http://www.buzzflash.com/…

Submitted by mark karlin on Tue, 08/12/2008 - 9:14am.
EditorBlog

Editor and Publisher
August 12, 2008

Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and John McCain keep speaking of “victory” in Iraq without defining what that elusive goal might be. That’s because “victory” for them is reduced to the bragging rights of boasting, “I won, you lost.”

But since the War on Iraq allegedly began as part of the amorphous “war on terror,” it would be hard put to understand under what circumstances the “victory culture” crowd that believes war is a football game might, indeed, claim victory.

After all, who are they claiming “victory” over? After nearly seven years, Osama bin Laden is still allegedly at large and the anthrax terrorist case has been closed abruptly by the FBI, but still by most accounts –- including the corporate mainstream press –- it is not resolved.

In fact, if there were any prima facie proof that Cheney, Bush and McCain are more representative of the “loser” culture than the “victory” culture, it is that a ragtag movement of Islamic zealots –- and their leader -– are still not vanquished after a “war” lasting longer than WW II. And the anthrax case remained officially open for years and years, even though the toxin involved was produced in a U.S. military research lab, with funds paid for by the American taxpayer, and carried out almost unquestionably by an American or a group of Americans.

If it takes seven years to find out who launched a domestic bio-germ attack while under the employment of the U.S. government, you’ve got to wonder what Osama is thinking in his bat cave in Pakistan. He’s thinking, “I don’t have to do any more terrorist attacks, because the American leadership is achieving my goals of destroying America through endless war, economic collapse, and the arrogance of empire.”

No, Barack Obama is not as John McCain accuses, someone who undercuts “victory” in Iraq. Cheney and Bush set our loss in motion when they decided to overthrow Saddam at the first Bush cabinet meeting, according to former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, long before 9/11.

9/11 was the excuse for invading Iraq in order to ensure American hegemony over the Iraqi oil fields. The petroleum reserves -– not Iran’s emerging nuclear capabilities -– are the same reason Cheney and his crew are now, according to Seymour Hersh, brainstorming “false flag” operations -– among other provocations -– to spark a war with Iran.

In fact, the “great game” now is being extended to Georgia, which is key to transporting gas without having to go through Iraq or Iran. The savage air and ground attack on Georgia is a Russian chess counter move in the race for controlling access to oil.

And that brings us back to the anthrax terrorist attacks in the U.S. and the prime suspect for authorizing them: Dick Cheney.

We recently detailed the evidence that indicates that Cheney wouldn’t have any compunction about American “collateral damage” that would result from a domestic anthrax attack, if it would assist in building the case for war with Iraq and passing legislation (”The Patriot Act”) which would give the Executive Branch (largely overseen by Cheney) extraordinary spying and secretive powers.

I recently wrote a satirical entry in “Cheney’s Daily Diary,” which I don’t think is that far from the truth. Cheney has probably convinced himself that greed, prosperity theology, and control of Middle Eastern oil fields benefit both corporate fat cats and the average American.

From the late ‘90s push by PNAC to invade Iraq, to the beginning of the Bush Administration, through Cheney’s secret energy task force, Cheney had his eyes on the prize. “Look,” perhaps Dick thinks, “You want to keep living well compared to the rest of the world? Well, we consume nearly a quarter of the world’s petroleum but are just a small percentage of population. So, you may not want to know how I do it or what I do, but I’m going to grab that oil. It may not be pretty, and there will be collateral damage, but only the wusses on Capitol Hill and the whining liberals care about that. This is a tough world, and you got to do what needs to be done if you want to keep living high off the hog. So, you keep on doing what you’re doing; I’ll handle the German shepherds and the renditions and the torture and the wars and the anthrax, because I’m not going to let any obstructionists or weak-kneed legislators get in my way. This is what’s best for America. I know, and I’ll operate the way I do it best: in secrecy and in the shadows.”

You can’t simplify American history, and our notion of “American exceptionalism” has taken on many forms, including its re-emergence that we are a divinely inspired Christian nation, a chosen people, if you will. If you believe this, then you believe you are born “better” than those in the rest of the world simply by coming into this earth on American soil.

You can be any drunken rowdy at John McCain’s recent pit stop, the Miss Buffalo Chip Contest (where contestants often were reportedly inebriate and topless), wave the Confederate Flag (how one thinks that glorifying the loser in a civil war makes one more American is one of those baffling conundrums), and root for “victory” in Iraq because no one “beats” Americans -– and this is what passes for American exceptionalism in 2008.

We don’t have to earn being a great nation anymore as we did in WW II when we beat back the forces of fascism and Nazism. We are just great because Cheney, Bush and McCain declare that we are. Deeds don’t matter nowadays — just beating our breasts and singing “The Star Spangled Banner” at jumbo sized arenas during fall football.

It was reported not long ago that Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the WH crew micromanaged the torture of some alleged “top” Al Qaeda leaders in a meeting room in the basement of the White House. This is not efficient; this is not civilized; it is macabre, sadistic and hardly the expertise of the White House. (Although Bush –- who was not in attendance, but is alleged to have watched a taped torture session -– is more sadistic than Cheney. Bush is a walking psychological wound; for Cheney, torture and death are just the means to an end.)

And we know among the too numerous to list deceptions and lies that Cheney fostered, he kept insisting that Saddam and Osama were working together before 9/11 long after even Bush had disavowed that notion. And let’s not forget Libby, Plamegate, Feith and the forged Niger documents, or the recent revelations of deception and lies in the latest Suskind book. In fact, once one starts to detail the Cheney illegal behavior, it becomes a list so long that it is numbing.

There are many detailed analyses now of why Bruce Ivins may not be the domestic anthrax terrorist, or why, if he was, he probably did not act without a wink and a nod from above -– perhaps as a result of a “cream colored piece of stationery from the White House” sent to Donald Rumsfeld, who was then Secretary of Defense and was ultimately responsible for the anthrax work at Fort Detrick.

Cheney, although a former congressman, has a legendary contempt for that legislative body. Ever since he and Rumsfeld became proponents of the imperial presidency under Nixon, Cheney has had a view of the executive branch more tsarist than democratic. He believes that “collateral damage” is necessary for the greater good of a plutocracy that exists by manipulating the structure of democracy through false information, propaganda, and lies. Cheney ultimately believes that democracy is unwieldy and ineffective in achieving global and corporate goals.

Given all this context, all these details of betrayal, all this indifference to “collateral damage,” all this obsession with secrecy, all this focus on U.S. hegemony over Middle Eastern oil fields, all the dead that have resulted from White House decisions beginning with 9/11, given the failure of the Bush/Cheney administration to do anything to try and stop Al Qaeda hijackings even when warned of them, given the preoccupation with torture by Cheney and Bush, given the unrelenting determination to rule by executive decree …

Given all this -– and more –- why would anyone doubt that after years of a seemingly bungled investigation into the anthrax attacks undertaken by a party or parties working for the U.S. Department of Defense, why would anyone doubt that Dick Cheney is prime suspect number one in authorizing the attacks?

Remember this, in the beginning we were told it was only a few bad apples who committed torture at Abu Ghraib, only to later find out the fact that torture was authorized from Bush on down.

Think about that, and then ask yourself, is it really outrageous to think that Dick Cheney authorized the anthrax attacks?

Or is it just common sense?