Cheney speaks (the other one)

January 23, 2007

The op-ed of the day, and in this case that’s not a complement, comes by way of former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Liz Cheney. You might be familiar with her father.

Now, Cheney’s Washington Post piece has been widely trashed. Josh Marshall says is reads like it was “written by someone in junior high.” Kevin Drum said it “sounded like…a parody of a conservative blog site circa late 2002.” Jason Zengerle labels the piece “Hannity-esque” and praises it for touching “all the wing-nutty bases…in a mere 800 words.”

Is the op-ed really that bad? I’m afraid so.

There’s no real point in pointing out every flaw in the piece — one could go line by line, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before — but there was one paragraph in particular that stood out for me.

We are fighting the war on terrorism with allies across the globe, leaders such as Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Brave activists are also standing with us, fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the empowerment of women. They risk their lives every day to defeat the forces of terrorism. They can’t win without us, and many of them won’t continue to fight if they believe we’re abandoning them. Politicians urging America to quit in Iraq should explain how we win the war on terrorism once we’ve scared all of our allies away.

It’s hard to know where to start, but my first thought it, “What allies?” Who, exactly, are we going to “scare away” if we redeploy troops from Iraq? Musharraf isn’t exactly a model ally and champion of democracy (Pakistan is alleged to be helping a resurgent Taliban), and he’s been opposed the war in Iraq from the start. Karzai would probably be thrilled if we redeployed from Iraq and started taking Afghanistan seriously again. Even Maliki wants fewer U.S. troops. Where are these “allies” who are so anxious to see us stay?

Honestly, I’ve seen some pretty incoherent right-wing blogs making better arguments than Cheney’s. Did the White House sign off on this before it made it to print? Was the Communications Department staff afraid to upset Cheney by improving his daughter’s piece?

And as long as we’re on the subject, now is probably a good time to consider how Liz Cheney became principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern in the first place. Robert Dreyfuss explained in a terrific piece a few months ago.

At the very heart of U.S. Middle East policy, from the war in Iraq to pressure for regime change in Iran and Syria to the spread of free-market democracy in the region, sits the 39-year-old daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. Elizabeth “Liz” Cheney, appointed to her post in February 2005, has a tongue-twisting title: principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs and coordinator for broader Middle East and North Africa initiatives. By all accounts, it is an enormously powerful post, and one for which she is uniquely unqualified.

During the past 15 months, Elizabeth Cheney has met with and bolstered a gaggle of Syrian exiles, often in tandem with John Hannah and David Wurmser, top officials in the Office of the Vice President (OVP); has pressed hard for money to accelerate the administration’s ever more overt campaign for forced regime change in both Damascus and Teheran; and has overseen an increasingly discredited push for American-inspired democratic reform from Morocco to Iran. With the unspoken support of her father, Cheney has kept a hawk’s eye on Iraq policy within the department, intimidating opponents of the neoconservative axis within the administration. And, less visibly, according to former officials who’ve worked with her, she has made her influence felt in choosing officials, selecting (or blocking) the appointment of ambassadors and other foreign service officers, and weighing in on other bureaucratic battles at the department.

Now, according to the Financial Times of London, Cheney is coordinating the work of a new entity called the Iran-Syria Operations Group. The unit was established “to plot a more aggressive democracy promotion strategy for those two ‘rogue’ states,” reported the Times. In February, the State Department announced that Cheney would oversee a $5 million program to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria,” providing grants of up to $1 million each to Syrian dissidents. And in the current fiscal year, she will oversee a similar, $7 million regime-change grant program for Iran, though funding for that effort is expected to grow to at least $85 million soon, to include both a propaganda program and support to Iranian opposition groups.

Marina Ottaway, senior associate and co-director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, worked with Liz Cheney on democratic reform issues and quickly discovered she knew “very little about the Middle East.” Ottaway explained, “She had a mandate to do democracy promotion, but she had very little familiarity with the subject…. They deliberately picked a person who was not a Middle East specialist, so that the conventional wisdom, well, let me rephrase, so that real, actual knowledge of the issues in the region wouldn’t interfere with policy.”

Alas, Cheney’s “real, actual knowledge” hasn’t improved since.

…Brave activists are also standing with us, fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the empowerment of women…

Saddam’s regime allowed women and Christians to hold positions of power. Has Cheney checked lately on the status of women’s issues in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I guess that’s another success that hasn’t happened yet.

  • Well, the apple didn’t fall far from that tree. An attempt to tell America to go f*ck itself in about 800 words rather than three.

    I liked the loopy reference to “an existential threat.” I thought Satre was already dead, though she wouldn’t be the first person from the right wanting to dig up an enemy and shoot them again. But she may have been refering to Camus, who’s really not an existentialist, but he did write a book about shooting an Arab. Maybe that’s what she meant.

    Of course, if she had done a competent job of being principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs and coordinator for broader Middle East and North Africa initiatives, maybe we all wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

  • The solution to Iraq is really very simple. Ask yourself this: Who is benefitting from our presence there? Not the United States, not the Iraqis, not our ‘allies’… so who? The private contractors are! The Iraq war is the mother of all cash cows for parties of interest. So, how do you stop it? Create a committe or independent investigative commission to investigate war profiteering charges. Put a stop to the unending cash flow that is winding up in Bu$h, Cheney, and their business partners pockets, and I’ll bet a million we’ll be out of Iraq in 6 months. As for Cheney’s ridiculous article, the only people her argument will convince are the same people who think Bu$h talks to God. We need to get these neoconservative fascist republican swine where it hurts them the most… their wallets. Again: WAR PROFITEERING COMMISSION! Stop the easy money, and we’ll stop this war, not to mention the other benefits would be that the architects of this shameful debacle would get what they deserve… prison.

  • Hark! Behold what poisonous fruit fell not far from the evil tree…

    The only thing left for Liz to do is shoot someone in the face, and the circle of life will be complete.

  • I really really really want Hillary to be President. My motives may not be pure, but she is the only true response to these wingnuts.

  • Dizzy Lizzy Sez: “Politicians urging America to quit in Iraq should explain how we win the war on terrorism once we’ve scared all of our allies away.”

    To paraphrase a Canadian TV character: “You know, she grew up as a little shit-spark from the old shit-flint. And then she turned into a shit-bonfire and then driven by the winds of her monumental ignorance, she turned into a raging shit-firestorm.”

    Flipped thru a few pages of comments. It seemed to me that there was about a 5:1 ratio of Negative STFU to positive Go Girl ones.

  • Can we waive DADT, give her a gun and send her DRAFT AGE ELIGIBLE ass over to Iraq to help our “allies”

    can we please…..

  • Cheney should resign or be fired!

    It is clear Vice President Cheney attack a CIA operative for political reasons and tried to cover it up. Libby own defense points toward Cheney and Rove using a Public office power to intimidate and harm of a CIA operative. Vice President Cheney is unfit to serve our Country. If President Bush refuses to force the resignation, than Congress should impeach the Vice President for his unpatriotic behavior. The office is bigger than any party. What do you think?

    MSNBC-WASHINGTON – Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald used his opening statement in the CIA leak trial Tuesday to allege that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff lied about Cheney’s early involvement in the disclosure of a spy’s identity.

    Fitzgerald said Cheney told his chief of staff, “Scooter” Libby, in 2003 that the wife of Iraq critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA, and that Libby spread that information to reporters. When that information got out, it triggered a federal investigation.

    “But when the FBI and grand jury asked about what the defendant did,” Fitzgerald said, “he made up a story.” Fitzgerald alleged that Libby in September 2003 “wiped out” a Cheney note just before Libby’s first FBI interview when he said he learned about Wilson and his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, from reporters, not the vice president.

    Defense: Libby was sacrificed

    In their opening statements, Libby’s attorneys Theodore Wells said Bush administration officials tried to blame him for the leak to cover up for presidential adviser Karl Rove’s own disclosures

    “They’re trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Wells said, recalling the alleged conversation between Libby and Cheney. “I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.”

  • Thank you, Rick, for suggesting we go check out the POST comments section on Cheney’s piece. The comments began at midnight, and haven’t stopped since. There are 65 pages of them now!!

  • Oh my goodness … The next person I read who claims that blogs are written poorly will be referred to Liz Cheney’s op-ed, and then to this place.

    I’ve seen fourth grade “What I Got For Christmas” essays that were more thought out than that tripe. Guess it just goes to show that it’s not what you know, it’s who you were born to …

  • If she said this instead of wrote it I bet her little speech would be littered with squawks and “Lizziewannacracker!” Like so:

    Brave activists are also standing with us, fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the empowerment of women. [Squaaawk!]

    First of all, this proves she knows zip about the situation in Iraq, Pakistan or Afghanistan. Secondly, Iraqi officials pitched a fit because a recent UN report chided the country for the way it treats homosexuals.

    They risk their lives every day to defeat the forces of terrorism. [whistle!]

    Yes, because the refugee program is as FUBAR as everything else the ReThugs touch so their choices are fight or die. In addition, another of Dumbya’s appointees thinks the best way to help refugees is to make the country they’re trying to flee all better (more war) rather than remove them from the situation.

    …and many of them won’t continue to fight if they believe we’re abandoning them. [Wraaaawk!]

    You mean like using them as translators and then not helping them escape the country and leaving them to the tender mercies of the bastards with power tools?

    I wonder if this is a set up. It is so blisteringly stupid that a Democratic Congress person might be tempted to comment on it. The ReThugs might then turn around and say: Oh look how mean so and so was to poor little Lizziekins! Sure is fun to hammer her in the WP’s comments section though.

  • I never knew assholeness was a gene you could pass on to your children.

    “Read the plans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman Zawahiri to drive America from Iraq, establish a base for al-Qaeda and spread jihad across the Middle East. The terrorists are counting on us to lose our will and retreat under pressure. We’re in danger of proving them right.”

    Well, let’s see. More troops in Iraq, where al Qaeda’s leadership isn’t located, means less troops in Afghanistan, where the leadership is located. Not to mention less resources hunting down bin Laden, less money for the Mayor of Kabul, less economic development for Afghanistan, and more time for the resurging Taliban to re-establish themselves.
    This might sound crazy, but maybe, just maybe, al Qaeda’s leaders say stuff like “we’re going to establish an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq” because they know Bush/Cheney will then use that to keep a big chunk of American forces there. They then can run hilly-nilly all over south-central Asia without a worry in the world.

    It kind of reminds me of this little ruse the Allies pulled in WWII called Operation Fortitude ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude ).

    Like I said, call me crazy.

  • “I liked the loopy reference to “an existential threat.” – petorado

    I suspect she thinks that an ‘existential threat’ is simply a ‘threat the exists’ and wants to sound like she’s really smart instead of totally retarded. She wouldn’t know Camus or Sartre if they rose from the dead and chased her around her office.

    So are there any *other* Cheney spawn out there destroying the world as we know it, or is she pretty much the last one?

    I’m going to read the comments now. Sounds like fun!

  • Thanks for the comments tip. 71 pages, running about 10 to 1 against (got to ignore the re-posted comments), with some funny stuff in there.
    I have not laughed this way at work for a long time.

  • Yes, the crazies are in charge of the mad house (WH). As of late, I am finding the doings of this Administration a bit like the lyrics of Zappa’s Billy the Mountain. Yes, things are just that crazy right now! -Kevo

  • It’s even worse. Since Liz Cheney was given that role (she is on maternity leave) the ISOG has been expanded, morphed into a White House operation, modeled after the Iraq group and filled with hawks and members of the OSP.

  • I suppose this is dime-novel stuff, but any chance that she was set up–that the person who greenlighted the piece knew it would make her look like an idiot?

  • I began laughing when I read the gratuitous, off-topic, nonsensical ,and, apparently, required reference to Hillary. Up to that point I was kinda trying to READ the article, as though it were literate.

  • Musharraf isn’t exactly a model ally

    I hate to nitpick, because Liz’s op-ed is really terrible, but Musharraf is seriously between a rock and a hard place. He can’t trust Pakistan intelligence services or much of the army, and the impacts of yet another coup in Pakistan are almost unthinkable.

    US politicians and pundits of all stripes seem intent on humiliating him for “credibility” on national security, yet he’s put his life on the line since Sept. 11 and has received almost nothing in return. I’d say we’re the bad allies in this case.

  • I really wish that this administration spent one-tenth the time on the actual planning and execution of their foreign policy as they spend trying to silence or intimidate the critics of their planning and execution. If they did, such critics might not even exist…and so typical of Cheneyland to be all theory and no reality, all talk and no action. Go out and do the things that you say you want to and you’ll shut your critics up! What do you care if Clinton disagrees with you? All the better to prove her wrong, right?

    Or, is it possible that this is just covering ass for when the bold new strategy of “exactly the same, but more so” fails? Her op-ed is the embittered visionary syndrome at its height – the beautiful idea would have worked if it weren’t for all the other people.

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