The Twisted Mind Of Dick Cheney

By James Donahue

We all remember former Vice-President Dick Cheney as a sour, unsmiling power figure that I suspected was one of the masterminds who pulled the puppet strings that made former President George W. Bush dance through his eight destructive years in office.

Cheney, a former CEO of Halliburton, a company that profited from the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the man who got away with shooting his Texas hunting partner Harry Whittington in the face in 2006, was considered a significant player in the Bush Administration. Many believe Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby took the heat in the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal that blocked access to information that might have stopped the decision to invade Iraq.

It comes as no surprise that Cheney’s name has emerged in some behind-the-scenes plotting to launch another war with Iran. In a recent story published in the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh exposed the fact that there had been various ideas proposed by White House advisors, including Cheney, for provoking a war with Iran.

Hersh later zeroed in on Cheney’s involvement in the planning during an interview with Think Progress. A story by radio personality and Internet columnist Alex Jones, said “Hersh exposed that the meeting witnessed Cheney mulling over a proposal to dress up Navy SEALs as Iranians and then shoot them to trigger a war with Iran.”

Cheney was quoted as saying: “The one (plan) that interested me the most was why don’t we build – we in our shipyard – build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy SEALs on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Strait of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.”

It is frightening to think that we had that kind of thinking going on in Washington during the years that Cheney still had clout. We can only pray that clearer minds prevail today around our current leadership.