Cheney’s new argument

November 21, 2005

I wish I had the patience to go through, point by point, every sentence in Dick Cheney’s speech on the war on terror today, pointing out every error of fact and judgment, but I’m afraid it’d just take too long. The Vice President has a unique ability to mislead, and today he was in rare form. (You can read the speech here and watch it here.)

There was one Cheney remark, however, that stood out for me.

“Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001 — and the terrorists hit us anyway.”

I haven’t the foggiest idea what this means. The United States was attacked by al Queda, which was sponsored by and took refuge in Afghanistan, in 2001. Two years later, we invaded Iraq, which has flourished as a center for terrorist training and recruiting, escalating the terrorist threat.

So, where is Cheney going with this? We haven’t created a hotbed for terrorism? The facts show otherwise. Sept. 11 had nothing to do with the war in Iraq? True, but that’s our argument, not his.

Usually I can cut through the rhetoric and figure out what Cheney’s talking about. Today, he’s stumped me.

He’s saying the hornet’s nest was already stirred up even before we went to Iraq…thekeez

  • I believe that no matter how many times it’s been shown that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 the Republicans (Cheney in particular) have never given up on this. Cheney has consistently used the Iraq-9/11 talking point or, it’s another example of a Republican creating his own reality.

  • I think what he’s saying is that there was hornet’s nest on our back porch that was already stirred up. So there is nothing wrong with going up to a different hornet’s nest on the front porch and taking a whack at that one. I suppose if you are unconcerned with the quantity of angry hornets then this makes sense.

    Cheney seems to believe that the only interesting questin is “Are there any angry hornets, anywhere?” If the answer is yes, then it doesn’t matter if the number is 2 hornets or a million hornets.

    I’m not saying that Cheney’s views approach what you would want a senior foreign policy decision-maker to hold. But there they are.

  • Pure up-is-downism. With a twist of maniacle obfuscation.

    Yes we weren’t in Iraq when hit on 9/11. This just proves Iraq was not an issue/cause/factor leading to 9/11. So, Dick, why are we in Iraq, then?

  • George Bush told use the truth about why we went into Iraq, and Cheney repeated it today. Saddam tried to have George the First killed in Kuwait.

    The fact that Congress and the American people would not support a war against Iraq on the basis of this attempted assasination explains why we got all these ‘stories’ of WMD.

    An Excuse is what you tell people why you do something…
    A Reason is really why you so something…

    Bush’s reason was that Saddam tried to kill GHWB,
    Cheney’s excuse was that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    We are all forgetting the period after the resolution authorizing force and before the invasion when the Inspectors were in Iraq and NOT FINDING ANYTHING. That’s when Cheney’s and Bush’s lies were the worst and most desperate. That’s when they had to escalate the beginning of the conflict before the world decided that Saddam really did not have WMD.

    Forget about Cheney’s lies and distortions of intelligence before the authorizing resolution. Focus on the Spin during the inspection period.

  • I think it’s pretty clear to even the most unobservant observer that they’re all pretty delusional, unfortunately it’s the most dangerous kind of delusional I can imagine– they’re the most powerful people in the world in addition to being manically delusional.

    They seem to believe whatever they think, willingly ignore any contradictory evidence or facts, and are willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people based on these beliefs that have little or no basis in fact. They seem to have no regrets and believe that they are always right no matter what.

  • From Cheney’s perspective this is the right argument to make: terrorists existed before we invaded Iraq and created more of them, therefore invading Iraq and creating more of them is a non-issue.

    What’s more telling, I think, is that this grand ellision is about all that Cheney and Bush have left. They blew it in Iraq on so many fronts that they’re now reduced to trying to justify Iraq not with Saddam Hussein or threats of WMD, but with the more general threat of terrorism. Which is of course the Bush administration’s great lie of omission: Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, but Cheney’s quote puts the two together again, shoring up the base of misled and misinformed Americans who thought there was some connection.

    It’s all they have left. To anyone who understands even the rudiments of the facts it seems crazy that they’re still making this same argument, but the it is crazy. And not crazy like a fox.

  • I think it’s pretty simple – he’s just looking for ways to put “Iraq” and “September, 11th” in the same sentence.

  • I’m not surprised he said this. He seems to either believe or want Americans to believe Iraq was the mastermind or at least heavily involved in 9/11. He did it during the run-up. Bush and everyone else that was sane would say not Saddam wasn’t part of 9/11 but then Cheney would go out on the TV news shows, etc and do his “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” routine.

  • I agree w/ mat1492, “Bingo.” Cheney just made our point for us. I mean this is classic. Yes, Mr. Cheney, you’re right: Iraq was minding it’s own business on 9/11, and yet you decided to invade, overthrow, and occupy to this day. Care to add any more brilliant insight? You just made our freakin’ case.

  • Ignoring the fact that the Vice-Idiot of the free world is delusional (I’m getting better at this as the days go on – i.e. no more night-sweats) this is relatively good news. They have twisted thier lies so much, adjusted the truth so often that they have just lost credibility. The best thing for Cheny and Bush to do would be to shut-up. The more they talk the lower their credibility. They used their “believe us because we are owed the benefit of the doubt” credit already. Unless they come out and show us pictures of unquestionable credibility linking Saddam to 9/11 or WMD’s in Iraq the public is going to ignore thier BS. The media is starting to catch on and if they completely turn on them they are done. Three years of Lame-Duck with a Congress in shambles. That will be Dem commercial fodder for years.

  • I’m with GMF.

    Cheney:
    “Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001 — and the terrorists hit us anyway.”

    Response:
    “Some have suggested that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. They overlook a fundamental fact: There is no evidence of cooperation between Al Qaeda and Iraq.”

  • Cheney is so far removed from reality, that I honestly wonder whether he can still separate fact from fantasy. I’m serious.

    I’m aware of the fine arts of double talk, spin and evasion. With Cheney it’s just gibberish. He’s been heading that way for a while now, too. Time was, he would climb out of his hidey hole and assert some ‘facts’ that were 2 – 3 weeks out of date. Now, it’s just nonsense.

    There never was an Iraq/al qaeda link, and everyone who has happened across a newspaper, or television set, in the last 18 months knows this as fact. But there’s Cheney, still asserting this mumbo-jumbo as if it still had even a shred of legitimacy.

    I’m telling you, Dick Cheney has lost his grip on reality. Maybe it’s his age, or his health. Whatever it is, he no longer has the mental competence to hold that office.

  • The Shrub-licans are aware their poll numbers are only 5 points higher than Nixon in Watergate. They’ll have to pull Bin Laden out of their ass to have any hope of saving their future in the next 2 elections. I say after the 2006 elections, we start thinking in terms of Impeachment.

  • I hate to bore anyone with the same message twice but Cheney’s current trailer load of horse shit seems to make this even more appropriate.

    WAKE UP AMERICA!

    We were attacked on 9/11 by Bin Laden because we have American troops
    in Saudi Arabia protecting the unpopular Saudi family that is in control over

    there. When Hussein invaded Kuwait, Bin Laden offered to drive Hussein out of

    Kuwait, but the Saudi royal family wanted the US and it’s coalition to do it.

    After the Gulf War in ’91, we left even more US troops in Saudi Arabia. We all

    know the terrrible events that followed on 9/11. We did not “take Baghdad” in the

    Gulf War because the pictures of the “Highway of Death” were making it to the TV

    screens and Bush, Sr. didn’t want the bad “press” of more pictures of dead, burned

    Iraqis trying to get away, still seated in their trucks lowering his poll numbers

    before an election. Co-cabalists Cheney and Rumsfeld having been through the

    Vietnam and Gulf War (not actually participating), felt that the Vietnam War was

    lost because the media turned against the war. This is why the media has not

    given adequate or accurate coverage of the Iraq war. Making deals with the

    administration in order to get “embedded reporters” has cost the US media

    organizations their credibility since they would only air items approved by the

    White House for a substantial part of the war.
    Bush, Sr., did encourage the Iraqis to revolt against Saddam Hussein

    immediately after the Gulf War but didn’t offer any support to them. General

    Schwartzkopf when asked by the Iraqi generals, allowed the Iraqi military to fly

    armed helicopters in areas not designated as No-Fly Zones. These helicopters were

    then used to kill up to 200,000 civilians. The ones that did revolt when Bush,

    Sr., urged them to. They were expecting some type of support from Bush, Sr. Why

    should the Iraqis trust us now? They have already tasted more American style

    democracy. Halliburton overcharged them by 200 million dollars for repairs to the

    pipelines.

    [Edited for length. 1800 words is just a little too many. Sorry, tko – CB]

  • Cheny’s Speach is a masterpiece. I’m going to print it out and post it on my wall, and then email it to everyone I know. It should be required reading.
    For those who continue to think Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaida, I suggest this link http://liberalscum.com/debunkingiraq.html

    As for the perplexity some find in this quote: “Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001 — and the terrorists hit us anyway.”- allow me to explain. What Cheny is saying that is that Islamic terrorism has had its sights set on us long before invading Iraq- and not invading Iraq wasn’t going to make us get better relations with people who view westerners as infidel scum with whom there is no desire for peace or compromise- only our death. They are going to to what they want to do in waging war against us whether we invaded or not. In fact, I’d say by going to Iraq we have given our enemies just what they foolishly desire- a chance to fight us in an all out battle- and they’re losing. They played their hand too foolheartedly in Jordan, and now that nation has come out in mass to denounce Al-Zakahri and his minions.

    As to factual errors in the speech, I cannot find any. I invite anyone to demonstrate otherwise. My only criticism is that this speech should have been made a year ago.

  • The line from the VP speech that I found most interesting was…

    “because I know the character of the United States Armed Forces ”

    As a Vietnam veteran, I find it offensive to hear Cheney say he knows about “the character of the United States Armed Forces” How can a person who avoided military service like the plague, pretend to know the first thing about the character of US military members. Any information he might have of these characteristics, would therefore be hearsay and not firsthand knowledge. As his record, of five draft deferments and a personal philosophy of having “other priorities in the 60’s than military service,” clearly indicates. None of these qualities, he speaks of, have ever manifested themselves in Richard Bruce Cheney.

  • force majure, presumably when you post a defense of Bush or Cheney on a liberal site you hope to change the minds of the liberals that visit the site. If I am right about your motivation, then I wholeheartedly recommend that you refrain from linking to sites with names such as liberalscum. You lost me up front with that.

    Now, I could be wrong about your motivation. Could you explicitly explain what you hope to achieve with your posts?

  • force majure — You are a moron if you can’t see what a hopeless mess this is and how much damage the war has done to this country. We can’t leave and we can’t stay without terrible consequences. It is the perfect fuck up and it happened because of morons like you who incredibly put these guys in power…. twice. But thanks for being a patriot.

    Could Dick Cheney be close to being one of the most corrupt, dishonest political figures in U.S. history? The more he speaks the farther my jaw drops.

  • I find Cheney’s Neocon mindset fascinating.

    Here are its fundamental errors:

    1) “They” all hate us for no reason (for our “freedoms”, remember?). So, we simply kill all of “them”, and our problem is gone. We or our actions bear no responsibility for their generalised “hate” of “infidels”. This is false, at least specifically with regard to those who attacked us on 9/11: read Bin Laden’s list of grievances from his November 2001 “Letter to America”. Some of his demands are legitimate, some are absurd, but all are quite specific. At least some of “them” hate us for very clearly reasons. But you have to ask “them” to find out.

    2) “They” are a constant quantity. This is false. Nobody counts “them” so we can’t prove exactly how much their ranks have grown since we kicked up the hornet’s nest. But Cheney’s doctrine of killing “them” presumes that their numbers may shrink. The flipside assumption– that their numbers can also grow as well as shrink– is equally self-evident. This war is growing terrorists.

    How? Killing or torturing any one of “them” creates at least one, maybe many more new ones: uncles, brothers, cousins, sons, daughters, fathers, sisters, neighbours, etc. It’s surreal to have to explain this. Affluent Americans who live in small, disconnected, suburban, “nuclear” families appear to have a really difficult time understanding it. Those who have lived in extended families or large (often rival) clans or tribes for many generations find it very obvious– and that’s precisely the hornet’s nest we’ve stepped in.

    Due to these errors in thinking, Cheney’s becomes an apocalyptic, scorched-earth strategy: because killing one will create more, you end up literally having to “kill ’em all and let god sort ’em out”.

    What sucks is how many of “us”– peaceful people on both sides– are in the crossfire.

  • Ode to Dick Halliburton:

    The hornets (lies) they are a buzzin’,
    Buzzin’ here, buzzin’ there.
    You must be gettin’ dizzy keepin’ track of them,
    Look out, you’re gettin’ stung.

    Last throes? No! In fact,
    The hornets, they are comin’ home to roost.
    The more you cast them, the more you sink.
    Under 30% and f-a-l-l-i-n-g…

  • He’s calling us “chicken”

    Cheney seems to think that the Dems are afraid that the war in Iraq might bring terrorism onto Americans, and that the fear of terrorism is what drives the anti-war forces.

    Of course the CIA itself said that our attacking Iraq would likely result in more terrorism against America, but Cheney doesn’t care about facts, he’s in campaign mode.

    I like how he mentions the Reagan administration’s retreat from Beirut without even mentioning St. Ronald’s name.

    Hey Dick…
    why did your hero Reagan cut and run in 1983?

  • By Cheney’s analysis, we could attack Costa Rica, too, right? After all, we weren’t in Costa Rica, and we were still attacked on Sept. 11, so what’s the big deal now?

    “What Cheny is saying that is that Islamic terrorism has had its sights set on us long before invading Iraq- and not invading Iraq wasn’t going to make us get better relations with people who view westerners as infidel scum with whom there is no desire for peace or compromise- only our death.”

    Who? Everybody in the entire country felt this way? You’re sure about this? We were attacked by Al-Qaeda, whose leaders were being harbored by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Virtually 99% of America supported going into Afghanistan (you can’t please everybody). Yes, people in Jordan are condemning Al-Zarqawi, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to respond by attacking Cyprus or Sicily, right?

    There’s so many holes in your argument it’s hard to know where to start, but you’re out of your gourd.

  • force majure

    “They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001 – and the terrorists hit us anyway.”

    So let’s see, fourteen of the nineteen 9/11 attackers were Saudis, 3 were of Pakistani Orgin. None were Iraqis. Following meticilous scrutiny of all available intel concerning Iraq. The administration made it’s move.

    We and the Coalition of the Willing launched an invasion of Iraq, home to exactly… none of the attackers. After this decisive action against Iraq. One can only imagine what kind of “Shock and Awe” was in store for the two nations from which 17 of the 19 terrorist had come, Saudia Arabia and Pakistan. Well, as it turns out, we didn’t shock or awe either of them ,we didn’t even rough ’em up any. What we decided was, they could be our Allies and we’d send a whole bunch of tax money to one of them. Actually we sent lots of money to the other one too, but it’ was in the form of higher crude oil prices.

    In light of recent revelations about the build up to the Iraqi Adventure. You don’t have to be “Doubting Thomas” to feel the invasion of Iraq was based more on the hard-on’ for Saddam, a number of Bush administration officals had maintained since the 1st Gulf War, Than on actual intelligence assessments.

    Kind of makes you wonder what Bush would have done, had he been in office when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Who would they have declared war on? If you were to follow the mindset they displayed concerning Iraq. The only positive answer you can arrive at, is it wouldn’t have been Japan. Because that’s the nation where most of the attackers came from.

  • Stirring up hornets’ nests and swatting flies. What with these guys and insect metaphors? Does Tom “Bugman” DeLay moonlight as a White House speech writer?

  • Dickhead Cheney is the least-liked and least-respected politician in the modern era, trusted less than Agnew even. His speeches are models of obfuscation, double-talk, and mendacity. His corruption is matchless, even by the standards of Tom DeLay. Anyone that thinks Cheney or his utterances is great has at least half a frontal lobe missing.

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