~by Sean Paul Kelley

Former Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney died four days ago. Good riddance. He was a war criminal. The man largely responsible for America’s accelerating decline internationally. His policies are responsible for the death of thousands of American soldiers and Marines. He is also responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocents, perhaps even millions. Col. Larry Wilkerson, Gen. Colin Powell’s outspoken chief of staff unequivocally called him a war criminal. If there is a hell, he’s there. If there is such a thing as reincarnation he’ll soon return as a cockroach. But I’m not here to discuss his afterlife. It’s the evolution of his ideology that I want to discuss with you today.

Cheney was President Ford’s Chief of Staff from 1975-77. While Chief of Staff he engineered Donald Rumsfeld’s appointment as the youngest SecDef ever. He did so hopefing Rumsfeld would be a successful counterweight to Kissinger’s power and influence over President Ford. While Rumsfeld cultivated a persona of intelligence and wisdom, ultimately he was an incompetent both times he was SecDef. Rumsfeld and Cheney stood no chance against Kissinger. Both lost virtually all their foreign policy battles with Kissinger. While National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State Kissinger dominated. Kissinger was briliant, like him or not. He also represented detente, linkage, triangular diplomacy and most importantly prudence in the conduct of US foreign policy. Yes, I realize the irony of using prudence to describe Kissingerian foreign policy, but it’s true. Taking the long view it’s hard to deny. Comparing his diplomacy with every SecState that came after him it is undeniable.

Whatever you think of Kissinger, the world order he and Nixon created between 1969-74, endured for decades. It lasted until it was wrecked by Dick Cheney and his neocon acolytes during the presidency of Bush II. While Kissinger and Nixon engineered a time of great global stability, whatever you think of their politics or their actions while in office, they laid the foundations for the end of the Cold War, not to mention an era of relative peace between Israel and its enemies that endured until the assassination of Yitzakh Rabin in 1994. Cheney and Rumsfeld on the other hand inaugurated the era of the Empire of Chaos. Where ever American power has been used since Dick Cheney’s rise, chaos has resulted. Not a single American intervention since his ascension as Vice President and beyond has resulted in success. All are examples of chaos. We don’t nation-build, we manufacture failed states.

When Ford lost to Carter, Cheney and Rumsfeld’ resentment towards the Kissingerian worldview increased. They took different paths, but had the same goal: ‘Machtpolitik’. Rumsfeld went into the private sector and got rich. Cheney got himself elected to the House of Representatives, where as a ten-year backbencher he never saw a defense program he didn’t vote for.

Then Cheney got appointed SecDef by Bush I. The Gulf War occurs. He’s incensed US forces didn’t go to Baghdad, so was his protege Wolfowitz. When Clinton won Wolfie went to thinktank land and Cheney, like Rumsfeld before him, took a lucrative business sinecure. While out of power, their acolytes spread their neoconservative ideology like a virus. Soon it was the sole driver of America’s post-Cold War foreign, especially when President Clinton adopted it. Let us not forget it was Clinton’s foreign policy incompetence, including the partition of Kosovo from Serbia, which opened up the nasty can of worms affecting us even now. Finally, Cheney got himself appointed to Bush II’s veep selection committee and chose himself. The rest of the story is a sad recital of spilled blood, criminal invasions, vast American fortunes pissed away in the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan and the senseless death of millions of innocents. All this because he got his feefees hurt by Henry Kissinger.

He may be dead but his influence persists like a zombie and I have no idea when it will finally be killed.