The news says that Cheney ordered the leak of a CIA report by Libby to reporters for the sole purpose of discrediting Ambassador Wilson.Another item says Rumsfeld personally was involved in the “interrogation by torture” techniques of some inmates at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
These two men go back a long way and can best be described as the Twin Faces of Evil undermining democracy in America.They command a vast array of resources from the past thirty odd years ,including connections in government and industry not to speak of their power they have usurped after 2000.
Their usual Modus Operandus is to make an end run against their enemies by invoking the Nixon technique,i.e.claim their opponent is soft on communism, terrorism etc. and not zealous about protecting America’s interests.This made it possible for Rumsfeld to dethrone Paul Nitze ,a war hawk’s war hawk during the Nixon era and for this dynamic duo to undermine Kissinger’s authority during the Ford administration. The best example of their successful bureaucratic coup occurred when they persuaded President Ford to launch a so called rescue operation against entrenched Khmer Rouge fighters during the seizing of the USS Mayaguez. Kissinger, who attempted to settle the matter by negotiations found himself sidelined;Cheney and Rumsfeld proceeded to launch a military operation and, as a result, 40 odd marines lost their lives.
This is not the only way Cheney and Rumsfeld are joined at the hip.One may say that they have perfected the art of getting rich by using the revolving door between industry and government.Consider first Rumsfeld’s case.After he left governement at the end of the Ford Administration, he landed himself into the cushy arms of G.D. Searle, a Chicago based struggling pharmaceutical company that needed to loosen regulatory oversight for a product called Aspartame that was being readied for a review by the FDA.The FDA review board was uncomfortable with the neurotoxicity of Aspartame and was going to withhold approval.Enter Rumsfeld.He enticed an FDA official named Skinner to join the legal team at Searle and managed to secure probationary approval for Aspartame ( Nutrasweet) by overriding the objections of physicians. To make matters peachy for Rumsfeld,when the FDA decided to challenge Searle in court, the statute of limitations for such legal reviews had run out and Nutrasweet emerged into the market by default.Almost instantly, Nutrasweet was a winner and racked up enormous profits for G.D. Searle and Rumsfeld, whose stock options and bonuses at G.D. Searle made him a very wealthy man.
But, true to form, Rumsfeld was not yet finished.At the same time that he was the CEO of Searle, he was also sitting on the board of Monsanto the giant agribusiness firm.He persuaded the board of Monsanto to acquire Searle.Having done so, Rumsfeld,wearing the Monsanto hat, started negotiations with Rumsfeld,wearing the Searle hat, and the result was a foregone conclusion.Rumsfeld emerged the winner becoming very wealthy again.He has continued this saga to this day where he has utilized his large stock ownership of Gelman Sciences to peddle bird flu vaccines to US governement.
This ability to enrich oneself without the usual risks attendant in any business was transferred to Rumsfeld’s bosom buddy,Cheney, who also found himself at the top of a construction company which later became Halliburton.Halliburton’s oil field services business and its ability to undertake projects of vast scope in places like the Middle East was tailor made for the imperialist fantasies of Cheney.He naturally set about to make the Defense department his client, thus giving him access to risk free riches, a la his mentor Rumsfeld. In the process, Cheney acquired a oil well services firm called Dresser Industries during a golf outing with one of his rich Texas friends.After the acquisition was completed,it was discovered that Dresser was potentially liable for large asbestos related liabilities. Again, true to form, all the liabilities were transferred to Dresser’s shareholders and employees, Cheney emerging unscathed.We now know that Halliburton is now the spigot for profits for Cheney and he is certainly a very wealthy man.
While the financial shenanigans of these two affected large number of innocent bystanders and allowed these two men to rip off taxpayers, that is not the reason to be alarmed about them.The easy and risk free way in which they have enriched themselves has spilled over and given them delusions of infallibility in deciding American policy at home and abroad affecting the lives of millions of people.While all of us drew the lessons from Vietnam that the US should never get involved in a land war abroad except in dire circumstances, these two imperialists were reaching a different conclusion:that if they had held power during that war and stayed the course, we would have emerged victorious. This from one misfit who never served a day during the war in Korea despite beinga pilot and the other evaded the draft during Vietnam because he had “other priorities”.Go figure that one.
It is this idea that these two men bring a certain level of magnificence that others lack in any activity that characterizes them both.During the First Gulf War, that made it possible for Cheney to overrule Norman Schwartzkopf and Powell on military tactics.Now during Bush’s war on Iraq, Rumsfeld,with the aid of his draft dodging Sancho Panza, Newt Gingrich, fancies himself to be the miltary strategist par excelllence
and has overruled Gen Shinseki and others.In the process he has let loose a dreadful carnage in that unfortunate country.
Because of their certainty that they are the Ubermenschen of American society,they appear to feel no qualms about flouting laws ordinary citizens are required to obey.Thus, I am certain that the manipulation of elections,the propaganda war against American citizens,the ordering of NSA resources to spying on Americans,lying at will to Congress and law enforcement are par for the course for these two men.They have even commissioned the compliant wonks of the PNAC to give them a scholarly aura by invoking the mad theories of a man called Leo Strauss.That man, a jewish escapee from the Nazi era, decided that the Nazi idea was not so bad after all except it excluded him, a jew, from the Ubermenschen.This time he set about to correct the idea to suit American sensibilities.That idea fell on the fertile ground of the delusional fantasies of Rumsfeld and Cheney.It is this idea that they were superior to ordinary citizens, a notion completely at variance with our heritage, that has made them such dangers to our society.
One should not be surprised that these two men found a useful idiot in George Bush to advance their agenda. What unites the three is their glee in inflicting pain on others, especially ones who are the weakest and fully at their mercy.In the case of Bush, we have the famous case of Karla Faye Tucker pleading for mercy only to be mocked and laughed at.Rumsfeld and Cheney displayed the same sense of their glee when the badly bullet riddled bodies of Uday and Qusay were displayed for their benefit in Iraq.It should come as no surprise that Rumsfeld participated in the minutiae of torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
I believe that many Congressmen and part apparatchiks in the GOP and Democratic party have realized that these three are thugs capable of doing anything at anytime.That has made many of them silent over the past several years.As befits thugs, they want this perception to endure thus buying off obedience.The infliction of pain either on the prisoners at Gitmo or Ambassador Wilson for telling the truth, reveals the same mindset,i.e. blackmail and threats to enforce their rules.
I see hopeful signs in the mini revolts of men like Murtha and the generals.In the end, we must come to the point that Paul Krugman has described as the Great Unraveling, akin to the question attorney Welch asked Joe McCarthy:”Have you no decency, sir, at long last?”