Thursday, October 20, 2005

Cheney Cabal

I have often claimed that it is Dick Cheney, as the administration’s chief of transition in the wake of Bush’s election, who is the real power of the Bush presidency and it is Cheney who hijacked the U. S. government foreign policy, defense, and intelligence apparatus by placed rigid ideologues (they call themselves neoconservatives) into powerful positions within the departments of State and Defense, the NSC, and other intelligence agencies.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who for 16 years served as the top aide to Colin Powell, from his time at the Joint Chiefs of Staff to his tenure as Secretary of State, in scathing commentary has confirmed my contention. Here is a short excerpt of Wilkerson’s remarks, a transcript of which may be found here.

“What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense and [inaudible] on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

“And then when the bureaucracy was presented with those decisions and carried them out, it was presented in such a disjointed incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn’t know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out.

“Read George Packer’s book The Assassin’s [inaudible] if you haven’t already. George Packer, a New Yorker, reporter for The New Yorker, has got it right. I just finished it and I usually put marginalia in a book but, let me tell you, I had to get extra pages to write on.
“And I wish, I wish I had been able to help George Packer write that book. In some places I could have given him a hell of a lot more specifics than he’s got. But if you want to read how the Cheney Rumsfeld cabal flummoxed the process, read that book. And, of course, there are other names in there, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas [inaudible], whom most of you probably know Tommy Frank said was stupidest blankety blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.”

And yet, and yet, after the Secretary of State agrees to a $400 billion department, rather than a $30 billion department, having control, at least in the immediate post-war period in Iraq, this man is put in charge. Not only is he put in charge, he is given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw themselves in a closet somewhere. That’s not making excuses for the State Department.

Update: Here is a complete transcript of Wilkerson's comments, including questions and answers.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely.

Of course it is no secret that Mr. Cheney, while a dangerous man given to all sorts of mischief, including the recent steering (via USWS manipulation of the jet stream) of Atlantic hurricanes toward Cuba, the Yucatan and US “sin” cities as a diversion of the ADD Western media away from Iraq, is essentially an agent of Mr. Rove.

In the near future we will see the Vice President step down in favor of Ms. Rice who will continue to do Rove’s bidding at ever closer range. Even the most cautious of political observers now agree that Mr. Cheney’s nervous system and many of his major organs have been replaced or modified using nano technology during his many trips to George Washington University Health Center. This was necessary to keep him alive and provide a means of direct control from the West Wing.

Just a quick item of caution on the consumption of fruit from the local markets. A good deal of the citrus in this area has been impregnated with feline HIV. This was no accident since many of the fruit handlers are second generation Korean workers brought here as slaves in the early 1900s. Henequen’s revenge.

You Know Me said...

I'm sorry to have to say that I think your comments in this thread are completely incredible.

You Know Me said...

Thanks for the link to the story of which, of course, I was totally ignorant. I have thought on a couple of occasions while walking the streets of Merida that some folks I've seen seem to have decidedly Asian features.

Thanks for reading and reducing my level of ignorance of the area. What I don't understand, though, is how citrus fruit is inpregnated with feline HIV and how it relates to folks of Korean extraction.

Anonymous said...

Ignorance does not excuse arrogance. Don't you agree?

You Know Me said...

I certainy do agree and admit that I am guilty as charged.

You Know Me said...

But what about further information on the feline HIV and the nano surgery?