Actions have consequences, as neocon extraordinaire Frank Gaffney repeatedly stated the other day in his debate with Glenn Greenwald on the Alan Colmes radio program. Indeed, as our Fake President Lincoln reminded us (circa 2003):
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.
“Fake” President Abraham Lincoln
So, if people debating the merits of that war on the floor of the House of Representatives are saboteurs (yes, I’m looking at you, Real President Lincoln) than what is a person who deliberately sabotages our efforts to protect America’s homeland from attacks by our enemies?
Well, he would be Vice President Dick Cheney’s Son-in-Law, for one thing (via Washington Monthly):
(cont.)
In March 2003, when the world’s attention was focused on U.S. soldiers heading to Baghdad, twelve senior officials in the Bush administration gathered around a long oak conference table in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex. They were meeting to put the final touches on a proposed legislative package that would address what was perhaps the most dangerous vulnerability the country faced after 9/11: unprotected chemical plants close to densely populated areas. […]
The basic elements of the legislation were simple: the EPA would get authority to regulate the security of chemical sites, and, as a first step, plants would submit plans for lowering their risks. One man present at the meeting, Bob Bostock, who was homeland security adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency, was relieved to see that something was finally being done. “We knew that these facilities had large enough quantities of dangerous chemicals to do significant harm to populations in these areas,” he says.
No one present was prepared for what came next: the late arrival of an unexpected visitor, Philip Perry, general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Perry, a tall, balding man who bears a slight resemblance to Ari Fleischer without the glasses, was brusque and to the point. The Bush administration was not going to support granting regulatory authority over chemical security to the EPA. “If you send up this legislation,” he told the gathering, “it will be dead on arrival on the Hill.”
No one doubted the finality of Perry’s message. The OMB, which sets the course for nearly every proposal coming out of the White House, is a much-feared department that raises or lowers its thumb on policy priorities, a sort of mini-Caesar at the interagency coliseum. But Philip Perry could boast one more source of authority: he was, and is, the husband of Elizabeth Cheney, and son-in-law of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Got that? Cheney’s son-in-law essentially killed any chance we had after 9/11 of making America’s numerous chemical plants safer from a terrorist attack, despite the fact we were told over and over again by President Bush and other administration officials that we are engaged in a war against Islamic terrorists who want to kill Americans. More from the Washington Monthly:
The result has been that our chemical sites remain, even five years after 9/11, stubbornly vulnerable to attack. Philip Perry has hardly been alone in tolerating this. Others in the White House and Congress have been equally solicitous toward the chemical industry. But as part of a network of Cheney loyalists in the executive branch, Perry has been a key player in the struggle to prevent the federal government from assuming any serious regulatory role in business, no matter what the cost. And a successful attack on a chemical facility could make such a cost high indeed. A flippant critic might say the father-in-law has been prosecuting a war that creates more terrorists abroad, while the son-in-law has been working to ensure they’ll have easy targets at home. But it’s more precise to say that White House officials really, really don’t want to alienate the chemical industry, and Perry has been really, really willing to help them not do it.
Imagine that. Al Qaeda has a mole deep within within our own Government, and he just happens to be related by marriage to Vice President Cheney. A traitor to our country who has taken an active part in increasing the risk to the lives of his fellow Americans that might result from another terrorist attack on our country. At least, that’s the only logical inference I can draw from Mr. Perry’s actions which clearly are designed to weaken our national security and embolden the terrorists who, by President Bush’s own admission want to kill us.
Either that, or Perry, and many others in the Bush administration, have a reckless disregard for the safety and welfare of any American citizen who happens to live within the vicinity of a chemical plant. In the law, I would argue that is considered a sufficient intent to justify a charge of treason:
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
For if you make it easier for our enemies to attack and kill American citizens by blocking legislation which would have made our chemical plants more secure, are you not aiding and comforting our terrorist enemies? I would say so.
And no, I’m not being flippant. I’m very, very serious. Check the localities in and around where you live. I’ll bet you’ll find chemical plants such as the ones that Mr. Perry has so assiduously kept unprotected in the interests of serving his friends in the chemical industry. I know that there are quite a few of these facilities where I live. And if anyone of my family or friends suffers harm as a a result of an attack on those facilities, you can bet I’m not just going to blame the terrorists directly responsible, but also people like Philip Perry, President Bush and Vice President Cheney, chemical industry lobbyists and any politician who took their money.
But why wait for that terrorist attack on our most vulnerable plants and facilities to occur before we do something about it? Can anyone else say the word impeachment? Because if lying about a blow job is a major “crime and misdemeanor” justifying removal of a sitting President from office, than certainly giving aid and comfort to our enemies in a time of war so ones’ buddies in the chemical industry can save a few shekels ought to qualify.
