Neocons appear to actually be emboldened by their failures, using disasters they have wrought as excuses to double-down on faulty analysis, bad advice, a twisted worldview.
What happened as the great Iraq liberation, the glorious mythology of the 2007 “surge,” the brilliance of the counter-insurgency doctrine all turned to dust as ISIS vehicles screamed through the desert toward Baghdad last month? On channel after television channel, the featured “experts” were again those same neocons who were so disastrously wrong in the first place.
There was Charles Krauthamer, smugly blaming Obama for the failure of his cherished war. There were the Kagans, shameless promoters of war and shameless beneficiaries of the military-industrial complex that funds their frauds.
And then, as the smoke cleared, stood Dick Cheney.
Thanks (I think) to Antiwar.com’s Angela Keaton, I became aware that Dick Cheney has neither given up the ghost nor has he migrated to a monastery somewhere to atone for the millions of souls who have perished partly due to his advocacy of war first, last, and always.
It is the same Dick Cheney who as Vice President no doubt knew better, but nevertheless assured us without equivocation:
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.
Cheney is not chastened. Rather, he believes that what America needs now is a big Five Hour Energy Drink gulp of of neoconservative militarism.
It’s 2002 all over again!
In a new video announcing the creation of his “Alliance for a Strong America,” Cheney stands next to his wife and declares, with the same swagger as his above Iraq claim more than a decade ago, that “Iran is marching toward a nuclear weapon!”
Yes, we should believe you this time, right?
Cheney adds that “al-Qaeda is resurgent, establishing new safe havens across the Middle East, including in Iraq,” without mentioning that before his Iraq misadventure there was no safe haven for al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In addition to a war on Iran, Cheney demands action against Syria as well, as “Syria has become the most dangerous training ground for Islamic terrorists since the attacks on 9/11.” Cheney fails to mention that the government he seeks to overthrow in Syria is precisely the one that has been engaged in a war against the al-Qaeda affiliate in his country.
Then Liz Cheney chimes in, “we know that America is the exceptional nation and that there is no substitute for American leadership around the world.”
That the rest of the world does not wish to be led by America, or that America has no money with which to lead the rest of the world matters not.
She continues, “we know that America’s armed forces are the greatest fighting force and the greatest force for good the world has ever known.”
Yes, war is peace.
Dick Cheney concludes by appealing to Americans to join in the “hard but necessary task of restoring American strength and power.”
It may seem like a tasteless joke, but as the fruits of their philosophy are everywhere a rotting corpse, they point to the stench and claim the smell is a field of lavender.
Will they get away with it again?
