{"id":4277,"date":"2010-08-01T19:24:03","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T23:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4277"},"modified":"2010-08-01T19:48:31","modified_gmt":"2010-08-01T23:48:31","slug":"the-truth-theory-dick-cheneys-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/01\/the-truth-theory-dick-cheneys-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"the truth theory<\/em>: Dick Cheney’s “yet”…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I suppose people will be speculating about the internals<\/em> of Dick Cheney until the end of days [and I’m not talking about his failing heart], I’m talking about his mind. I’m aware that psychological formulations of ancient leaders in history books are often flat and simplified. Historians have the advantage of knowing how the story came out, and I suspect they retrofit the psychology to match its impact. Contemporary people are harder, and particularly someone who works as hard as Dick Cheney to leave no footprints. And I find it impossible to read what he says without seeing it as what he wants me to think – so even his scant verbal record isn’t much help. We end up doing what historians do – simplifying him based on his behavior.<\/p>\n

We can intuit his personality traits fairly easily. What kind of people don’t show their cards and adjust their communications based on what they want you to think? Sociopaths. What kind of people keep their cards close the the chest to stay safe, go out of the way to keep you out of their business? Paranoid people. What kind of persons believe their own thoughts are absolutely true, and not open to influence by others? Narcissistic people. What kind of person believes that the way to get things done is through exerting power rather than negotiation? Paranoid Narcissistic Sociopaths. Too many terms here? Not really. The thing that unites these styles is that they are the flavors of mistrustful people who use power and manipulation to deal with others. They don’t play straight themselves and think everyone else is the same way. Whatever words one uses, Dick Cheney is a guarded, forked tongue guy, so formulations about his motivations are more veterinary than psychiatric.<\/p>\n

In my last post, I included a 1994 video of him explaining why we should not have invaded Baghdad during the First Gulf War when he was George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense. One is tempted to explain the obvious paradox of his later passion to unseat Hussein [1997 on] as him simply being a liar – deferring to the President back then. But he said it over and over in interviews in lots of different places. And given his style, he would probably say that he was going along with the elder Bush’s wishes back then. He’s bad to lie, but not in that way. One thing that’s kind of hard to read is that his colleagues back then in the DoD, Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby drafted their Defense Planning Guidance<\/strong> [1992] that laid out the Wolfowitz Doctrine [preemption, unilateral action, strength without equal, promoting democracy]. When that paper was leaked, all hell broke loose and Cheney and Powell had to scramble to soften it [Cheney’s Kampf<\/em> and the war on the UN…<\/a><\/strong>]. But it was Cheney’s shop, and Cheney did become the guy who put it into action as "The Bush Doctrine." <\/p>\n

So, if I assume that he actually did think it was a bad idea to go after Saddam Hussein in 1991 or 1994, how could I make that fit with his being a part of this Sole Superpower, American exceptionalism, Wolfowitz Doctrine, New American Century<\/em> madness – because I believe he was solidly behind that whole way of thinking too. For a while, I thought maybe he changed his mind when he was at Haliburton and smelled all that Iraqi oil. But he had smelled that oil for years. He was a "big oil congressman" for ten years before he ever became Defense Secretary. Now I’ve got a new theory based on the content of that video interview. It will sound trivial at first, but it has a few teeth. Here it is again:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n
He says we shouldn’t depose Iraq because:<\/div>\n
    \n
  • We would be alone<\/li>\n
  • What would we put in place?<\/li>\n
  • Too many Americans might die<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    But he doesn’t say:<\/div>\n
      \n
    • He didn’t want to depose Hussein<\/li>\n
    • He doesn’t say it would be unethical, immoral, unlawful [something lofty]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      He just says it wouldn’t work. My new theory is radical thinking for me, Cheney was telling the truth. He didn’t think it would work in 1991, 1992, & 1994. But after the war, he and his henchmen drafted the Defense Planning Guidance <\/strong>which set up the policy that would become the Sole Superpower, American exceptionalism, Wolfowitz Doctrine, New American Century, regime change<\/strong><\/em> madness of his Administration. But Papa Bush did more than that. He published a Presidential Finding that funded the CIA to support groups who wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Since there were none, the C.I.A. hired the Rendon Group<\/strong> to create one – the Iraqi National Congress<\/font><\/strong> that was ultimately under Ahmad Chalabi<\/strong>. That group later became funded further by Clinton’s Iraq Liberation Act<\/strong> [passed by a Hawk Republican Congress], the source for our "bad" intelligence about Hussein in 2002, the source for Judith Miller’s fantasy New York Times<\/strong> articles, and were the nucleus of the "puppet government" that we attempted [unsuccessfully] to install in Iraq when we invaded.<\/div>\n

      So, I think he was telling the truth back then. We shouldn’t have marched on Baghdad yet<\/font><\/strong>. We needed a government to put in place [Shiite Ahmad Chalabi and his INC]. We needed not to be alone [a reason for engaging the UK?]. We needed a reason [WMD, 9\/11, al Qaeda]. We needed it to be part of our foreign policy [Iraq Liberation Act, "Bush Doctrine"]. He wasn’t lying, he was "laying low" planning for the future – doing the thing he does the best, manipulating power dynamics. It worked great [until it didn’t], taking a decade for everything to be in place. Long range planning. New government in the wings. Provocation by 9\/11. Another Bush to work with. Wolfowitz, Libby, and Addington by his side. Old pal Grumpsfeld in the Pentagon. What could go wrong?<\/p>\n

      Out conned by Ahmad Chalabi? Iraqis saw through it and balked? Arabs from everywhere flocked to al Qaeda to drive out the Gringos? Minimalist military support backfired? The world said "bad US"? Add that neither Bush, nor Cheney, nor Rice, nor Grumpsfeld, nor Wolfowitz, nor Feith knew anything about military action or diplomacy, yet they controlled the military and post-military planning – putting together an invasion and recovery doomed to failure.<\/p>\n

      Pity. Cheney had been planning it for a very long time…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I suppose people will be speculating about the internals of Dick Cheney until the end of days [and I’m not talking about his failing heart], I’m talking about his mind. I’m aware that psychological formulations of ancient leaders in history books are often flat and simplified. Historians have the advantage of knowing how the story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}