The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died aged 84, was one of the most influential holders of that office in American history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney held a huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the “real president”.
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Dick Cheney, the great Darth Vader of the Republic Party is dead and the world is a better place for his death.
Caitlin Johnston, the Australian blogger who is viciously critical of western foreign policy puts it best…
Cheney Should Have Died Alone In A Cage
Dick Cheney, arguably the single government official most responsible for the expansion of US warmongering and militarism in the 21st century, has died.Â
The worst worst war sluts of the US empire have issued statements expressing their condolences, including Democrats like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. Because if there’s one thing that can bring Democrats and Republicans together, it’s war crimes and the slaughter of millions of middle easterners.
Dick Cheney died far too old and far too free. The fact that such monsters get to pass away in their eighties surrounded by loved ones instead of alone in a cage is an indictment of our entire civilization.
In a truly sane society, Richard Bruce Cheney would have lived a life of relative obscurity, working as a gardener or something without ever getting anywhere close to power. In a fairly sane society, people would have realized what a monster Cheney was before he could do any major harm in Washington, and he would have been driven out of any town he tried to enter. In a slightly sane society, he would have been punished for the rape of Iraq and lived out the rest of his life in a cell in The Hague.
But we do not live in a truly sane society, or in a fairly sane society, or even in a slightly sane society. We live in the sort of society that lets a man unleash a chain of events which kills millions and displaces tens of millions causing more human suffering than the mind can possibly comprehend, and then live out the rest of his life in comfort and privilege, with zero consequences of any kind.
…Caitlin is right, Cheney was a war criminal. No one manipulated the tragedy of 9/11 to justify invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 quite like Dick.
The move, ‘Vice‘, is perhaps the best examination of Cheney, he was a young Republican captured by the most extreme elements of the Party and believed that a President was above the law.
His push for legalised torture, extreme military violence and illegal invasions all based on the belief that the President could do anything in the name of Amerika laid the ground work for the hyper militarised American Executive and the acute authoritarian thresholds we see Trump adopting all had their genesis with Cheney.
Where Nixon pushed boundaries, Cheney shattered them and his legacy is the one that Trump now embodies in its most bloated and deformed representation.
That Cheney freaked out in later life at how the conventions he broke were being manifested by someone as unhinged as Trump is telling.
Cheney believed he gained total power for a wartime President, what he actually created was the blueprints of American fascism.
There are not many people whose death leaves us a better place, Dick Cheney is absolutely one of them.
He distorted the legal constraints upon the Presidency for a ‘greater good’, that was neither great nor good.
Cheney does not deserve to rest in peace for the carnage, torture and murder he unleashed upon the world.
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Didn’t Christian Bale shout out Satin when thanking the influences to his portrayal of Cheney in VICE?
Here’s Cheney in 1994 explaining why they didn’t take down Saddam during Desert Storm. Pity nobody ever asked him to explain the 180’s on these very good points. Mind you, at the time these reasons were dismissed as apologetics, but then used by critics of the Iraq War in 2003. Nobody has ever asked how those 180’s happened either.