Cheney challenges Rice on multiple fronts.
Cheney challenges Rice on multiple fronts.
“A NEWSWEEK investigation shows that Cheney’s national-security team has been actively challenging Rice’s Iran strategy in recent months. … Officials from the veep’s office have been openly dismissive of the nuclear negotiations in think-tank meetings with Middle East analysts in Washington, according to a high-level administration official.” But it’s not just Iran:
In the last few weeks, Cheney’s staff have unexpectedly become more active participants in an interagency group that steers policy on Afghanistan, according to an official familiar with the internal deliberations. During weekly meetings of the committee, known as the Afghanistan Interagency Operating Group, Cheney staffers have been intensely interested in a single issue: recent intelligence reports alleging that Iran is supplying weapons to Afghanistan’s resurgent Islamist militia, the Taliban, according to two administration officials…
Rice has more directly clashed with Cheney’s office on issues like Mideast peace, where…she’s found herself stymied in efforts to push for more engagement with Syria and the Palestinian radical group Hamas. A senior White House official concedes that even on what should be the simplest-to-achieve deal–a new relationship with Syria that would help stabilize Iraq–Cheney’s office is blocking Rice’s efforts to bring Bush around. The secretary has also fought with the veep’s office in seeking to soften detention policies at Guantánamo.
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Did she burn through her shoe alowance?
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:21 am5-deferment dickhead Cheney; cowardly draft-dodger, war-profiteer, war=monger, war-criminal, crook, liar, thief. What a resume!
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 amBush is such a WIMP!!!!
Now Rice is doing his fighting for him?
ROTFLAMOL!
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 amA newly disclosed effort to keep Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public does not learn who has been meeting with Cheney and Bush's officials.
Bill "$9 Million Dollar Salary - 'Shut Up'- I Wipe My Ass With Your U.S. Fairness Doctrine" O'Reilly: "Traditional values people put others on a par with themselves. That's the Judeo-Christian tenet. Love your neighbor as yourself. Secular Progressives put themselves above all others. That philosophy says "Me first, then I'll worry about you."
"The High-Priced Hookers of Mediaville""Dumbing Down America""Who Terrorized Whom on 9/11?""The Godfathers of K Street" "The New American Dictatorship." In this account of America in political and cultural decline, Elliot D. Cohen and Bruce W. Fraser show how mainstream media corporations like CNN, Fox, and NBC (General Electric) together with giant telecoms like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T have become administration pawns in a well-organized effort to hijack America. Cohen and Fraser show in blunt terms how incredible power, control, and wealth have been amassed in the hands of an elite few while the rest of us have been systematically manipulated, deceived, and divested of our freedom. Calling attention to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a carefully devised plan for international dominion launched by high officials in the Bush administration, this book tells the story of an America quietly being stripped of its democratic way of life on its way to becoming a full-blown authoritarian state. The authors detail how mainstream media have failed us in covering issues crucial to the survival of American democracy: the Bush administration’s domestic spying program; the facts about the September 11 attacks; presidential election fraud; the events leading up to the Iraq war; and the selling out of Internet freedom, to name just some. They reveal how corporate media have systematically attempted to dumb down and distract us from reality with sex and violence; how government has used corporate media to “shock and awe†Americans into surrendering their constitutional rights in the name of the "War on Terrorism"; and how media personalities have been complicit in the mass deception. The final chapter points out important ways in which Americans can counter the erosion of democracy by relying less on mainstream media and more on independent news sources, through grassroots activism, peaceful assembly, and exercising their free speech, and by using critical thinking to expose the dangers we face.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:24 amComes as no surprise.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:26 amThese neoconservative policies have turned the United States into a perverse joke. Wealthy sociopaths control the most powerful military in the world (we'll see how long that lasts). The neocons are arrogant, ignorant buffoons with no real world experiece. Seriously, they don't "believe" in reality, as if their opinion mattered. They cannot create reality. They want to destroy it.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 amNo wonder they put Condi in the Sec of State position -- Cheney knew he could push her around.
Also no wonder why some people put Condi's name out there as a presidential hopeful -- she'd be another perfect GWB for the neo-cons to control.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:56 amIMPLOSION!
I think it's inevitable that even mild bed-wetting war-mongers like Rice will eventually come to fear the foaming-at-the-mouth crusading Empire Builders like Cheney. The man is extreme for even the far-right extremists.
Cheney is, no doubt, compensating for his masculine deficiencies (i.e. small genitals).
Instead of pajamas, I bet he sleeps in a white hood and robe...
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 amShe could just resign. Why have state; let's Veep+Mil run the show.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:02 amSome comic relief:
http://www.youtube.com/v/AGHty_S0TU0
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 amAll this liberal slander and bile will not change America's march to freedom, but it will serve as evidence of your dysloyalty to the USA when you are put in camps. Bill O'Reilly is right -- you so-called progressives think you are better than everyone else. Here in the heartland, we are taking you down a peg.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 am> when you are put in camps
So the cattle trucks are ready, then?
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:10 amComment by Gary Ruppert — June 3, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Yet another neocon mouth-breather with a fatally flawed understanding of Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution.
Listen up, jackass. When our own government starts putting American citizens in camps for "disloyalty", it won't be America any longer, and you better believe that it will no longer deserve our loyalty.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:11 am"America's march to freedom"? I thought America was already free? Why would we need to have a "march" to it? That kind of thinking is so devoid of rational thought as to make anything else the speaker says negligible.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:15 amIt's because of Cheney, Bush and their neocon failures that people like Gary have to use "America’s march to freedom" knowing full well we were "free" before Bush was put into the White House.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 amAll this liberal slander and bile will not change America’s march to freedom, but it will serve as evidence of your dysloyalty to the USA when you are put in camps. Bill O’Reilly is right — you so-called progressives think you are better than everyone else. Here in the heartland, we are taking you down a peg.
Comment by Gary Ruppert — June 3, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Well, we do know better than everyone else, especially you Bush ass kissers. We were right on all the predictions regarding what a hell hole Iraq would be.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:17 amAll this liberal slander and bile will not change America’s march to freedom, but it will serve as evidence of your dysloyalty to the USA when you are put in camps. Bill O’Reilly is right — you so-called progressives think you are better than everyone else. Here in the heartland, we are taking you down a peg.
Comment by Gary Ruppert
The fact that you would support such a thing as putting Americans in "camps" proves you have forgotten what it is to be an American.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:19 amWell, we do know better than everyone else, especially you Bush ass kissers. We were right on all the predictions regarding what a hell hole Iraq would be.
Comment by WC
We were also right about what a terrible president GWB would be.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 amPay no attention to the wannabe "Gary Ruppert" #11--- in fact, I am the real Gary Ruppert.
Haven't you moonbats been following my work over at Sadly, No?
If not, you are missing some really great shit.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:22 amBring it on, Gary. With a majority of Americans wanting out of Iraq and NOT wanting confrontation with Iran, and with daily announcements regarding what a corrupt administration we have in charge, and with quite a few of those Americans armed thanks to the Republicans (after all, Democrats want to take away all the guns, right?) and the NRA, it'll be one hell of a fight.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 amWow. Two Gary Ruppert trolls.
**yawn**
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 amI don't think he knows what it is to be an American anymore. It sounds more like the former Soviet Union. If you don't follow the Party line you will end up in the Gulag.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 am"Cheney staffers have been intensely interested in a single issue: recent intelligence reports alleging that Iran is supplying weapons to Afghanistan’s resurgent Islamist militia, the Taliban, according to two administration officials…"
i wonder if these "recent intelligence reports" are made up of cherrypicked intelligence that was stovepiped directly to o.v.p. to avoid scrutiny from actual intelligence agents. again.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 amWe must have compassion for Gary, and the other sheeple who have been brain washed to be obedient to their masters--
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 amThe Reich-Wing, and their mouthpiece, Faux Spews, has them perfect little slaves to mouth the propaganda of their elite overlords.
Al least Jesus will save them----
Invisible friends help in this situation.
Haven’t you moonbats been following my work over at Sadly, No?
If not, you are missing some really great shit.
Comment by Gary Ruppert — June 3, 2007 @ 10:22 am
Yes, my life is just so empty without your really great shit to read. I thought I had hit rock bottom when I found out that I was on Jake's ignore list (oh, the agony), but the absence of your wisdom just pushes me over the edge.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:29 amGary is experimenting with satire. I think I got it the first time.
Relax, fellows.
steve_e and Zooey, excellent points. Condi IS a tool. And Cheney isn't trying to create reality, but destroy it.
Wasn't that Shiva's job?
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:33 am"compassion for Gary"- comment by Scott Ahlf.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 am
Cheney is, no doubt, compensating for his masculine deficiencies (i.e. small genitals).
Comment by unbelievable — June 3, 2007 @ 9:57 am
Well, then apparently he's stuffing his tube sock.
I don't know if it's small genitalia; I rather believe he's a sociopath. For the first time in American history, we have a mentally ill president and a mentally ill vice president. Only their illnesses are different.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:38 amRice is an ivory tower refugee in way over her head.
She doesn't stand a chance against a military-industiralist like Dick. She never did.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:41 amgood... good... fight amongst yourselves... we'll let our enemies (you guys) destroy each other from within... very Zen... I love it...
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 amYes, patriotic Americans understand you think of patriotic Americans as your enemies. That's why you got your ass handed to you in 2006.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:58 amMore Cheney b.s - Taliban are Sunni's, I doubt if Iran (Shia) are supplying weapons.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:02 amEverything that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powel, Rice, Perle, PNAC, etc., prophesied that would come to pass in Iraq, hasn't.
Everything that Howard Dean prophesied that would come to pass in Iraq, has.
And Gov. Dean is "The Crazy One"?
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:12 amIt sounds to me like Rice is beginning to be aware of her role in committing the crime of a War of Agression and is starting to lay the framework for shifting everything to the office of the Vice President. But she had her role to play in painting the false picture necessary (mushroom cloud comment) to rally the American People behind supporting a pre-emptive strike against a country incapable of causing the US harm.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:15 amRegardless of the issue being pursued - here, it is about Mr. Cheney starting a war with Iran - these are unmistakable signs of full-scale bureaucratic warfare. When waged with even a minimum of restraint, such things, like rats, remain unseen and only faintly heard. When they make front-page headlines, the warfare is so brutal it can no longer be hidden.
It would seem adolescent to expect Mr. Cheney to behave differently at home than he does abroad. But this kind of open warfare among senior advisers to the President could only take place when the President has created a power vacuum around himself. His bubble is passive and empty, waiting to be filled by the first bureaucratic sperm that gets there.
This is a "leader" who dumbs down his responsibilities to match his talents. He uses a caricatured version of what a CEO should know and how s/he should behave. His top staff know this. Before now, they delivered to him easy multiple choice questions with only one answer. That allowed the President to pretend to be the Deciderer, while creating an aura of false consensus and a falser sense of how this purported unity of policy came about.
That "unity" has broken down, it seems, over whether to start another war, this time in Iran. (Odds are it has as much to do with a growing string of failures and a diminishing ability to hide them.)
The question is what will the power vacuum sitting in the Oval Office do? Odds are he'll remain frozen while waiting for the outcome of the battle among his "consensus" team. Last man standing gets to hand it to the President so that he can "Decider It" to the people. The émigrés leaving Washington (a la Dan Bartlett) and bureaucratic bodies figuratively littering its streets are likely to become as numerous as those in Baghdad.
That's a dangerous way to run a country or decide on going to war. These are taxpayer paid public servants; if All the President's Men refuse to do their jobs, that doesn't excuse Congress. It cannot run the executive branch, but it should at least sponsor an intervention to keep this "family spat" from taking us and the world into another war.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:20 am10 - thanks for the link.
:-D
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 amHey - who moved my cheetos?
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:31 amCheney has already decided to go to war with Iran. Whether it's solely a craven attempt to create more Halliburton revenue, or a craven attempt to create more Halliburton revenue in conjunction with a discredited insane neocon dominionist ideology, I will leave as an exercise to the reader.
June 3rd, 2007 at 12:04 pmTaliban = Sunni
Iran = Shi'a
How difficult would it be for the media to debunk this claim?
June 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 pmSome of you think it's all about you, but you and all of us do not count with Cheney and the cabal.
Great article in the June issue of The American Prospect: "The Apprentice," by Anthony David. It lays out the ongoing history of the neocon agenda which to most rational human beings is totally insane. But they now have the power to be that insane. Libby threw himself under the bus to protect their plans.
The American Prospect site is restricted but you can read the beginning of the article here: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_apprentice
June 3rd, 2007 at 12:48 pmAnd remember, the military hated Clinton because he never sent a man into battle who didn't come home.
June 3rd, 2007 at 1:10 pmThey LOVE Bush for lying 3500 of them into their graves. Why can't they think better?
During the 1990s, the Taliban oppressed the Shia in Afghanistan and on one occasion murdered some Iranian diplomats. What's more, Iran supplied arms to the Northern Alliance, the forces fighting against the Taliban.
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:09 pmSo...what IS the current status of Dennis Kucinich's move to IMPEACH CHENEY???
Nary a word from the MSM.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:02 pmWhen Rice ascended to big jobs with the possibility of "teaching" George about the world, I really thought she'd stand her ground and prove that a smart woman could be heard and could lead policy. But the old boy's club won out. George is too weak and wobbly , and too quick to be the decider. Condi is all hat and no cattle. She's not tough, and worse, she's unable to get traction for better policy. She'll flame out as a footnote in history. George, however will be a national joke forever. It's one lost opportunity by long struggling women to have an equal seat at the table. All the more reason that a strong wind of change will move Hillary Clinton to the head of that table.
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:17 pmHow did Gary Ruppert's endangering minors charges turn out?
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:38 pmHere in the heartland, we are taking you down a peg. - Comment by Gary Ruppert
****************
Ha Ha! If you are not joking, then you are the joke.
Cheney and the neocons are just an overt manifestation of fascism that has been more or less latent since the Civil War. The real joke is on Bushbots like the troll quoted above, who can only rant about guns, God, and gays, while their children get fed to Bush as cannon fodder.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:38 pmLots of enjoyable posts, I'm sorry I missed out on this earlier. And I see some old trolls back, too!
Condi is an idiot, in my opinion, but she's the lesser of two evils when Cheney is involved. This shite is getting scarier day by day.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:22 pmThese pissing matches just emphasize what a complete ZERO our president is on foreign policy. Go ride a bike and wait for somebody to figger it out an' tell you what to do Georgie.
Can't really imagine this happening under any other pres in my lifetime - even Reagan. Well, maybe Reagan.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 pmIf Cheney is undermining the legitimate role of negotiations, then he is undermining the troops and the war effort.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:25 pm"Wasn’t that Shiva’s job?" - Daddy-O
Perfect. New name for Dick: Darth Shiva. Has a nice ring to it, mixing high tech weaponry with supernatural destructive fantasy.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:41 pmBring it on, Gary... it’ll be one hell of a fight.
It will be a very short fight. I wouldn't worry too much about Gary Ruppert Murdoch. Neocons are all talk and no huevos. When/if we find it necessary to start kicking arse and taking no names, they will scatter to the winds like little bunny rabbits.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 pmCheney and his neo-demented consiglieri want to bomb Iran and impose US hegemony over the entire Middle East.
Unless Condi can exert some influence on the Moron-in-Chief, WWIII will start this summer. Of course, We The People could always revolt, but I am not holding my breath.
June 4th, 2007 at 12:28 amCheney IS going to start a war with Iran, that will turn into a full fledged regional, if not global war. He will start it the same way he started the war with Iraq. Go back and read the PNAC papers.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
The needed a "new Pearl Harbor" and magically, less then a year after the neo cons took power, September 11th happened. But now, the American people have started to regain their courage and loose their fear that that attack was meant to instill. That will never due. They cant start a new war with poles in the low 30's without risking a revolt. There is only one way the American people will allow for a third simultaneous war in the middle east. When it happens, and when they blame Iran for it, just ask yourself, "Who is going to benefit from this most?" All the people who will die under American bombs in Iran, or the those who profit from oil and war? Iran has nothing to gain from an attack on the US. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, believes that total American Military dominance in the middle east is essential to our survival. Cheney knows his group is going to loose power in 2008. It's now or never for him. It'll happen. Just you wait. Why?
The American government is the worlds largest economy. The American Federal Government could be considered one of the largest economies in the world alone. The majority of the Federal governments budget goes to the Military. The US military is BIG BIG BIG bucks. Bigger then oil, or any industry you can think of. These people are not going to give up all that money. And because it is the Military that is the source of these peoples money, that is what they will use to protect it. It isnt really even about oil. Sure, they need oil to keep that beast alive, but they could use other energy sources, like nuclear people to feed the beast. Oil is just an easy excuse to start wars. If it the world were to run out of oil tomorrow, it would be about be about religion, or water, or who knows what. You cant put the genie back in the bottle. We created the worlds largest military, and it will be our downfall. Cheney and friends saw the immense unchecked power, and huge sums of money, of the US military, just sitting there, withering on the vine under the Clinton Administration. With greed and lust for power in their eyes, they took control of it. They will never let go. Never. The only thing that can stop them, is bankruptcy. If the US economy implodes, like that of the USSR, then it will be a very dark day for the US, and the world, but less dark then a nuclear winter. We are living in Nazi Germany. We are killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Muslims. We are invading sovereign nations who have not attacked us. The ruling party is using fear, nationalism, and Fox Propaganda to control the population. We torture and imprison people without trail. We are spied on by our own government. Our rights are being stripped out from beneath us. The left is too afraid to stand up to this tyranny . Land of the Free??? The US has more people in prison, both as a total number of people, and per capita, then any other nation on earth. America, my friends, is anything but the land of the free. The wost is yet to come. This is only the beginning. Pray for peace. Pray for a miracle.
June 4th, 2007 at 2:48 amIf I recall correctly, Iran was no friend to the Taliban. Perhaps because the Taliban are Sunni and Iran is predominantly Shia. We helped Iran when we dislodged the Taliban from Afghanistan's government and installed a more moderate regime. So it is hard to believe Iran would be arming the Taliban.
But I guess anyone who thinks Sadam and Al Qaeda were buddies, would have no trouble lying about Iran relations with the Taliban.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:00 am