Cheney's Clear Priorities

However much commentators like Jon Stewart – primary jester to the court of George the Deuce – might deride Richard Cheney for his secrecy, his man-sized safe, his cool arrogance, or his flippant disregard for the Constitution, let it never be said that our current co-president is inconsistent when prioritizing his tasks.

While a substantial number of high-ranking Republicans juggled their time between wringing their hands in trembling hope that Mother Nature would spare them a repeat of the excoriation of the Bush administration’s lack of concern (empathy, being the current talking-point), the rank incompetence of FEMA and the resultant PR debacle associated with the Hurricane Katrina calamity three years ago, and staging the over-blown, over-funded pep rally in the Twin Cities, VP Cheney was buttering some bread in the former Soviet states in the Caspian Sea area.

"President Bush has sent me here with a clear and simple message to the people of Azerbaijan and the entire region: The United States has deep and abiding interests in your well-being and security.", Mr Cheney stated, as if anyone at this point actually believes that he serves at the behest of Mr Bush.

Azerbaijan, which borders Georgia and Iran and sits along the Caspian Sea, is an oil- and gas-rich nation and a key U.S. ally in the region. Why this tiny nation should be considered a ‘key U.S. ally in the region’ might be a question worth a journalist’s time to ask but no explanation beyond ‘oil and gas-rich nation’ seems to be required or expected from Mr Cheney.

To double-under-score the true meaning of America’s ‘deep and abiding interest’ in ‘Azerbaijan and the entire region’ of the Caspian, Cheney held meetings with Azerbaijan representatives of oil giants, British Petroleum and Chevron. Perhaps this was a modest effort by the VP to earn the reported one million dollars paid him annually by Halliburton as their beloved former CEO. Only after getting the more important business of oil and gas production out of the way did ‘Our Man Dick’ squeeze in a meeting with Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev.

Apparently thinking no one would notice with the stories of the nonsensical spectacle of the RNC and a hurricane threatening the Big Easy dominating the ‘news’, Cheney took this occasion to pontificate, "One of the basic foundations of security and peace is respect for national borders, a principle that is endangered today.” That the Co-president managed to utter this without emitting an ironic chortle or displaying a facial twitch or eye-wink that might indicate he was pulling our collective leg was not reported by those journalists in attendance.

That non sequitur aside, Cheney went on to proclaim “The United States strongly believes that together with the nations of Europe, including Turkey, we must work with Azerbaijan and other countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia on the additional routes for energy exports that ensure the free flow of resources.”

Without follow-up queries from competent journalists, one cannot be certain what Mr Cheney is implying but one can reasonably assume that he envisions an imperial, NATO-like organization, dominated by the USA, which spans from the Atlantic to the Caspian and beyond. One might also be lead to assume that the people living in the region are of less concern to him than ensuring ‘the free flow of resources’, presumably to western corporations with which Mr Cheney might have association.

Cheney's trip began as U.S. government sources confirmed the Bush administration plans for a $1 billion aid package for Georgia. An observer might wonder how the American taxpayers, suffering growing unemployment, a stagnating economy, record home foreclosures, a devalued dollar, rising inflation and a continually deteriorating infrastructure feel about tossing another billion US into the rat-hole of ‘foreign aid’ to an enfeebled nation of less than five million people.

It should also be noted that the ‘Straight-talking Maverick’, multi-millionaire John McCain has, as his presidential campaign’s chief foreign policy adviser, lobbyist Randy Scheunemann. Mr Scheunemann is working on the McCain campaign while on hiatus from his DC-based lobbying firm, Orion Strategies. Insofar as McCain has a whole raft of lobbyists working on his campaign, Mr Scheunemann’s involvement isn’t note-worthy in and of itself. What is notable, however, is that one of the most prominent clients of Orion Strategies is the nation of Georgia. (Yes, that one.) It must be considered less than a coincidence that Mr Scheunemann’s Orion Strategies was hired to ‘grease the wheels’ for the admission of Georgia to NATO, another one of the Bush/Cheney pet projects.

So, let the Republican hoity-toity attend to extravagantly mundane party business and feign empty displays of concern for an impending reprise of a natural calamity, all Americans and, indeed, the citizens of the world can rest assured that Richard Cheney has his priorities in order; perverted as that order may appear to those with a sense of justice or decency.

ADDENDUM:

After writing and posting this article - which was based on a CNN on-line article - I read at Kommersant.com, a Russian site that Cheney's meeting with the presidents of Azerbaijan and Georgia did not go smoothly - meaning that Cheney did not get his way. He wanted both countries to cut Russia out of the supply line for gas and oil.

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan had Cheney cool his heels before meeting with him. Their meeting did not go as Cheney intended despite (or due to) the fact that he and Aliyev have known each other since Cheney was at Halliburton and Aliyev was VP of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company. Cheney was so miffed at being told 'No!'by Aliyev (and by being met at the airport by personages of lesser rank than the VP himself) that he even refused to attend a banquet in his honor.

Looks like the bloom is off the rose, Dick, old boy.

Also! This just in from Democracy Now!

US Provided Combat Training to Georgian Commandos Prior to Assault

The Financial Times reports the US military provided combat training to eighty Georgian special forces commandos only months prior to Georgia’s army assault in South Ossetia in August. The training was provided by senior US soldiers and two private military contractors—MPRI and American Systems, both based in Virginia.The revelation could add fuel to accusations by Russia that the US had orchestrated the war in the Georgian enclave.

So. maybe that Putin fellow is not exactly blowing smoke about the US playing high-stakes chess in the Caspian.

http://www.kommersant.com/p1020720/Ilham_Aliyev_reluctant_to_fully_support_America/

A Respectful Admonition of Senator McCain

My father was a war hero. He served in the US Navy as a radar man aboard an LCT in the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean; most notably, at Anzio. He nearly lost his life on several occasions and, as one of the younger, unmarried members of the crew, was often asked to perform dangerous duty in service to the nation.

My grandfather was a war hero, too. He served as an infantryman on the killing fields of Europe during the First World War, what was then called ‘The Great War’.

They have been many heroes who put their lives on the line for the people who served with them. It can easily be asserted that each and every member of the armed services who has seen action, whether or not they were wounded, be-medaled, captured or killed, are heroes worthy of our admiration and gratitude.

As my father and my grandfather expressed it when pressed to tell their stories, they did not consider themselves heroes but simple ordinary men who managed to stay alive because of the heroic actions of their buddies. This is a most common comment made by those we consider war-time heroes.

In interviews with the surviving members of Company E, 2^nd Battalion, 506^th Parachute Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division, ‘The Screaming Eagles’, whose story was recounted in the best-selling book, ‘Band of Brothers’ by military historian, Stephen Ambrose, each and every man down-played their own part and honored those they served with. Their commanding officer, Richard D. ‘Dick’ Winters expressed this attitude of noble humility best in an interview for the HBO series. When asked if he considered himself a hero, he responded with tearful eyes, that he wasn’t a hero, but he had served in the company of heroes.

My father, like Dick Winters and many thousands of other veterans, did not crow and puff themselves up by harping about their heroics during armed conflict. They were modest men who saw themselves as unextraordinary despite the extraordinary conditions under which they served. This attitude of gracious humility is not exclusive to any specific generation; it is an unspoken code that is followed by all of the combat veterans known personally to this writer.

Meaning no disrespect to Senator McCain, for he must be counted in the company of heroes, he does not share the noble humility of Dick Winters or my father or my grandfather. Senator McCain’s unceasing, self-serving reiteration of his experiences as a POW in order to brazenly advance his political career and this presidential campaign is most distasteful.

His service should be honored as should all be honored who have laid their lives on the line for the nation and their buddies. What is objectionable is Mr McCain’s vulgar, overweening use of his experiences in Vietnam to blatantly promote himself and the agenda of the Republican Party by playing off the sympathies and pity of the public.

Former senator and presidential hopeful, George McGovern, was once asked why he hadn’t trumpeted his war-time military career during the 1968 election campaign against Richard Nixon. After all, McGovern had served during World War II as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot in the Fifteenth Air Force, had flown 35 missions over enemy territory and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving his crew. Surely, his campaign as an anti-war candidate would have been strengthened if he had simply made the American electorate aware that he was an honest-to-god, decorated war hero. McGovern shook his head dismissively and replied, “That would have been unseemly.”

Senator McCain, end the incessant rehashing of your war stories. It’s unseemly in a hero.

Bush’s 2008 RNC speech: (Reading Between the Lines)

Borrowing the technology of 'Being John Malcovic', the author is able to provide annotation for Bush's speech to the RNC as heard through the mind of the 'Decider'.

And now, Ladies and Germs, give a warm Republican welcome to the 'Decider', the Commando-in-Chief, the President of the United States of America (for at least another fiscal quarter), GEORGE W. BUSH!

(Cue ‘Applause’…)

I know what it takes to be president.

(Unfortunately, I don’t have what it takes to be a good one.)

In these past eight years, I’ve sat at the Resolute desk

(That’s the one next to the water-cooler outside Cheney’s office.)

and reviewed the daily intelligence briefings, the threat assessments and the reports from our commanders on the front lines.

(Well, I didn’t actually ‘review’ cuz, y’know, I just hate to read but Dick or that nice Addington fella told me the gist of it.)

I’ve stood in the ruins of buildings knocked down by killers

(the ones in Jew York City and the ones in Iraq, too.)

and promised the survivors I would never let them down.

(I just hope that don’t hold me to it cuz I’ve got more brush to clear down on the ranch and that thing in Afghani-whatever ain’t going so well, Condi says.)

I know the hard choices that fall solely to a president.

(And I’m batting pretty close to 1.000 on getting them all wrong but ‘Hey’ you gotta swing for the fences, right? Or why step up to the plate? (I love a good baseball metaphor, don’t you?))

John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices.

(For me, it was my close ties with the Saudi Royal family and my personal ‘hot line’ to Jesus.)

He is ready to lead this nation.

(Down the primrose path, for four more years of economic ruin for the middle- class and the poor (who ever they are, I forget…) and prob’ly a couple more cool, never-ending conflicts to show the world we’re still #1 at ‘standing tall’ and kickin’ ass!)

From the day of his commissioning,

(when he barely passed the flight training – something we have in common!)

John McCain was a respected naval officer

(whose father and grandfather were admirals, so those tars and avi-a-tors had damned well better respect him.)

who made decisions on which the lives of others depended.

(Mostly of course it was decisions like when to drop bombs on the Vietnamese peasants and the like; y’know - ‘Life and Death’.)

As an elected public servant,

(of the wonderfully generous lobbyists of Big Oil and my other buddies)

he earned the respect of colleagues in both parties

(who are also deep in the pockets of Big Oil and my other buddies)

as a man to follow when there’s a tough call to make.

(F’rinstance when he has to figure out which of his mansions he wants to spend the weekend at.)

John McCain’s life is a story of service above self.

(Or is that ‘the service of story to self’? Whatever… But the ‘official’ story of John’s life 40 years ago is the story we’re selling here so even if all the facts don’t fit, Karl says that’s no matter seeing as Americans’re such a stupid bunch.)

Forty years ago in an enemy prison camp,

(I’ll never understand why those folks took being bombed and slaughtered so personally…)

Lieutenant Commander McCain was offered release ahead of others who had been held longer.

(Cuz they thought he was some kinda royalty or something, I guess, his father being an Admiral an' all.)

His wounds were so severe that anyone would have understood if he had accepted.

(Let’s see, about that time, I was outside Houston in the Air National Guard - when I wasn’t AWOL! Heh-heh)

John refused.

(I guess that just goes to show you there IS a difference between the two of us.)

For that selfless decision, he suffered nearly five more years of beatings and isolation.

(Let’s see, yeah, I was on my way to Harvard Law School. They sure were surprised to see a ‘C’ student sitting in class! Just goes to show, ‘It ain’t what you know but WHO you know.’ So, there, Obama-jama.)

When he was released, his arms had been broken, but not his honor.

(Prob’ly best not to mention that his nickname was ‘the Songbird’; he was hurtin’, after all. Just wish some of those Al Qaeda boys in Gitmo would start singin’…)

Fellow citizens,

(Not all of you, just the rich, connected ones, okay?)

if the Hanoi Hilton

(Always flash on that crotch-shot of Paris when I say that…)

could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country,

(Like, y’know, staying alive and that sort of stuff.)

you can be sure the ‘Angry Left’ never will.

(I’ll never understand why they’re so pissed. Why don’t they like me? I’m a pretty regular guy for a spoiled rich kid who’s led the country to ruin three different ways to Sunday. But that’s mostly Dick and Donnie’s doing, y’know. And that Addington guy and Paul and, and Condi.. and….)

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mysticalmccain.htm

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/McCAIN%20RADIO%20BROADCAST%20from%20Ha%20Noi%20060269.pdf

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html?PageNr=1