Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson: The Truth About Richard Bruce Cheney

[Turborama]

Last night I was on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC at the top of the hour. But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package.

Let's just say that five minutes of the Sith Lord was stunningly inaccurate.

So, when I got home last night, I thought long and hard about what I knew at this point in my investigations with respect to the former VP's office. Here it is.

First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney's watch than on any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact.

There was absolutely no policy priority attributed to al-Qa'ida by the Cheney-Bush administration in the months before 9/11. Counterterrorism czar Dick Clarke's position was downgraded, al-Qa'ida was put in the background so as to emphasize Iraq, and the policy priorities were lowering taxes, abrogating the ABM Treaty and building ballistic missile defenses.

Continues: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/05/the_truth_about/

[Postman]

1. Why would anyone with an ounce of common sense WANT TO BE in the Republican Party?

It's a lunatic fringe party at this point in history.

[Turborama]

2. Totally agree.

How anyone can still take them seriously is totally beyond me.

However, with regards to the OP, you've gotta love the way he (a Republican) repeatedly calls Cheney "the Sith Lord". lol

This part at the end was quite telling, too.

"And meanwhile fewer Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We're at 21% and falling--right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and loonies in the country.

When will we hear from those in my party who give a damn about their country and about the party of Lincoln?

When will someone of stature tell Dick Cheney that enough is enough? Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends--and your friends.

Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done--to the country and to its Republican Party."

[opihimoimoi]

3. Some are on the GOP Tit, others swallowed the Cool drink...

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. Agree. Downside is that the crazies that are left behind will have less and less

input from more moderate people who actually think and maybe even give a damn about the world. Not that they would have listened to them anyway, but at least the moderates knew what was brewing and could help keep the discussion from going completely off the deep end. How far would these crazies go? The leadership has already demonstrated that war and mass murder is okay by them. I just hope the Secret Service is up to the task of protecting the government people - leaders, judges, etc. - who these truly crazy people hate.

[City Lights]

8. Half of them are in denial and the other half has no idea what is going on.

:crazy:

[livefreest]

5. well.. you don't know Dick

[alfredo]

6. They conveniently forget to mention the Anthrax murders.

[ControlledDemolition]

14. The anthrax by the way was traced to a US bio weapons lab!

Apparently this anthrax was engineered to go after democrats!

[Turborama]

15. "Apparently this anthrax was engineered to go after democrats!"

Wow, that's quite a far out statement! Got anything to back it up with?

[alfredo]

18. It was a short cut to getting back control of the Senate.

[ControlledDemolition]

19. Let us not forget Paul Wellstone. n/t

[alfredo]

20. It just seems Democrats die inconvenient deaths.

[Frustratedlady]

7. I truly believe that when people like Wilkerson and others begin talking...

the floodgates will open and many will cleanse their souls by confessing what they saw, heard and knew first hand. I don't think Obama will need to have a hearing. Those who have been so disgusted and running scared will feel they can now come forth and testify or be interviewed on what they know.

I believe we will have a lot of dots to connect.

[Beam Me Up]

9. Sorry, Larry, I don't buy it.

What evidence do we have that "al-Qa'ida" was responsible for 9/11 that did NOT come from the same "intelligence" sources that were "fitting" the intel around the NEOCON Iraq policy -- or under the direct application of torture? Why do we assume they were producing a "fitting intelligence product" in one instance but not in the other?

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Richard Clark was right. Prior to 9/11, the "al-Qa'ida" alarm bells were ringing off the hook, at least in certain circles. But, simultaneously, when you look at the way that "intelligence" was handled you run into some very bizarre anomalies that have never been fully explained or accounted for. In this way, 9/11 gets couched as "an intelligence failure" -- which has consequences for the "intelligence community" -- and the MIC in general -- that are strikingly similar to those of "disaster capitalism." 9/11 was an enormous opportunity FOR SOME -- we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of "opportunity". An "opportunity" that "justified" in the minds of the American people and the world, the US invasion of two nations and the implementation of both domestic and foreign policy shifts that are RADICALLY at odds with our Constitution, our national ideals and both US and international law. The whole North American Command was re-structured by the very people in "failed" key positions that day -- especially Dick Cheney. The vast military industrial complex profited tremendously from 9/11 -- as did the lagging Bush presidency, as did US and other Western oil companies, and other corporations, such as Haliburton, directly tied to this administration. Moreover, this administration FOUGHT any significant inquiry into the events of 9/11 and finally relented only to an investigation predicated upon the assumption that the most relevant information, who was behind it, was already "known". Later we begin to discover that at least some of this "knowing" came from "intelligence" derived under torture. The rest of it? If it is backed up by anything, the US public and the global community has not been privy to that evidence -- it remains "classified" information under the rubric of "national security".

Excuse me for wanting more than the say-so of known "fit the intel to the policy" liars and "confessions" derived under torture. If the US government has conclusive proof not derived from "fixed intel" and torture that "al-Qa'ida" -- and only "al-Qa'ida" -- was responsible for 9/11, why is it being withheld from the American people and the world? I am WAY beyond believing that something "is so" just because some government official -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. -- "says so" and this "says so" is parotid endlessly in the corporate controlled media. You may accept that as an established fact, I see it as only an established contention that has become "fact" in the public mind but backed up by little more than "say so" from known lying criminals who have an enormous stake in this perception being accepted.

[Turborama]

10. ?

I can see what you mean about Cheney's Haliburton and the MIC making a lot of money out of Iraq. I just don't get the rest, or how it relates to the OP...

:shrug:

[Beam Me Up]

11. Just substitute "motive" for "opportunity".

They WANTED something to happen. The NEOCONs openly said so in their September 2000 White Paper, "Rebuilding America's Defenses." The paper is a long "wish list" for significantly more money for the US "defense industry" and outlined a variety of weapons programs -- including the development of gene-specific bio-weapons. That is, a biological weapon designed to target a specific genetic group. The scientific possibility of such a weapon aside, the very IDEA that a group of men now in high places within the Bush administration would even contemplate such a weapon should be shocking. They made it clear that this wished for "revolutionary change" would be unlikely to be forthcoming "absent some catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor." This white paper became the foundation for the new Bush "defense" policies in the aftermath of 9/11.

It is all just too god damned "convenient." Plans for invading Iraq were already on the drawing board. I believe plans for the invasion of Afghanistan existed prior to as well. We'd already threatened the Taliban with "a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs," if they did not cooperate with our plans for a pipeline. It is just so damn convenient that all the "ringing alarm bells" were missed. So damn convenient that the NORAD and FEMA war games being orchestrated by Cheney appear to have left gaping holes in our national air defense. So damn convenient that the hijacking chain of command protocols had been changed in May of 2001 (and were changed back to what they had been after 9/11). So damn convenient that everyone in a key position of authority that day was "asleep at the wheel," and that NOT ONE PERSON in that chain of command has ever been held to account. Quite the contrary, most were either promoted or benefited materially from all that came in its wake. Bush and Cheney agreed to answer questions of the 9/11 Commission ONLY under the condition that they did so together, not under oath and that NO notes were taken or records kept.

This is all factual -- and yet, apparently, we're not to construe ANYTHING from these facts other than what they tell us to construe. The whole thing just took them totally by surprise. At the very least why weren't these people charged with criminal negligence in the deaths of nearly 3,000 citizens? Oh, right, it was all the CIA's fault or the FBI's fault or the FAA's fault, the "system" failed. And just like EVERY DAMN TIME this most "incompetent" administration in global history "fails" -- they become wealthier, more powerful and manage to NEVER be held to account for their "incompetence."

The psychological disconnect for most people is they just can't believe anyone in a position of authority could be so evil and lie so brazenly and get away with it -- so, for all their faults, they must be telling the truth. Yet, year after year, we've revealed lie after lie after lie after lie -- now right on down to the core of the onion. The core lie that enabled the NEOCON cabal: 9/11 itself. Few, even here, are willing to go there.

edit typos

[ControlledDemolition]

17. Very, very, very good post! Thank you. n/t

[pacalo]

12. Sounds like Larry is getting angrier & angrier toward Cheney.

And when referring to the detainee, al Libi, he put in quotations that he "committed suicide". He thinks the cause of death is a sham, too. It happened at the point where U.S. lawyers were seeking to interview him.

Larry said about Cheney: Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends--and your friends.

I agree.

[Wednesdays]

13. K&R

:kick:

[Fuzz]

16. Damning piece, but I don't care about the Republican party, and niether should anyone

on this board. Let them rot.

Prosecute all those involved and let those criminals become footnotes in the history books.