The Cheney Legacy

For some time now, people have been wondering how the historical Presidential legacy of George W. Bush will read. That it will be terrible, is now almost universal in consensus. I'm now thinking how the legacy of the most authoritarian, abusive of power, secretive, Vice President in U.S. history should read also. I will never understand how so many questionable actions of Bush/Cheney went unchallenged for so long. I will never understand how the legality of so many of their actions weren't challenged by Congress, or in the courts, much sooner.

During the run up to the Iraq invasion, our nation and our news people must have been asleep or under the spell of post 9-11 induced opportunistic Patriotism. VP Cheney and his office were perhaps the biggest offenders in the cherry picking and manipulation of pre war intelligence, the exaggerated claims of dire threats, and the main authors of why Iraq posed such an imminent threat to the U.S. that a preemptive invasion was necessary for our National Security.

The sixteen words of yellow cake uranium from Niger, the bogus threat of the consequences coming back to us in the form of a mushroom cloud, and other phony exaggerated threats, were for the most part drafted by the VP and his office. In the end Bush/Cheney sold it to Congress and the American people and got their permission slip for the unnecessary invasion. Which brought nothing but death and destruction to a nation and people who had nothing to do with 9-11, and who never posed any real threat to the U.S.

Once the invasion started, VP Cheney then awarded hundreds of billions of dollars in no bid contracts to his old company (Halliburton) and its subsidiary Company KBR only. Talk about a vested interest in wanting to start the unnecessary war! Talk about a conflict of interest! Yet Congress, and sadly a good portion of the American public, didn't question this all very much. I still have a hard time wondering how this was legal. Five and a half years later we now see how it's cost us as a nation dearly. In troop deaths, in a record deficit, in a badly damaged image around the World....

If you examine the worst offenses of this Bush/Cheney administration ( exaggerated threats in the run up to the Iraq invasion ,Torture policies, Guantanamo Bay, exposure of an undercover CIA agents identity, NSA warrant less spying program, Military Commissions act, Patriot Act.... )they seem to have a common thread. Follow the trail back and they all lead to the same place. VP Cheney and his office. The man is a War Criminal, War Profiteer....yet received 5 different deferments during the Viet Nam War, when it was his turn to step up to the plate and serve his Country. A draft dodger, and perhaps the loudest voice in favor of sending yours and my kids, grand kids... off for a third, fourth... tour of duty in his unnecessary Iraq oil War.

On JFK's Inauguration in Jan. 1961, outgoing Pres Eisenhower gave a final speech. He warned us of a possible coming threat to the U.S. He called that threat "The Military Industrial Complex" When our Military and Corporate Giants march America, hand in hand, into an unnecessary War for Big Business and Corporate Profits. Sadly, 42 yr later Eisenhower's warning became fulfilled prophecy with the 2003 unnecessary invasion of Iraq.

Sometimes I think I know why the Republicans at the top picked Bush back in 2000 to be their Presidential nominee. They needed someone who's bulb was dim enough to wake up every morning, look himself in the mirror, and say "I'm the President Of The United States". Also someone dumb enough to never figure it out that he isn't the one really calling the shots. Our real "shadow President" Darth Cheney called the shots, and got everything he wanted! Including hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money siphoned from the U.S. Treasury and into the coffers of his old Company!

Jeff Morris-Saugerties, N.Y.- DeJaVu57

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future