Cheney's Mission Accomplished-by Juan Cole

[kpete]

Published on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 by Informed Comment
Cheney's Mission Accomplished

by Juan Cole

Dick Cheney: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...."

What has Dick Cheney really accomplished in Iraq?

# An estimated 4 million Iraqis, out of 27 million, have been displaced from their homes, that is, made homeless. Some 2.7 million are internally displaced inside Iraq. A couple hundred thousand are cooling their heels in Jordan. And perhaps a million are quickly running out of money and often living in squalid conditions in Syria. Cheney's war has left about 15% of Iraqis homeless inside the country or abroad. That would be like 45 million American thrown out of their homes.

.............................

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uMGWxRFx3Bw/R9Gcd9qGlAI/AAAAAAAAARA/xN_1EAu08ck/s320/iraqi+woman.jpg

Cheney avoids mentioning all the human suffering he has caused, on a cosmic scale, and focuses on procedural matters like elections (which he confuses with democracy-- given 2000 in this country, you can understand why). Or he lies, as when he says that Iran's influence in Iraq has been blocked. Another lie is that there was that the US was fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq as opposed to just Iraqis. He and Bush even claim that they made Iraqi womens' lives better.

The real question is whether anyone will have the gumption to put Cheney on trial for treason and crimes against humanity.

more here:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/17-2

[driver8]

1. It absolutely kills me that this son of a bitch is walking free...

He is the most evil, greedy, self centered piece of shit I have ever seen.

Cheney is a war criminal -- plain and simple.

[lib_wit_it]

4. Repulsive, cocky, Anti-American thug now turns treasonous by his own standards, Hang him.

[bemildred]

2. This reminds me of Lady Kaede in the movie RAN

"I have done all I set out to do."

[Gregorian]

3. It may seem unrelated, but I saw a post on Youtube by someone with the handle Sarapalin2012

I was joking with someone, and had a Lawrence Welk tune to send to them. There was this post that said, Welk would never have voted for Obama because he doesn't have family values.

I went to bed that night in a state of disbelief. But the reality is we live with people who have absolutely no vision, no idea that their actions affect other people. That person no doubt believes the lies that are broadcast by Fox, and the republicans, and can twist family values in such a blind way that killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, children can be overlooked in the name of some empty slogans.

This is what is going on. Cheney is a sick man. There are lots of sick people around. In fact, we're all sick to a degree. Some of us are trying improve our world. Some are not.

The bottom line is, if any of these people saw the suffering their votes caused, they would cower and cringe.

Education and media. Those are critical for a decent society, which we are no longer. We all are formed by our parents to some degree, and as such it would be nice if we could insure that parents do good work. But that probably is asking too much. In lieu of that it is a long slow process to try and improve a society, so that people value people. And then there is another huge complication. But I'm tired of talking about it. It may even be the single most important aspect of this. All I can say is it's too bad. People should have been more vigilant and thoughtful about their actions. Maybe if we stop playing the fear game, and simply cut military budgets around the world, we could ween ourselves off of the worst of the violence. But with limited resources, and so many people, it's a fight.

The bottom line is what you do has effects that affect us all.

[acmavm]

5. Yeah but Exxon Mobile is getting ready to hop into the oil business over

there in WMD-land.

He got what he wanted.