the story that supported going to war, at least until years later when people started coming out saying what actually happened.

Of course the irony is we invaded the only one of the "Axis of Evil" that wasn't trying for WMDs. Hell one of them already has them and talks about nuking people on a daily basis while they work on ICBMs to deliver them to our cities.

CES

07-07-2009, 05:25 AM

Thats because the whole "mobile chem labs" was a bunch of horseshit.

Most of our intel for WMDs in Iraq was from one dude who told us what we wanted to hear (or what the higher-ups wanted to hear). There was a ton of evidence contrary to what this one guy said, but it was all ignored by people who knew better. The public only got the story that supported going to war, at least until years later when people started coming out saying what actually happened.

Of course the irony is we invaded the only one of the "Axis of Evil" that wasn't trying for WMDs. Hell one of them already has them and talks about nuking people on a daily basis while they work on ICBMs to deliver them to our cities.

None of the other two were viable targets. Nor was Syria (which really needs cleaned up).

Ultima Thulian

07-07-2009, 03:01 PM

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o110/ultima13/Funny%20Pics/thchen_lg1.gif

Shoulda posted this sooner.

Vector

07-07-2009, 03:37 PM

Of course the irony is we invaded the only one of the "Axis of Evil" that wasn't trying for WMDs. Hell one of them already has them and talks about nuking people on a daily basis while they work on ICBMs to deliver them to our cities.

How is that ironic? The criteria for being apart of the axis of evil wasn't centered around the development of WMD's. Saddam invaded Kuwait and committed genocide against his own people. I'd say he'd already done enough to warrant such a label. May he rot in hell.

ShivaX

07-07-2009, 04:04 PM

How is that ironic? The criteria for being apart of the axis of evil wasn't centered around the development of WMD's. Saddam invaded Kuwait and committed genocide against his own people. I'd say he'd already done enough to warrant such a label. May he rot in hell.

Well the whole Axis of Evil thing was calling attention to nations that supposedly posed a threat to us and the world. Saddam just happened to be the only one that wasn't a threat, but we invaded his country and killed him and not the others, who are both working on methods for delivering nuclear weapons at long range.

I don't feel sorry for Saddam at all, but if you're basing the "Axis of Evil" on countries led by despots and tyrants the list goes from 3 to 100 almost instantly. Plus the whole term was idiotic in the extreme anyway. I think a lot of the reason Iran and N Korea stepped up their nuclear programs was because Bush labelled everyone as "Evil" and then invaded one of them. Naturally the other two thought they were going to be next and took steps to defend themselves.

Vector

07-07-2009, 04:08 PM

Well the whole Axis of Evil thing was calling attention to nations that supposedly posed a threat to us and the world. Saddam just happened to be the only one that wasn't a threat, but we invaded his country and killed him and not the others, who are both working on methods for delivering nuclear weapons at long range.

I don't feel sorry for Saddam at all, but if you're basing the "Axis of Evil" on countries led by despots and tyrants the list goes from 3 to 100 almost instantly. Plus the whole term was idiotic in the extreme anyway. I think a lot of the reason Iran and N Korea stepped up their nuclear programs was because Bush labelled everyone as "Evil" and then invaded one of them. Naturally the other two thought they were going to be next and took steps to defend themselves.

Saddam wasn't a threat? Really?

You do realize we can't invade Iran or NK like we did Iraq.

The term was spot on...recent events pretty much vindicate Bush...not everyone wants to admit that though.

NK and Iran were active before Bush labelled them...hence the labelling.

ShivaX

07-07-2009, 04:10 PM

Saddam wasn't a threat? Really?

You do realize we can't invade Iran or NK like we did Iraq.

The term was spot on...recent events pretty much vindicate Bush...not everyone wants to admit that though.

NK and Iran were active before Bush labelled them...hence the labelling.

Yes the best diplomacy is always to label the other guy as agents of Satan and malice. That usually works out great.

Vector

07-07-2009, 04:15 PM

Yes the best diplomacy is always to label the other guy as agents of Satan and malice. That usually works out great.

True...Bush picked those 3 randomly from a hat. If he had picked Canada, New Zealand and Finland the same outcome would have resulted. :p

Funny how previous presidents from both parties had no problem labeling the Soviet Union for what it was. I think the reason some people hate that term is because it was one of the few times Bush was spot on and that simply doesn't compute.

Regardless of that recent events have vindicated Bush and I doubt anyone is cynical enough to suggest that it's a self fufilled prophecy...oh wait.

ShivaX

07-07-2009, 04:33 PM

Well everyone knew they were evil, but it didn't do any good to publicly announce it. All that did was destroy most hopes of any sort of diplomacy with those nations. And oh look, thats what it did. Then we went in and took out Saddam and made the other two paranoid they'd be next.

The Soviet Union was a completely different animal. Both sides knew we weren't going to invade each other, it was all rhetoric and we both did it. In the case of the Axis of Evil we could and did invade one of them. Theres a big difference between two super powers calling each other names and a super power calling out some piss-pot nation that militarily has no hope of defending itself.

Ultima Thulian

07-07-2009, 04:53 PM

The thing that confuzzles me is that by calling Iran, Iraq, and North Korea an "Axis of Evil" you're insinuating that they are in league with each other. But are Iran, Iraq, and NK in cohoots with each other...are they allied with one another? I'm asking seriously btw...it's not rhetorical.

Ultima Thulian

07-07-2009, 04:56 PM

Also, we were rather buddy-buddy with Hussein for a quite some time. And during that time, he was be rather "evil". But we didn't do anything about it why? (this question is rhetorical :D )

I agree with Shiva. Using such abstruse methods of labeling your enemy in moralistic fashion is dangerous and stupid. Governments, principalities, etc., are neither good nor evil. They are entities that typical serve in their own self interests. There's plenty in America's history that could be considered "evil", but we label ourselves as good guys nonetheless. Whole notion of good and evil seems kooky to me, but that's another story/thread all together, I guess.

Generation ABXY

07-07-2009, 05:13 PM

Also, we were rather buddy-buddy with Hussein for a quite some time. And during that time, he was be rather "evil". But we didn't do anything about it why? (this question is rhetorical :D )

That's just the U.S. (heck, probably the world) for you. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but we've long been pointing fingers with one hand and shaking hands with the other.

Ultima Thulian

07-07-2009, 05:16 PM

That's just the U.S. (heck, probably the world) for you. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but we've long been pointing fingers with one hand and shaking hands with the other.

My point is, we didn't mind him being evil, so long as things were working our in our best interests, but as soon as they don't, it was "ZOMG GOTTA STOP HIM HE DEH DEVIL". Absurd. And yes, that is how the world works, which is kinda my point. Since the world works that way, using dumbass labels like "Axis of Evil" doesn't help anything.

Generation ABXY

07-07-2009, 05:24 PM

Maybe we should applaud this Bush for having principles, then? :p

Doogie2K

07-07-2009, 05:58 PM

07-07-2009, 06:30 PM

Well the whole Axis of Evil thing was calling attention to nations that supposedly posed a threat to us and the world. Saddam just happened to be the only one that wasn't a threat
Whoa whoa whoa. Who said Saddam wasn't a threat?

The dude wasn't developing WMDs anymore because there was a 13-year period of UN sanctions on him. He wasn't invading his neighbors anymore because we had annihilated his army the last time he tried. I don't think anyone really wants to suggest that Saddam saw the light in 1991 and realized he should focus on establishing a peaceful, non-threatening regime. He was caged, not cowed.

Moreover, Saddam was trying to unlock the cage. Partly for ideological reasons and partly because of his skilful use of bribery, the sanctions regime against Saddam was crumbling in the late '90s. It's all hypothetical now, but to suggest that Saddam certainly would have posed no threat to the United States or its allies if that course had continued doesn't really seem plausible to me.

Well everyone knew they were evil, but it didn't do any good to publicly announce it. All that did was destroy most hopes of any sort of diplomacy with those nations.
Diplomacy with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea? Really? Were the hopes that great to begin with? You seem to assume that people who chant "Death to America" or who accuse us of the most evil acts are going to get terribly offended if we criticize them at all. If that's true, I can't quite see why you think they'd negotiate reasonably.

But the point of the "Axis of Evil" speech wasn't to reconcile with those countries, just like the "Iron Curtain" and "Evil Empire" speeches weren't intended to rapproach with the Soviet Union. It was directed at other nations, particularly Europe, to convince them to disengage from the named countries. Yes, Bush's speech largely failed in this task as well. But softer language would not have accomplished that task either. You can't say that our foreign-policy goals would have been significantly advanced with different language without fundamentally misunderstanding what our foreign-policy goals were.

ShivaX

07-07-2009, 07:25 PM

But the point of the "Axis of Evil" speech wasn't to reconcile with those countries, just like the "Iron Curtain" and "Evil Empire" speeches weren't intended to rapproach with the Soviet Union. It was directed at other nations, particularly Europe, to convince them to disengage from the named countries. Yes, Bush's speech largely failed in this task as well. But softer language would not have accomplished that task either. You can't say that our foreign-policy goals would have been significantly advanced with different language without fundamentally misunderstanding what our foreign-policy goals were.

Fair enough. The problem is that Bush painted everything in black and white and completely alienated us from most of the planet. An "Axis" implies people are working together. Iran and Iraq have been bitter enemies for a long time and N Korea is miles away from both of them. To imply they are somehow like Italy and Germany in WW2 is just stupid on almost every level.

Theres a reason everyone outside of Africa hated Bush. It was a big stupid comment in a sea of ignorant and stupid comments made by the man. Softer language wouldn't have accomplished anything, but his language actively hurt our interests around the world.

As much as he might have wanted to be Bush was no Reagan or Kennedy. His Axis of Evil speech was no "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "Tear down this wall." It was seen as a "fuck you Muslims and Commies," which only hurt us and garnered no support for us from anyone.

07-07-2009, 07:49 PM

Fair enough. The problem is that Bush painted everything in black and white and completely alienated us from most of the planet. An "Axis" implies people are working together. Iran and Iraq have been bitter enemies for a long time and N Korea is miles away from both of them. To imply they are somehow like Italy and Germany in WW2 is just stupid on almost every level.
You're conflating a couple of criticisms here. First, you say that he painted everything in black and white. I might quibble about whether that's really true, but that's certainly the public perception.

So let me ask you: was he right? Are you going to tell me that Saddam wasn't really so bad, or that Ahmadinejad is a much better guy than Bush thought he was, or that Kim Jong Il is just misunderstood? If not, I think your criticism boils down to, "He told the truth!"

As for the claim that "Axis" implies cooperation: meh. There was cooperation between Germany and Italy, but not much between those powers and Japan. Japanese racial supremacy and Aryan racial supremacy were at least as incompatible as Shia, Sunni, and Juche. And what's more, there was cooperation: there is evidence (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,463132,00.html) that North Korea has sold something to Iran, for example. Japan claims (http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ea_nkorea_01_24.asp) military minisubs have been part of that deal.

As much as he might have wanted to be Bush was no Reagan or Kennedy. His Axis of Evil speech was no "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "Tear down this wall." It was seen as a "fuck you Muslims and Commies," which only hurt us and garnered no support for us from anyone.
True. It was a failed attempt. By all means criticize Bush for failing to persuade people. But I think it's important to nail down why he failed.

Bush was already very unpopular around the world before the "Axis of Evil" speech. Personally, I suspect it's just that people didn't like him on a personal level. If Obama were to give an "Axis of Evil" speech, it would be much more effective.

Vector

07-07-2009, 08:04 PM

As for the claim that "Axis" implies cooperation: meh. There was cooperation between Germany and Italy, but not much between those powers and Japan. .

They signed a treaty which could be considered a form of cooperation

07-07-2009, 08:09 PM

I presume some sort of contract or agreement also governs the transfers between Iran and North Korea. I doubt Kim Jong Il is making charitable donations.

alienmastermind

07-11-2009, 02:10 PM

You're conflating a couple of criticisms here. First, you say that he painted everything in black and white. I might quibble about whether that's really true, but that's certainly the public perception.

Axis of Evil (implying that everyone against = good) seems pretty black and white.

But Bush only seems that way to people who don't agree with war as a political option Ox.

I've taken some time to think about the things you pointed out before as evidence. And while it is an expansive list of mistakes we as the United States made, it doesn't (other than Vietnam) show one of those mistakes resulting in a war that on the outside seemed to be borne out of adventurism and target of opportunity.

I've not called you anything Ox, and by the insulted tone of the last post, I had to re-read the things I've read to make sure I didn't say that offshore drilling is unpatriotic. I would say that shipping jobs overseas, might be a little unpatriotic, but that's neither here nor there.

I've said it before in this thread, it's impossible to know a man's heart, but you can see what his deeds produce, and judge by that.

You said, 'What if you're proven wrong? Does that make you a liar?' No. Of course not. Mistakes are made. But if I make a mistake, and people from the start are saying 'This is probably a mistake' and when the mistake happens, people point to things I've said to support it, have VIDEO TAPE OF IT, and I STILL deny it...yeah, you have every right to call me a liar.

Cheney did that, and so, I pointed to the fact that if he's willing to lie about reality to that degree, perhaps everything we were told wasn't exactly on the up and up.

So let me ask you: was he right? Are you going to tell me that Saddam wasn't really so bad, or that Ahmadinejad is a much better guy than Bush thought he was, or that Kim Jong Il is just misunderstood? If not, I think your criticism boils down to, "He told the truth!"

But if you're saying that detente did nothing, you're obfuscating the facts. Our diplomatic restrictions and sanctions pre-Bush (i.e. when Clinton was in office) reduced the speed at which N. Korea developed their weapons technology. IMO, the tactics used by Bush 41, Reagan and Clinton were all successful. Only when we started giving these regimes the ability to point to us as their oppressors by way of our President calling the nation as a whole Evil did we see a marked increase in the level of crazy in NK.

As for Iraq, my opinion on the matter was at the beginning: Wait, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11...why are we going there? I understand, he's terrible, he's bad. He's VERY bad. But why are we going there instead of to Tora Bora and getting that job, the VERY REAL job of catching Bin Laden done?

As I understand it, Ox, you're saying we should be the policeman of the world, right? We should step in when we see a wrong, and right it? Or, only when it might affect our geopolitical or financial interests? Or our safety? What's the trigger for your personal view of our role as protector of the free nations of the world?

Bush was already very unpopular around the world before the "Axis of Evil" speech. Personally, I suspect it's just that people didn't like him on a personal level. If Obama were to give an "Axis of Evil" speech, it would be much more effective.

Talk about sour grapes, Ox. The neocons? They lost. That particular battle is now over. There is a new president, with new goals for America. And each day he's in office, he does things to make me regret my vote, to regret my participation at all in the process. Obama is a hell of a statesman. Which is something Bush was NOT. But he's also nuanced in a way that Bush failed to grasp, which made him an ineffectual leader, IMO.

Also, I believe that Obama has the ability to couch unpopular things in more than just 'REMEMBER WORLD WAR 2? THIS IS JUST LIKE WORLD WAR 2! WORLD WAR 2 = GOOD WAR, SO THIS = GOOD WAR!' terms. Which is why you're not seeing a bunch of pink shirted ladies running around protesting the surge in Afghanistan. (Though that promises to be a FAR more bloody encounter for us than Iraq...which, I believe, is why Bush avoided that particular war.)

Anyway, my point was, I don't think Cheney wants another attack, but he sure as hell talks about getting attacked an awful lot to score shallow political points with a base that's dwindling like a fart in a high wind.

Vector

07-11-2009, 02:23 PM

Also, I believe that Obama has the ability to couch unpopular things in more than just 'REMEMBER WORLD WAR 2? THIS IS JUST LIKE WORLD WAR 2! WORLD WAR 2 = GOOD WAR, SO THIS = GOOD WAR!' terms. Which is why you're not seeing a bunch of pink shirted ladies running around protesting the surge in Afghanistan. (Though that promises to be a FAR more bloody encounter for us than Iraq...which, I believe, is why Bush avoided that particular war.) .

You give Obama way too much credit...for a lot of people it simply boils down to "obama is the best ever so naturally what ever is going on in Afghanistan is the result of the best policy ever".

It doesn't matter how similar the policy is to Bush's...they simply look at the party and ignored the details. You think half these people actually watch the news?

alienmastermind

07-11-2009, 03:42 PM

ShivaX

07-11-2009, 05:09 PM

You give Obama way too much credit...for a lot of people it simply boils down to "obama is the best ever so naturally what ever is going on in Afghanistan is the result of the best policy ever".

It doesn't matter how similar the policy is to Bush's...they simply look at the party and ignored the details. You think half these people actually watch the news?

I thought Bush's policy in Afghanistan was to go in, claim victory and pull the troops to go fight in Iraq.

It was only much, much later that he suddenly decided that we needed to do something in Afghanistan. If I recall correctly it was an issue when our losses there finally surpassed those in Iraq.

Edit: As far as Cheney goes...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CONGRESS_SECRET_BRIEFINGS?SITE=FLSTU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA Director Leon Panetta has terminated a "very serious" covert program the spy agency kept secret from Congress for eight years, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a House Intelligence subcommittee chairwoman, said Friday.

Schakowsky is pressing for an immediate committee investigation of the classified program, which has not been described publicly. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said he is considering an investigation.

Schakowsky described Panetta as "stunned" that he had not been informed of the program until nearly five months into his tenure as director.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHENEY_COUNTERTERRORISM?SITE=IADES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Subsequent CIA directors did not inform Congress because the intelligence-gathering effort had not developed to the point that they believed merited a congressional briefing, said a former intelligence official and another government official familiar with Panetta's June 24 briefing to the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Panetta did not agree.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DOMESTIC_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=VACUL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Not enough relevant officials were aware of the size and depth of an unprecedented surveillance program started under President George W. Bush, let alone signed off on it, a team of federal inspectors general found.

The Bush White House pulled in a great quantity of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, the IGs reported. They questioned the legal basis for the effort but shielded almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.

Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."

Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure - but the report said Yoo ignored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.

Matthias

07-11-2009, 10:12 PM

Yeah. I do.

I'm not sure if the amount surpasses half or not, but I really think a very large portion of Obama's voters never had a clue about his policies, and were voting for him simply because 1) he was black; 2) he wasn't being touted as "Bush 2.0"; 3) they looked to him as a savior from all their woes and/or 4) he played the press game pretty darn well, appearing even hipper and in touch with the youth than Clinton did.

I remember a clip where reporters were going up to people on the street, and asking who they planned to vote for. When they answered "Obama" the reporter would ask their opinion on a series of conservative policies, all of which supported by McCain and opposed by Obama, frame the policies as if Obama supported them, and ask the person if they agreed with said policy- they very excitedly exclaimed that they were and that's why they were voting for Obama.

Furthermore, apparently one of Obama's campaign promises, which I personally never heard about until after the election, was to cut (I believe the vast majority of) subsidies to student loan programs. Yet an incredibly large percentage of college students, even on my relatively conservative campus, appeared in droves to rally for their "hero". And I know a good proportion of that crowd relies on student loans to make it through college.

ShivaX

07-11-2009, 10:29 PM

I remember a clip where reporters were going up to people on the street, and asking who they planned to vote for. When they answered "Obama" the reporter would ask their opinion on a series of conservative policies, all of which supported by McCain and opposed by Obama, frame the policies as if Obama supported them, and ask the person if they agreed with said policy- they very excitedly exclaimed that they were and that's why they were voting for Obama.

Yeah and Jay Leno used to do it all the time too.

Oh look, everyone in New York is retarded, I have proof:
DKr_DPr_zXo

Oh wait all Americans are stupid:
nnFb1RpK5Qw

Or is it just McCain-Palin supporters?
KjxzmaXAg9E

Or are McCain-Palin supporters just racist?
vagD-4AH4Vc

Or maybe people are picking and choosing shit to make people look bad.

And as far as "Reporter" it was Howard Stern. Hes pretty far from a reporter.
4PqkPby5x-A

07-12-2009, 11:48 PM

Axis of Evil (implying that everyone against = good) seems pretty black and white.

But Bush only seems that way to people who don't agree with war as a political option Ox.
Only pacifists don't agree with war as a political option. Everyone else is willing to consider war under the right circumstances. So unless you're willing to claim the entire American Left is pacifistic, I think you're exaggerating.

I've not called you anything Ox, and by the insulted tone of the last post, I had to re-read the things I've read to make sure I didn't say that offshore drilling is unpatriotic. I would say that shipping jobs overseas, might be a little unpatriotic, but that's neither here nor there.
By "offshoring" I meant "shipping jobs offshore." It's commonly called "outsourcing" by people who are illiterate.

But if you're saying that detente did nothing, you're obfuscating the facts. Our diplomatic restrictions and sanctions pre-Bush (i.e. when Clinton was in office) reduced the speed at which N. Korea developed their weapons technology. IMO, the tactics used by Bush 41, Reagan and Clinton were all successful. Only when we started giving these regimes the ability to point to us as their oppressors by way of our President calling the nation as a whole Evil did we see a marked increase in the level of crazy in NK.
NK's pursuit of nuclear weapons isn't crazy but rational self-interest. But is reducing the speed at which nuclear weapons are developed defined as "success"? We presumably reduced the speed at which India and Pakistan went nuclear, but they eventually did so anyway (and prior to the Bush Administration). I'm not sure how reassured I am to reflect that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, but they've had them for only a few years rather than decades.

As I understand it, Ox, you're saying we should be the policeman of the world, right? We should step in when we see a wrong, and right it? Or, only when it might affect our geopolitical or financial interests? Or our safety? What's the trigger for your personal view of our role as protector of the free nations of the world?
I take the same stance toward international intervention as I do to individual intervention: it is incumbent whenever practically possible. If I see a crime or oppression take place on my to work tomorrow, I am entitled to calculate whether my intervention will be successful, whether it poses unacceptable risks on myself and others, and whether the ill effects will outweigh the good I hope to achieve. But to a certain extent, I am required to run certain risks -- including a certain level of risk to my life -- to stop an injustice if I can. If I am carrying a gun and see a knife-wielding man raping a woman, I cannot walk on claiming it's none of my concern. I've never understood why the situation would be different if the woman had a different-colored passport.

Talk about sour grapes, Ox. The neocons? They lost. That particular battle is now over. There is a new president, with new goals for America. And each day he's in office, he does things to make me regret my vote, to regret my participation at all in the process. Obama is a hell of a statesman. Which is something Bush was NOT. But he's also nuanced in a way that Bush failed to grasp, which made him an ineffectual leader, IMO.
Given that I voted for Obama, I'm not sure how anything I say about him qualifies as "sour grapes." And political debates are never over. The same issue -- whether, and to what extent, this country can or should intervene abroad -- is one that will reoccur over and over again until the country ceases to exist.

You have a very strange attitude towards politics. In 2004, a profoundly anti-war candidate for President lost to the incumbent, who had embroiled us in two wars. Was the debate over then? Of course not; Democrats, including yourself, continued to argue the matter and try to change their countrymen's opinions. You succeeded in a heartening display of the value of debate and democracy. Now I retort, trying to sway public opinion again. And your response is to declare the debate over? Have we abolished debate and elections in this country, or are you just afraid to hear arguments now that you have the upper hand?

Bingley Joe

07-14-2009, 09:54 AM

Looks like we (or at least some) of us were wrong all along.. the man is clearly just a well-meaning patriot with impeccable ethics, doing the best he can with what meagre resources he can scrape together in a pinch:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees

source
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html)

More here, (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/us/politics/13cheney.html) here, (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14intel.html?_r=1&hp) here, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/13/cheney-cia-al-qaida-assassinations/print) here, (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_vet_agency_doesnt_need_secret_program_to_targe .php) and well.. everywhere, really.

I, for one, would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Dick for ever having cocked a suspicious eyebrow in his direction.

Ink Asylum

07-14-2009, 10:04 AM

But...but....Nancy Pelosi! She...she accused the CIA of lying to her! They would never do that, right?

National Kato

07-14-2009, 10:20 AM

I won't hold my breath for an apology from the CIA to Pelosi.

National Kato

07-14-2009, 02:05 PM

TIME is speculating (http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/07/13/the-cia-what-was-it-up-to/#more-14537) about what Cheney's secret CIA program entailed: Speculation abounds about the nature of the secret program Dick Cheney asked the CIA to keep from the Congressional oversight committees. The most sensational reports (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124736381913627661.html) suggest it was plan to find and kill top Al Qaeda leaders – like the covert Israeli campaign to take out the perpetrators of the Munich killings.

But two former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there's another equally plausible possibility: The program could have required the Agency to spy on Americans. Domestic surveillance is outside the CIA's purview -– it's usually the FBI's job – and it's easy to see why Cheney would have wanted to keep it from Congress.

Both officials say they were never told what was in the program, and that they're only making calculated guesses. But their theory gibes with other reports, quoting ex-CIA officials, that say the program had to do with intelligence collection, not assassinations.

“People may want this to be about hit squads bumping off shady Saudis in Geneva, but that's very unlikely,” says one official. “More likely, it was a plan to spy on some suspicious American citizens or organizations, without telling the FBI.”

A third CIA official who is familiar with details of the program says it was deemed unworkable and cancelled in 2004.

This is bound to get more interesting...

Ink Asylum

07-14-2009, 02:17 PM

You know, sometimes I wouldn't mind being proven wrong about the Bush administration, but they just keep living up to my worst expectations.