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It was barely over two weeks since Obama’s vaunted “re-set” of U.S. foreign policy before the neocons lashed out again, this time through a Cheney & Daughter Duo fighting “to restore American, strength, power and influence around the world.”
In an amateurishly designed web page with a badly photo-shopped image of the Stars and Bars, Cheney and Daughter decried the “reverses” to American power and prestige under the fumbling the Obama administration,
"We stand at a critical moment in the life of our nation. The policies of the last six years have left America diminished and weakened. Our enemies no longer fear us. Our allies no longer trust us. .... Threats to America’s security are on the rise."The Alliance for a Strong Amurka will, they said,
"advocate for the policies needed to restore American power and pre-eminence;
"explain the indispensable role America and American power must play in the world in order to defeat the broad array of threats we face today; and
"fight to restore the strength of America's military -- the greatest fighting force and the greatest force for good the world has ever known... "
We tried to find out who the culprits of this political sleaze were, but “Home,” “About Us” and “About the Cheneys” produced nothing more than that Cheney and Daughter put this 501(k) project together themselves.
Well..... one can’t get more freedumb luvin and ‘murkan than a father and daughter raising their voices to do what they think is best for our beloved, god-blessed, land.
But Cheney never does anything alone. He is a focal point for a vortex of interests. So we clicked away, and sure enough under the “news” section of the home-made blog found a list of “resources”
Sooo... it was the same ol’ same ol’ crowd with the same ol’ same ol’ names. Looking into the links [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] was like looking into a basket — not of vipers — but of slimy, repulsive, poisonous creep crawly things.
We have no compunction in saying that these people are an infection.
We have said recently and before that the difference between a neocon and a (neo)liberal is primarily one of tone, and the Strong Murka page bears us out.
There is no difference between Liz Cheney crowing that "America is the exceptional nation" and Obama’s declaration at West Point that “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.”
Nor is there any real difference between talking about the indispensible role America must play in the world in order to defeat the broad array of threats we face (Cheney) and talking about the the right to use force “unilaterally if necessary, ... when our people are threatened; when our livelihood is at stake; or when the security of our allies is in danger." (Obama) They are both assertions of top dog status which trumpet the necessity of extending American power and preeminence throughout the world. Both statements are fundamentally exceptionalist.
The difference between the two camps remains what it has always been since the days of George F. Kennan: degree of swagger. Obama would prefer to work through established institutions, quietly, covertly and on the cheap, Cheney et al. want to go for broke and bomb every “potential threat” into oblivion.
The chief difference between Obama and the neocons is not so much over policy as it is over profits. Cheney is remarkably candid when he says that his goal is to “fight to restore the strength of America's military...”
Surely he is not advocating more pushup in training! No, what Cheney means is that he wants to shovel more trillions into the maw of the defense industry. It was not big oil that was pushing the New American Century agenda but rather Raytheon (which funded the PNAC). The footprints of the sleaze involved in these “projects” lead back either to AIPAC or to the defense-establishment and industry.
The two interests dovetail over rubblizing. The more the Middle East is bombed into oblivion the more profit defense industries make and the more secure Israel feels. This much was explicitly stated in the Neocon letter to President Clinton of 26 January 1998, in which the noncom crowd urged the “removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”
The letter went on to say that it was uncertain whether Iraq currently possessed weapons of mass destruction but “[s]uch uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East.”
Thus, “[t]he only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action....”
The letter concluded by urging Clinton to “act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country.”
Who would be “threatened” by the uncertain “possibility” that Iraq might have weapons of mass destruction? Certainly not the American “homeland.” When it is said that the threat is against “the U.S. or its allies” what was actually meant was Israel, which was and is the only entity which might with some degree of plausible possibility be affected.
It was a match made in hell. The defense industries would get trillions in full spectrum capacitation and deployment and Israel gets a no-man's land of rubble between itself and (what is left) of the “rest” of the Arab world.
Neither Clinton or Obama have deviated from the fundamental premises at issue. They simply want to accomplish the objectives by going for less broke. Cheney and the Neocons, invited the United States to shoot for the moon in what amounts to a colossal political whack job.
Which brings us to what really fascinates us about the Cheney & Daughter Duo. It ought to be a point of fatal derision that Cheney (who moves nowhere without doctors and oxygen tanks in tow) stands before a backdrop of High Ponderosa, looking like none other than The Big HOSS,
On would think that such mongering would be laughed to scorn. But not in this exceptional land of ours. The baffling and frightening thing about ‘uhmurka” is that this sort of insanity works. Plain talkin’ country folk talkin’ plainly about our National Impotence and Inadequacy.
We are left “diminished and weakened” ... in danger of not keeping it up... Obama has put on the “path of decline” ... We need to be hard and to project our power ... For Iran is marching! Obama has kept us in the dark as to “the true nature of the threat we face” For there is no doubt that there are dark dangers lurking in the murky corners of our bedroom. How do we know this? Because the corners would not be dark if they weren’t hiding something.A person who spoke this way would be certified as insane. Bombast and belligerence are nothing uniquely American and at least half the country is sick of the wages of war. At the same time, far too many Americans are susceptible to a toxic brew of self-doubting self-righteousness coupled with the fearful certitude of lurking, unseen dangers ready to devour us in an instant unless we strike out against them in God's Name. Hoss would have wanted it.
©wcg, 2014
