Today’s dedication of the Bush Presidential library in Texas, has the media asking what his legacy will be, once again. For a figure of such global impact as an American President, there is no simple answer — especially where wars that have destroyed the lives of millions are concerned. But in the great U.S. of A. we shouldn’t have to think too long on it.
He didn’t.
OR, if you prefer…
Topless Femen activists protest against Islamists in front of the Great Mosque of Paris, on April 3, 2013.
-> The Atlantic.
Cheney, Bush appear in deeply ironic photo before the National Security Agency, which they used as a cover to engage in a war of choice in Iraq.
Highlights:
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
“I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans….
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage…..
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
China joined the US in a unanimous vote by the 15 member UN Security Council to approve hard new sanctions on North Korea. The rebel state, clinging on above the 38th parallel to it’s guns and religion framed portraits of Kim Jong family members, responded with red-faced vitriol, well beyond the usual militant threats.
“If the enemy comes at us with a dagger,” an editorial read in its state-run propaganda outlet, “we’ll draw out a big sword to slice him in pieces, if he comes with a rifle we’ll turn a big gun to blow him off….”
If that wasn’t quite enough, the petulant state continued, “and if he threatens with nuke, we’ll face up to him with more powerful and accurate nuke strike means of our own.”
This kind of shoddy misquoting is just the sort of thing that has daddy Jong Il, self styled film critic, rolling around in his grave. If Pyongyang really wanted to threaten us they should have said:
“If they pull a knife, we’ll pull a gun. They send us sanctions, we’ll send them more vapid video of Dennis Rodman’s trip!”
Few things are worse than that guy staying in the news cycle.
[WP]
Poor Lindsey, separated by a Schumer-width from his one true love, pretends to find something interesting on the ceiling while the President speaks about new initiatives to move the country into a new era of wind and solar energy policy.
This weekend, the coward Dick Cheney assembled the Wyoming Republican Party and complained about Obama’s national security picks — namely the newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry, and the as-yet-unconfirmed nominees, John Brennan and Chuck Hagel.
“Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people,” Cheney croaked.
Nothing surprising about his criticism, but let’s unpack Ol’ Blood Eye’s comment, specifically this term “second-rate” he uses to describe Obama’s national security team. The term originated from the six-tier rating system in use by the Royal Navy in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries to describe classifications of battle ships.
In this parlance, a second rate is a huge ship of war, displacing around 2000 tons, home to more than 700 men, and carrying more cannon than some nation’s entire armies. Cheney was of course, using the term in its modern sense (lesser quality, inferior), but since Dick raised the issue, another classification comes to mind:
fifth rate.
A fifth rate load of bilgewater, who begged for five draft deferments during the 60′s and 70′s and then complains about other public servant’s credentials. While Hagel and Kerry were actually seeing action in service of the country, building a resume to be leaders of national security, Cheney was… what was he doing? Oh yes, shitting himself at Yale as a fifth rate student.
Meanwhile Cheney’s stellar team included wildly discredited, Late Night fodder, like Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and the infamous Scooter Libby who fell on his sword for his boss — remember when Libby committed the treasonous act of outing CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband’s adherence to the truth about Nigerian yellow cakes, he was acting as Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States — which sadly, was Dick Cheney.
