The Doctrine of Waaahhhhh: Cheney's Distortions and Lies

If Dick Cheney's recent interview with John King on CNN served any purpose,  it was to demonstrate the the arguments of the Bush Administration still have no wisdom and consciousness.

The former Vice President made two main points: the Obama Administration is using the economic crisis as a pretext to strengthen the Federal authority over private sector, and the US is getting less safe day by day. As for any responsibility that his own Administration might face for economic failure, well, the Bushmen had faced a global financial crisis and disasters like Katrina. So while the Bush Administration had done its best and can not be labeled as “unsuccessful”, Obama is clearly ruining the economic and the political systems of the US.

Shall we run an eye over these arguments and, with a tap of the analytic finger, knock them down?

CHENEYISM No. 1 – "Increasing Authority of the Government over the Private Sector"

But the key, I think, is the extent to which they fix the problem with the financial institutions in the society. That is a federal government responsibility. It is the banks, it is the Federal Reserve, it is the FDIC, it is all of the financial regulations and management of our currency that is a federal responsibility... I worry a lot that they are using the current set of economic difficulties to try to justify a massive expansion in the government and much more authority for the government over the private sector, and I don't think that it is good.

I think the programs that he has recommended and pursuing in health care, in energy, and so forth, constitute probably the biggest expansions of federal authority over the private economy in the history of the republic.”
My own belief is that the way we grow the economy, create jobs, create wealth is in the private sector. The government does not do that.”

Mistake No: 1 - Shooting himself with his own gun:

Cheney: “I don't think you can blame the Bush Administration for the creation of those circumstances. It is a global financial crisis....People with their savings being diminished because of the state of the economy, [are] reluctant to spend; trying to hang on to everything they can, and, naturally, it results in a slower level of economic growth.”
A moment's reflection might reveal that people be in attempt of holding on to everything they can, not because the government is lecturing citizens not to spend, but because they are reacting against a partially-free-market economy. They are doing so because investment nor putting money in banks is perceived as ‘plausible’, given that both the credit costs for banks and the cost of investing in the private sector --- during a downturn in demand for "private" goods --- are very high.

If the liberal system is economically damaged and if this crisis becomes a global one, then someone should remind Mr. Cheney that the capitalist world economy always rests upon the sovereignty of states (state intervention) and the inter-state system and global measures. Governments in the capitalist mode of production remove blockages and deadlocks within the system; when the private sector has nothing to open up the system during a crisis, that private sector needs government interventions. Instead of hiding behind senseless clichés, Mr. Cheney should have stated his hope for and belief in the Obama Administration as a supporter of the capitalist system and the private sector.

Mistake No. 2: The assumption that the private sector alone can lead the economy, even during the crisis

Cheney: “We are seeing an argument made that we have got economic difficulties, therefore, we are going to have a cap and trade program with respect to carbon emissions. That is a huge energy tax that is going to be applied across the society.”

Not necessarily. If the capitalist system is in a crisis and there is a decrease in the hegemonic (American) power --- simply put, if the gap between the US and other core areas such as South Asia in the accumulation of capital has been getting smaller --- then the US must focus on a sustainable high-technology production to renew the global system's infrastructure. The revolution in the 1490s was mercantilism; it was factories and industrial infrastructures in the 1890s; and it has been communications since the demise of the Soviets. This time, the revolution cannot just be wished up from the private sector: with the US in a financial crisis thanks to the huge tax cuts and the trillion-dollar-plus "War on Terror" of the Bush Administration, government intervention is inevitable at this stage.

A useful perspective on this comes in Susan George's article "Of Capitalism, Crisis, Conversion and Collapse: The Keynesian Alternative" on the unsustainable ecological crisis. George asserts that eco-friendly industries and products would have huge export value and could quickly become the world standard through the environmental Keynesianism.

Someone should remind Mr. Cheney that while the US built up a budget deficit of more than $2 trillion between 2002 and 2008 when the US has spent more than $1 trillion in Afghanistan and Iraq, and when the accumulation of capital has expanded geographically with the emergence of more "semi-peripheries" in the midst of a global economic crisis, it is only the US Government that can save dollar's future.

CHENEYISM No. 2: "The US is Getting Less Safe"

Cheney: “President Obama is making some choices, in my mind; in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack....I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we have accomplished nearly everything we set out to do.”

Do I need to re-state that one in seven Iraqis are homeless, that hundreds of thousands have been killed, that the escalation of Sunni v. Shia and Arab v. Kurdish escalations has laid dynamite, for future generations, that the supposed fight in Iraq against terror has brought a rise in terror from the Kurdish-backed PKK in northern Iraq and from Iran-backed Shia militias, that democracy has brought undemocratic regulations by Shia-dominated government? (For further information please read Juan Cole's striking arguments.)

Cheney: “The fact is, the violence level is down 90 percent. The number of casualties and Iraqis and Americans is significantly diminished.”

This does not demonstrate success. What does it mean even if violence had decreased 99 percent? Who is responsible for the violence in Iraq since 2003? Mr. Cheney's statement is nothing but an escape through simple and indigested data.

Cheney: “The defeat of Al Qa'eda...”

Since there were no Al Qa'eda bases or headquarters in Iraq in 2003 if Bush and Cheney had been intent on destroying bin Laden and his men, then they would not have deployed 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan and 176,000 US troops in Iraq.

Cheney: “A major defeat for the Iranians living next door to Iraq...”

Did I miss something? Did Iran suspend or give up its nuclear enrichment program? The argument of "defeat" of Iran's "terorrists" in Iraq seems to be little more than an excuse for the price tag of more than $1 trillion for US operations.

Cheney: “I think if you hark back and look at the biggest threat we faced after 9/11, it was the idea of a rogue state or a terrorists-sponsoring state with weapons of mass destruction... What happened in Iraq is we have eliminated that possibility.”

If we are talking about possibilities, can we claim that because there might be a nuclear war among states in the future because the US has the most of the nuclear warheads in the world? Indeed, wouldn't it better to call on the international community for an anti-US offensive campaign so that those bombs would not be killing us or future generations? That is the level of the nonsense in Mr. Cheney's statement.

CHENEYISM No. 3: The Reasons We Are Less Safe Now

Cheney: “I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.”

"Those programs" include CIA "black sites" around the world, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, state-sanction "enhanced interrogations" by the military and CIA, waterboarding, the muddled procedure of miilitary commissoins to try those under the deceptive label of "enemy combatants". Apparently, the best way to keep the US safe comes down to torturing humans.

CHENEYISM No. 4: It's All OK Because of 9/11

Cheney: “We made a decision after 9/11 that I think was crucial. We said this is a war. It is not a law enforcement problem. Up until 9/11, it was treated as a law enforcement problem. You go find the bad guy, put him on trial, put him in jail.... Once you go into a war time situation and it is a strategic threat, then you use all of your assets to go after the enemy. You go after the state sponsors of terror, places where they have got sanctuary. You use your intelligence resources, your military resources, your financial resources, everything you can in order to shut down that terrorist threat against you... When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what they are doing, closing Guantanamo and so forth, that they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that is required, and that concept of military threat that is essential if you are going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks.”

The discourse of the "War on Terror" strengthens the "US" v. "Them" rationale, projecting the enemy threat, blurring any empathy or even recognition of the "Other", and supporting policymakers' quest for power through "security".

The former Vice President's statements are far away from an honest reflection, both of what had happened during the Bush Administration and what has been happening since the takeover of President Obama. Indeed, Mr. Cheney's lies and allegations reveal that we have been lucky to survive the Bush Administration. However, what about the ones who lost their lives under tons of US bombs while sleeping in their beds?

Thank you, former Vice President, for that reminder. Thank you very much.

Why a US "Surge" Won't Work in Afghanistan

Speaking at the Royal Institute of International Affairs last Wednesday, Rory Stewart offered an incisive examination of the difficulties with a military-first approach to Afghanistan. The following extract is taken from The Times of London:

The situation in Afghanistan is somewhat aggravating and a little surreal. We have been there now for seven years - but I don't know if the British Government knows why. Do we have a policy? Or are we simply waiting to discover what the Obama Administration wishes to do and go along with it?

This year the US is expected to spend more than $50 billion on military and civilian aid. We are talking big sums but we don't have a clear account of what we are doing.

When the US invaded in 2001, its objective was to ensure that al-Qaeda could never again build training camps in Afghanistan. That was achieved with relative ease and with a limited number of special forces and intelligence operatives.

By 2002 we were beginning to talk about development. We launched national solidarity programmes, gave money to villages. But over the next two years it became fashionable in policymaking circles in Britain and the US to say that there was no point in focusing on Afghanistan as an arena for counter-terrorism or a recipient of charity - we should be building a state.

This was when Britain and Nato decided to deploy more troops. Britain has increased the numbers in Helmand province from 250 to 5,000. The belief then was that they were there to help state-building, not to fight the Taleban, which was why John Reid, the Defence Secretary, said to much mockery that he “hoped that the British troops would return without a shot fired”. There was little sign then of any overt Taleban presence, and it was relatively safe for Westerners to travel through Helmand.

I sat down in Kabul with a senior member of the British Embassy and the Number 2 of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in 2005 and asked: “Why are you deploying British troops to Helmand?”

They said: “To improve economic development, to improve governance and eliminate corruption, to improve road security and, in particular, to deal with the narcotics problem.”

I said: “You'll provoke an insurgency”. They replied: “No, you're traumatised by Iraq. Opinion polls show that in Helmand British and American troops are very popular.” I asked: “What type of timeframe are you looking at to see improvements?” They said six months.

I had just come from Iraq, where I had been an administrator of a province in the south and I said: “This is nonsense; will you write on a piece of paper that these are the kinds of improvements you're going to see, and if you don't see them, will you agree not to say: ‘We didn't have enough troops or enough helicopters' or ‘We are where we are, it is too humiliating to withdraw'. Will you accept that if these improvements don't come in six months the policy was wrong?” They agreed.

From that moment on, I have become increasingly frustrated. A Taleban insurgency has exploded but policymakers will not acknowledge that their original objectives have not been achieved. Instead, they blame implementation, the type of helicopters or previous commanders. Now policymakers have moved on from development, state-building and counter-insurgency to “preserving the credibility of Nato” and regional stability: “We are in Afghanistan to hold Pakistan together.”

Enter General Petraeus and his surge of 17,000 troops. There is good evidence that by deploying a further 30,000 troops “King David” turned the situation around in Iraq. I was in Baghdad this month, and walked streets I would not have been able to walk three years ago. I was not wearing a helmet, nobody was shooting or throwing rocks at me. So can General Petraeus conclude that by deploying more troops to Afghanistan he will be able to pull off the same thing?

There are two different accounts of what he hopes to do by deploying more troops in Afghanistan. One is straight from the counter-insurgency manual: clear/hold/build. Clear out the Taleban, secure populated areas and allow the forces of sustainable economic development to flourish, good governance to come and the Afghan police and security services to back us so we can go home.

The more cynical explanation is that the surge is an attempt to whack the Taleban round the head because they will not negotiate unless they are hurting. This is, broadly speaking, what Henry Kissinger believed of the Vietcong in 1968. The US increased troop numbers to drive them to the table to make concessions.
Neither approach will work. The Afghan groups do not resemble the Vietcong or the Sunni tribal groups in Iraq. The Shia-run Government in Baghdad could cut a deal with the Sunni groups because they are both relatively powerful and coherent factions backed by mass politics. Go to any southern Iraqi town and you will find a man in a buttoned-up shirt without a tie who says: “I am the head of this party” and who can mobilise thousands.

Go to a town in Afghanistan and ask who is in charge and you find six or seven figures with varying sorts of power - perhaps a tribal chief, maybe the police chief or sub-district commander. They do not have mass movements behind them. When we talk about driving the Taleban to the table, we forget that these groups are more insubstantial and fragmented than we acknowledge. The Kabul Government lacks political depth or legitimacy; the Taleban is elusive.

But I'm not a radical pessimist. Being realistic about our limitations does not mean that Britain must accept the status of a third-rate power. We can achieve many things in Afghanistan that are worthwhile for us and for the Afghans. We have made serious progress in education, health and rural development; Afghans are asking for simple things such as roads, electricity and irrigation and we have the skills to provide them. We should focus on the progressive, pro-Western centre and north, rather than pouring almost all our resources into the insurgency zones of the south and the east where schools are often destroyed as soon as they are built.

We need a much lighter military footprint. We cannot afford to keep 80,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan for a decade. US and European voters won't support it, it is an extravagant distraction from more important strategic priorities, including Pakistan and as long as we are seen as an occupying power, there will be Afghans who want to fight us.

We should plan now to reduce the size of our military commitment and decide what we can do with fewer troops. This does not mean abandoning Afghanistan entirely. The US and its allies should use special forces and intelligence operatives to ensure that al-Qaeda never again finds Afghanistan a safe and comfortable environment in which to establish training camps. Even a few thousand international troops and US air support would be a serious deterrent to civil war. But most importantly we must continue to provide generous long-term financial support to the Afghan Government and its military.

Policymakers are now more cautious about Afghanistan and say that their only objective is stability.
But even this is implausible. Pakistan is 20 years ahead of Afghanistan on almost every indicator and is yet to achieve the kind of stability we dream of in Afghanistan. Instead, we must think in terms of containing and managing a difficult, poor and unstable country without sinking too much into this difficult task. We must husband our resources for the many other crises already erupting - from the British banking sector to Pakistan.

There are many small simple things we can do to help Afghan society. All require us to forge a long-term engagement with the country. But such a policy is only possible if we reduce our investment in money and troops and develop a lighter, more affordable and ultimately more sustainable relationship with Afghanistan.