Well. Well. Well. America woke up this morning, November 19, 2008, to the news that a Texas Grand Jury has done something that has needed to be done for a very long time.
Talk about our very own Prince of Darkness. Dick Chaney is FINALLY facing a multi-count indictment from a Texas grand jury. He and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales along with several other public officials are accused of “organized criminal activity” connected with the Vanguard Group, a company with interests in private prisons running federal detention centers. District/County Attorney for Willacy County Juan Angel Guerra (D), Brownsville, Texas, who entered office on January 1, 2005 and leaves office soon, December 31, 2008, is the driving force behind the indictments.
Vice President Dick Cheney.
We should bear a few things in mind about our very own Mr. Cheney. For the last eight years Cheney has refused to release critical information about meetings with energy CEO’s shortly after being installed in office by a coup carried out by the U.S. Supreme Court. The meeting with energy CEO’s and other insiders was one of the first things he did in office and, don’t forget, all just prior to the Iraq war. James Madison realized from the get go that we would be vulnerable to a Dick Cheney: "Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other." Perhaps above all of Cheney’s repugnant qualities, his willingness to enrich himself and his friends by waging war and sacrificing the innocent children, women and men of Iraq and Afghanistan is the most appalling.
Cheney, the guy who not only told Congress to “fuck off,” but the rest of America and the world as well. He is also the guy, along with David Addington, John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales who arranged to make “torture” Bush Administration policy and in so doing, making the U.S. the ONLY state to officially authorize torture ever. Even the characters running the Third Reich knew how recklessly stupid it would be to do that. As John Yoo so exquisitely paraphrased Cheney, “It [torture] works- we know it does. The C.I.A. says it does and the Vice President says it does.”
Cheney, the one who didn’t trust the C.I.A and during the World Trade Center crisis tried to take charge of ALL raw intelligence making an incredible mess and causing such intense bad will between the U.S. intelligence community and the Executive Branch that it seethes and bubbles along quite nicely to this day.
Cheney, the key player in helping persuade a compliant Bush, on January 8, 2002, to nullify the Geneva Conventions. As his co-indictee, Alberto Gonzales, put is so sweetly, the Geneva Conventions were “quaint.” This, in full knowledge and defiance of our Constitution.
U.S. Constitution, Article VI
2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Cheney, the only Vice President who has openly rejected his oath to uphold and defend our Constitution and its laws. The Supreme Court ruled against the Bush Administration stating that the administration did not have the authority to set up military courts to try detainees apart from U.S. Law. The Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions were a part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. See Hamden vs. Rumsfeld
Cheney, with his awesomely malignant sleight of hand and an ethically mediocre president, stands now in American history as the single most powerful force in bringing down the historically unprecedented moral authority of the U.S. government. It will take a series of administrations to repair the damage Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Richard Addington, John Yoo and their cohorts have done.
Cheney, the guy who dragged us all into his septic world and who turned the Department of Justice into a sadistic secret society, just may be dragged kicking and screaming into the daylight to face the American people and the world.
Somehow, some way, the American people have to find the will to hold corrput high officials accountable.
See the related OEN story by Christopher Sherman
Also see Jane Mayer The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
