SECRETARY OF PEACE?

WE BETTER START NOW
Cheney in Charge of Anything?

I’ve recently been made aware of a number of documents that reflect the thinking of our current VP Cheney. That is to say, they reflect his thinking as far back as 1991, when he was in a very dangerous job, United States Secretary of Defense.

Everyone reading this knows Cheney is the leading Chicken Hawk of all time. He was petrified with fear when he was at the age to go to war, in Vietnam. It is said he got five deferments from service. Later, when much too old and asked about it, his arrogant answer was “…I had other priorities.” So we have a man who is actually a heartbeat away from the Presidency, who apparently loves the idea of war (war, removed from its euphemistic status, translates as the killing of human beings). Chicken Hawk translates as “…One who is so cowardly he won’t fight wars, but is in love with the idea, as long as others do the fighting, killing, and especially dying.”

Here was his dictum in 1992:

“The United States should use its power to prevent the reemergence of a new rival, either on former Soviet territory or elsewhere” declared a controversial draft of the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) prepared by then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney's Pentagon and leaked to The New York Times in March 1992.

The word power is focused in that sentence because Mr. Cheney did NOT mean persuasive power, or debate power, or even money. He meant military action. He meant bombing others. Strafing. Torpedoes at sea. Incendiary bombing of towns and individuals. Killing people.

Declassified now on the National Security Archive Web site, this draft shows how defense officials during the administration of GHW Bush, directed by Lewis Libby (then working under Cheney as Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Resources) tried to develop a strategy for maintaining U.S. preponderance in the new post-Cold War, post-Soviet era

Take a look at how complete these armchair warriors were in their planning: While they cooked up this “…Bomb ‘em first, before they react, to show ‘em who’s the big dog” strategy, they raised a ton of strategic thinking and other questions worth exploring – with my notes in brackets:

the role of independent or unilateral action (Iraq 2003- ELEVEN years before they did)
the relationship between military and political power (Neocons blur the two now)
the extent to which superpower status confers diplomatic influence. (Outrageous)

This last one is the prime example definition of bullyism.

BULLIES - the perfect description for Cheney and his ilk at that time. They never considered anything other than force to settle any issue. And if I’m reading their words correctly, if they didn’t have an issue at hand, it shouldn’t be too hard to make one. Look how well it worked in Iraq.

This scurrilous document was approved by JCS Chairman General Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz, another notable Chicken Hawk. Proposing this stuff right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this crowd of Republicans wanted to preserve the unique position of American Military power that had emerged.

The gist of the whole thing was Chicken Hawk Cheney’s requirements for Military supremacy. Never mind that 50 years of cold war had just ended. World War II had been heinous in nature. War in Korea was a big flop, as was Vietnam, a bigger one. Cheney wanted to keep America a big Military threat to all comers.

Wonder why he never thought of PEACE as a national objective? As you think of these facts and these documents, mentally compare Cheney with Barack Obama. Cheney comes off as a loud midget, much like those little dogs who yap incessantly.

Some of their main points were, taken directly from the DPG, show just how serious their thinking was on this concept of the United States throwing its military might around.

▪ Pursue the "military-technological revolution" to preserve its superiority in the latest weapons systems (e.g., smart munitions)

▪ Sustain the "forward" presence of U.S. ground, air, and naval forces in strategically important areas, and to provide a capability to respond to crises affecting significant interests, such as access to markets and energy supplies. (Energy? Of course.)

▪ Preserve a smaller but diverse "mix" of survivable nuclear forces to support a global role, validate security guarantees, and deter Russian nuclear forces

▪ Field a missile defense system as a shield against accidental missile launches or limited missile strikes by "international outlaws"

▪ Maintain a capability to reconstitute military forces

And other martial activities. In particular, the documents of the DPG show (in particular Documents 6a and 6b) that “he was closely involved in overseeing the process, and that Wolfowitz and Libby were careful to ensure that the language, such as on unilateral options, reflected his preferences.”

This is the mind of our current Vice President. His emphasis on eliminating any rivals before they become rivals certainly acts as a template, a design, for the Doctrine of hubris employed by the mentally challenged younger Bush in Iraq now, and if he has his way, in Iran tomorrow.

One can draw his own conclusions, or distinctions, between individuals, but does it occur to any reader besides me, that these descriptions of Cheney’s thinking, as shown in these critical documents, and as carried out by younger Bush, sound an awful lot like John McCain? Might John McCain act and think the same way, if he somehow got the power to implement more of this? I for one, amateur pollster that I am, don’t think that eventuality has the chance of a snowball in hell. I hope I’m right.

Faithfully, in the interest of the American people