Posted on Saturday 26 May 2007


Vice President Dick Cheney … spoke today to the graduating class at West Point. MSNBC described his speech as a "call to arms," urging the cadets to lead the troops against an enemy that is "massing" in Iraq.

We’re fighting a war over there because the enemy attacked us first," Cheney said. "These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds."

The terrorism fight now centers on Iraq, the vice president said, because that is where the enemy has massed. "The security of this nation depends on the outcome," Cheney said.

Because MSNBC dutifully reported his statements without challgenge, we have to keep reminding ourselves that none of what Mr. Cheney said is true. There was never any link between the people who attacked America and Iraq or with the Administration’s justifications for attacking Iraq. As Ian Welsh just explained in the prior post, the Vice President doesn’t have a clue about what motivates al Qaeda or any other group the Bush/Cheney recklessly defines as "terrorists." There is no massive gathering of enemy troops arriving to fight Americans in Iraq, or any where else. And it is simply delusional hysteria to assert that any of the resistance groups opposing the US occupation in Iraq represent anything remotely resembling an existential threat to America. If there were, the generals there would be screaming for tens or hundreds of thousands more US troops, and millions of Americans would be lining up in every town to volunteer to defend the nation. Vice President Cheney is quitely simply, a lying nut case.

Is Dick Cheney truly the voice of the regime that the US Congress just authorized to continue its war and occupation in Iraq? We have the Vice President of the United States making false, bellicose statements even as our own military commanders are leaking stories to the media telling a very different story. Three months ago we were told that the "new strategy" under the new General was going to turn the tide in Iraq; we finally had it "right." Now the same generals are already signaling that expectations for prompt results are too high and that a different but familiar strategy focused on training Iraqis may be needed, while Secretary Gates and others in the Administration are arguing we will have to radically reduce our troop levels to be able to sustain what they fear will be a prolonged occupation lasting perhaps decades.

Reduced troops levels by 50 percent? That doesn’t sound like the response that would be called for if it were really true that the enemy is massing in Iraq and our survival literally depended on winning this battle. Who speaks for this Administration?
This man is crazy. Commenter Smoochie said,
I’m starting to believe more and more that not only is Cheney power hungry and self serving, but even worse, I think he might be mentally ill. Seriously. There is something really not right about him. It really scares me considering the position of power he’s created.
Scares me too. In my world [Psychiatry], a Delusion is defined as a "fixed, false belief." In the general parlance, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results." Mr. Richard Cheney is crazy insane delusional a crook still after Iraq’s oil dangerous. Whatever way you put it, allowing him to continue to occupy a position of power is irresponsible irrational a very bad idea. 
  1.  
    joyhollywood
    May 27, 2007 | 12:30 PM
     

    This was a man that got 5 draft deferments during the Vietnam war. He has lied and been wrong in practically everything he has said about the war in Iraq, and yet he is the man who gives the West Point commencement address. Why is he even still VP? Agnew did far less as VP to Nixon during Vietnam War and was fired in disgrace.

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