Avigdor Lieberman: No Dick Cheney
Isaac Luria of J Street just sent out an early link to Seymour Hersh's piece in the New Yorker this coming week about Obama's plans for the Middle East.
It is worth reading.
One thing that strikes me, and it's been striking me a lot lately, is that Dick Cheney is about as evil a personality to ever participate in American public life. Utterly unpatriotic, completely disloyal to the President he "served," a liar and a thug, he now is specializing in publicly predicting (hoping for?) a terrorist attack on our shores which he can happily blame on the Democrats.
He reminds us incessantly that he protected us from terrorism for almost seven years, overlooking that the only successful terror attack here occured both under the Bush-Cheney tenure but also because they ignored warnings of an imminent attack. Yes, I do believe that the Twin Towers would still be standing if Al Gore or Bill Clinton was serving as President on 9/11 and I think history will bear that out.
So what does that have to do with Lieberman? Nothing. Except this. As terrible as he may be, he has done nothing in his life that comes close to the evil perpetrated by Cheney and I doubt he ever will.
I know this is a hard one for Americans but "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Cheney is our Mugabe. Our Lukashenko. Lieberman? So far he's all talk. And I expect that is all he will ever be.
I don't know about Lieberman, but concur on Cheney. I wouldn't be surprised if he had been instrumental in agitating Israel to attack Gaza during the last days of his term with the same kind of scare tactics. I thought the timing of the seemingly unprovoked invasion/attacks was strange and probably deliberate.
March 29, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
This quote from Hersh backs you up, FDRdog:
The Obama transition team also helped persuade Israel to end the bombing of Gaza and to withdraw its ground troops before the Inauguration. According to the former senior intelligence official, who has access to sensitive information, “Cheney began getting messages from the Israelis about pressure from Obama” when he was President-elect. Cheney, who worked closely with the Israeli leadership in the lead-up to the Gaza war, portrayed Obama to the Israelis as a “pro-Palestinian,” who would not support their efforts.
Cheney "worked closely ... in the lead-up to the Gaza war." Doesn't sound like he was trying to prevent it.
As for MJ's expectations about Lieberman: first, he's setting the bar awfully low and, second, the guy has yet to take office so of course he hasn't wreaked evil havoc. I'm not pinning my hopes on MJ's gut feeling.
March 29, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may be right about Lieberman if he were on his own, MJ. But I'm afraid the Lieberman/Netanyahu coalition will embolden the two of them.
March 29, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent point: Lieberman's views count for nothing without Bibi.
I'm not sure how sustainable the Liberman/Cheney comparison is. Cheney was originally tasked to find a VP for Bush, and wound up choosing himself to manage Bush (who himself is nearly spineless enough to be called a Democrat) because he wanted to turn the Oval Office into a quasi-monarchy.
Cheney's agenda was far different than Lieberman's, but mostly because Israel will never, ever be a global superpower. Hence 'Darth Cheney.'
Now that's just silly. Hypocrisy replaced replaced baseball as America's favorite national pastime years ago.
March 29, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for pointing this out - I had just come to this post to do the same thing!
I'm glad that MJ blogged about this but I think that excerpt from the article is by far the most important. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised about Dick Cheney toying with a WAR and people's lives, but I just couldn't believe this.
Has an outgoing administration ever undermined an incoming one so badly? It's ridiculous, pathetic, and infuriating. I'm just glad it didn't really go anywhere.
And I wish news outlets, both mainsteam and new media alike, would cover this more...
March 31, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. The bar of expectation regarding Lieberman is far too low. Keep in mind that this coalition represents Israel's response to the fallout from its invasion of Gaza. Note the Israeli rhetoric, which repeatedly refers to Israel as being under great pressure; a pivotal moment in its history. One isn't hard pressed to imagine the logical extension of this argument by a government dominated by the most hawkish and racist elements of Israeli society.
As for Lieberman, he will be the next Israeli Foreign Minister, and his party, Yisrael Beitenu, will control "the ministries of internal security, infrastructure, tourism and the integration of new immigrants." These include some of the types of powers that Cheney wielded. The evidence of similarity between Cheney and Lieberman have only just begun.
Blog: You Can't Go Home Again
April 1, 2009 4:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Definitely deliberate, but not hard to figure out, and Cheney's role was probably limited to lameduckhood. (Note that in those final days W did stand up to him, for once, by not pardoning Libby).
Olmert, Livni and Barak waited on their attack until Christmas vacation when many Western reporters would be out of commission. They tightened the economic screws on Gaza beforehand to help ensure that the always-ready-to-kill-in-the-name-of-killing Hamas would cooperate and provide a fig leaf of a pretext by firing off their pea-shooter rocket launchers. After a few weeks of playing with their war toys, and showing that they could in fact still launch a credible invasion after the Lebanon fiasco of three summers ago, they then called off the Gaza rampage just before Obama's inauguration so that he wouldn't have to put taking on their propaganda machine at the top of his first to-do list.
They thought maybe being "tough" by slaughtering babies in Gaza would win them votes in the February elections in Israel. It didn't, but what did they have to lose? Only baby terrorists that died, and hypocrite cowards in the US Congres would of course be ready say how vital to Israel's defense it was to blow up Palestinian schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings.
Cheney may have been digging it, but I tend to doubt he was involved in any meaningful way. In tremendous contrast to the Iraq fiasco.
March 29, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hadn't heard anything about the preinvasion tactics. Interesting.
March 29, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney is a man who seems motivated by malice - perhaps the only emotion he is able to experience. Because he lives in a kind of Existential emptiness where destruction becomes destiny, what he is capable of knows no limit.
(As far as 'blaming' the democrats should there be another attack on our soil, it definitely opens the door to blaming the republicans for 9/11.)
March 30, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew Sullivan said he thinks Cheney is frightened because of all the really horrible things that he has done and that are being exposed. That explanation makes eminent sense to me.
March 30, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, evil. You could have ten thousand jurors find him guilty in some survey and dick c's response?
SOOOOOOOOOOO? Jeez I hate that guy. hhahahhaha
March 29, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Many of us here probably tend to agree that Cheney is a foulmouthed hypocrite who did major damage to the USA. If Democrats had 1/10 the backbones that Republicans have, Cheney would have been impeached for crimes 10 times worse than Clinton being "served" by Monica and lying about it at the trial of his Arkansas troopering years.
I disagree that history will bear out that the World Trade Center towers would not have been hit under Gore. I tend to agree with the hypothetical, but it is and will forever remain counterfactual history, never ultimately provable. Drop it I'd say, and focus on protecting America from the next Cheney.
Hard to imagine Lieberman becoming top dog in Israel, but that is many thought about Hitler too before 1933. But here again, deeds not words are what count. We can basically only watch Lieberman (closely) and see what happens.
Hundreds of children in Gaza dead for no reason: THAT was a vile deed, of government cowards by push button warriors for maniac-settlers. The U.S. Congress -not the Israeli Cabinet, the Congress of the United States of America! spouted total BS about how this was necessary to "defend Israel," but more importantly DID nothing. Please continue informing us as the smoking guns are revealed.
March 29, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those who haven't watched the documentary about "The Jersey Girls," the four 9/11 widows who courageously fought Bush and Cheney tooth and nail for the creation of the 9/11 Commission, it's a very moving story:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3979568779414136481&hl=en
M.J., have you seen it? True heroes.
March 29, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would go further than saying Cheney is hoping for/predicting an attack. I would say he was inviting one; giving a very overt signal that the coast is clear to all who would attack us. He is more than despicable -- I want to see this man in jail sooooo bad!
March 29, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ says:
Isn't it interesting that none of the newpeople who interviewed Cheney or the rest of his gang
ever asked, after Cheney etc. claimed we havent been attacked since 9/11, why the Bush/Cheney gang didn't protect us BEFORE 9/11.
For the Bush/Cheney gang and their subservient news media, History began on 9/12.
March 29, 2009 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You want to prepare for the next Cheney? Make sure Palin or Sanford do not become the republican nominee. Palin is just like Cheney. Thank God she doesn't have the power of the VP under her. She would run McCain over several times if it took that to get her into power.
Sanford would do nothing in the face of the worst economic crisis since the great depression. That alone, would be unconscionable.
March 29, 2009 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The probability of McCain ever running for president again is even lower than the ratio of Palin's IQ to Cheney's. These three are not the worst imaginable president though the last two come much closer than the first.
March 29, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who cares about Lieberman and Cheney? The important part of this post is the link to Hersh's piece.
Martin Indyk is wrong about Syria and reflects the old school thinking that has typified the Bushie/Israeli approach ie splitting Syria off from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. To continue to foolishly pursue that always lalaland goal is a huge waste of time and counterproductive.
Oddly the Hersh article pretty much ignores Turkey, another major player in the regional reconciliation game. It will be instructive to watch what goes on before, during and after Obama's visit to Istanbul.
Not so much the speeches and the photo-ops, but the movement or lack thereof on the sidelines.
Erdogan could play an important role in the scenario that posits Assad easing the way for US/Iranian cooperation. Turkey is also an important factor for Israeli inclusion. Gaza created some real problems between the two countries and even Israel's closest Turkish "allies", the Turkish military, reacted very badly to Israel's actions and the perception that Olmert had been taking the Turks for a ride re Syria. The damage done to the Tukish/Israeli relationship has caused much angst within Israel.
Keeping fingers crossed and hoping that someone other than Lucy will be holding the ME football....
March 29, 2009 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lally you make many sensible comment here. Do not consider this a critisism. But when you write:
damage done to the Tukish/Israeli relationship has caused much angst within Israel
You could have also added the much angst within the Turkish military.
The arrogance of the Israelis to use their Moslem allies for short term advantage and then just cast them aside for some idiotic internal political advantage is unbelievable. This also applies to their allies inside Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Those allies will soon have to realize, that cutting deals with Israel is poison.
March 30, 2009 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dick Cheney is one sick puppy, but I guess by definition a war criminal is a sicko.
March 29, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Lieberman and the extremist-right become to hold a position of power that enables them to order a pre-emptive attack on Iran, be under no illusion as to the repercussions worldwide and the potential consequences. Arguably, such an act of aggression will be the spark that will start a fire-storm from TelAviv to London, Paris, NY and all points East and West.
The fact that the UN, the US and the EU have allowed the gratuitous massacre of hundreds of women and children in Gaza without comment or action, is a portent of things to come. The impotence of the UN is particularly damaging as there is now no world body of any authority. The only authority now are the nuclear states - and Israel is one of the most powerful and unpredictable.
If that fact allows you to turn out the lights and sleep soundly at night, I envy you.
March 29, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Though I agree that Dick Cheney is one of the historically worst people we have seen in American life, how can history possibly "bear out" the hypothetical situation you present, "that the Twin Towers would still be standing if Al Gore or Bill Clinton was serving as President on 9/11?" Speculations are rife, and though I agree with you that there is at least a chance that an attack would not have been successful, there is no possibility for history to "bear that out." If that were possible, then we'd be able to take the whole Bush Gang legally down on criminal negligence. Perhaps I am missing something here.
March 30, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to make Lieberman look good, you have to bring up Cheney to do it. He's a traitor. A flim-flam man. He abandoned the people who voted for him by taking up with the reich as they perpetuated a war based on lies without a defeinite plan other then to raid the US Treasury.
Cheney will never make it back to the WH. When he was VP, he had an army of doctors standing by to save his life. He was the VP! Now he's not. next cardiac arrest, let's see if anyone takes life saving measures.
March 30, 2009 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Avigdor Lieberman and Dick Cheney are both good guys.
Avigdor Lieberman: No Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney: No Joseph Stalin
March 30, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ jumped the gun. Lieberman hasn't had a chance to become Cheney yet.
Let's wait and see.
March 30, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney is crazy, and I think very likely clinically so.
March 30, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jeez, Mugabe might be a bit hyperbolic.
But he is a class A creep.
I honestly think that he suffers from cognitive impairment from his heart problems.
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon among those with heart issues.
Also unfortunately is that George Bush was not able to recognize what a turd Cheney was, and stubbornly refused to accept his mistake and gave him a second term as VP.
March 30, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's not forget that when Bush assigned terrorism to Cheney the latter did nothing, but concentrated on a still secret energy policy featuring felons who were donors... then, when 9-11 happened, he proceeded to generate an attack on Iran and erode the Constitution in serious ways around torture and domestic eavesdropping. The guy is a sociopath and war criminal the likes of which are historically associated with the darker areas of the former Yugoslavia and Nazi Germany.
March 30, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush-Cheney was arguably the worst administration in US history, and the idiotic "war on terrorism" and "war in Iraq" (not Iran!) were cornerstones of their monumental incompetency, recklessness, and duplicity. But to compare their reign to that of the Nazis is pitifully wrong.
Democracy was close to moribund in Germany even before Hitler got into the government in 2933, and he blitzkrieged it out of existence in short order once he got he hands on the levers of power.
Nothing remotely like that ever occurred in the U.S., notwithstanding most notably the stream of disasters and fiascos wrought by the chickenhawk neocons from circa 2002-06. The mainstream news media and most Congressional Democrats walked lockstep with the Bushmen endorsing and ratifying most of their worst decisions. Nothing and nobody made them do this except their own stupidity, greed, and cowardice, and the willingness of American "progressives" to accept any other weird explanation except their own sleepwalking.
March 30, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is not inconceivable to compare the Bush-Cheney years to the Nazis, or Soviet Russia. The crime of the Nazis was not limited to the Holocaust, although that is undoubtadly their most heinous offense. The crime of the Nazis was developing a fascist culture of intimidation and the destruction of civil rights. This was fertile soil for what happened next.
In the beginning of their rise to power, the Nazis persecuted the intelligentsia, the socialists and the local governments that did not actively and enthusiastically promote their agenda. It was a national K Steet project, along with incarcerating governors unjustly and taking their police powers to extreme lengths. There are many ways to compare the Nazis to Bush-Cheney. It's just really uncomfortable to realize how close we were when we're so proud of being a free country. It makes us look like liars and, in those years, we really were and the world knew it.
March 30, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The damage Bush and Cheney did to America is far greater than most Americans realize, but they were not dictators. Prominent among their many insults to America was their constant misuse of U.S. history, comparing their bogus "war" in Iraq to World War II, etc.. This is no reason to ape their asininity, however, by making a different kind of lazy and badly misleading historical parallel.
Go read a European history book Gregor (and, while you're at, compare the US Constitution to that of the Weimar Republic). Within six MONTHS of being appointed chancellor, Hitler had burned the Parliament building, dissolved the parliament and most of the opposition parties, and was ruling by decree. Only a revolution could have stopped him by then. In 2006, Three YEARS after Bush's "mission accomplished" BS, and five YEARS after his presidential incompetency began, Democrats had the votes to end the Iraq misadventure immediately, could have repealed most of the asinine laws of W's first term, including the tax cuts for the wealthy, and could have impeached the P and VP on the spot. No Nazi dictatorship, indeed basically nothing but their own cowardice prevented them. There can be little doubt that in their stead Republicans would have thrown the book at a Democrat president as incompetent and disliked around the world.
When a bad dog takes a nip at your child and dumps on your doorstep, you need to act swiftly and decisively, not cower in fear, track the stink all over the place, wait until the dog has gone, and then cry wolf. America is up a creek it may never get down from again, but we would be in the water gasping for our lives if Cheney and Bush had been anything like Hitler. The next homegrown scoundrels to hit the US are very likely to learn from their ineptness and mistakes and be much more dangerous. We had better be ready for REAL wolves when they come and not scream "wolf" in the meantime.
March 30, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
GregorZap you're dead on. Comparisons between the Bush-Cheney administration and the Nazi party's reign are valid. That being said, we needn't add additional historical or ideological fuel to the already highly charged fire. It is simpler, and to some degree more accurate, to say that the Bush-Cheney administration was an example of fascism.
April 1, 2009 4:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney may be evil, but it is worth contemplating just how he was able to do so much damage. After all, there are plenty of evil people in the world, but rarely is there a confluence of circumstances that enables that evil to manifest itself so comprehensively.
Start with the fact that with George W. Bush, Cheney had a uniquely incompetent superior. Weak, slow, lazy, feckless, insecure - Bush was the perfect boss for someone like Cheney. He could be manipulated in a way that most presidents would never allow themselves to be.
Next you have to look at the nature of the vice-presidency. In many ways, it is the only place from which someone like Cheney could have pulled off what he did. It is an elected position - sort of. The VP cannot be fired without major political repercussions. It is usually up to the occupant to define the role, with the consent of the President and with Bush, that was basically no check at all.
Finally, you have to consider human nature. To a large extent, the 9/11 attacks rendered the American people putty in the hands of master manipulators. Scared witless, the people were willing to believe virtually anything that the government told them. It is easy to say now that the Democrats should have shown more spine. Unfortunately that's not how democracy works.
Lastly, you have to look at the fact that even at the end of their term, Bush and Cheney still had the support of about 25-30% of the people. Clearly there are a lot of people in this country who don't see anything evil at all. Are they stupid? Are they themselves evil? I tend to think that the sort of xenophobic paranoia that lay at the heart of the Cheney worldview is actually not all that different from the way a good chunk of the American people think.
March 30, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
25% of 300 million is 75 million people.
That's a lot of Zom-Bushes!!!
March 30, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney "...is specializing in publicly predicting (hoping for?) a terrorist attack on our shores which he can happily blame on the Democrats."
The Democrats are continuing Bush's Middle East policies. These policies will inspire attacks against the USA. The Democrats will deserve the blame as much as the Republicans.
March 30, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
well said
March 30, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "Lieberman? So far he's all talk. And I expect that is all he will ever be."
MY CONTRIBUTION: Do not underestimate the potential for his 'talk' inciting the 'actions' of others!
March 30, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: 'talk' inciting the 'actions' of others
A CASE IN POINT?
*AN ISRAELI YOUTH (IVANOV) QUOTED IN A “HAARETZ” ARTICLE OF 02-07-09 ENTITLED “Lieberman’s anti-Arab ideology wins over Israel’s teens” -
“We have a problem: Upper Nazareth is surrounded by minorities. There are lots of incidents with them. Women are scared to walk in the streets, and people are afraid they’ll be stabbed. No one knows what to do about it at this point. There are people who live here and during a war they act as a fifth column. It will only be possible to make peace with them after we make war.”
SOURCE - http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061910.html
*AN EXCERPT FROM A HAARETZ ARTICLE OF 01/27/09 ENTITLED “Police arrest Jewish teens for allegedly assaulting Arab youth in Galilee”:
An Arab youth from the Galilee village of Majd el-Krum was injured lightly on Monday night after a gang of Jewish teens beat him with sticks while he was walking along the promenade in Tiberias.
Police arrested eight suspects ranging from 14 to 16 years of age who are believed to have taken part in the assault.
The victim, Mohammed Mansur, was rushed to Poriah Hospital near Tiberias, where he was treated for injuries sustained all over his body…..
SOURCE - http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059164.html
March 30, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting "Fair and Balanced" reporting from
AN EXCERPT FROM A HAARETZ ARTICLE OF 01/27/09.
"Mohammed Mansur, was rushed to Poriah Hospital" after he was "injured lightly on Monday night after a gang of Jewish teens".
How lightly does a person have to be injured to be "rushed" to the hospital?
April 1, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
M.J.
I greatly admire your posts here; I've learned a lot from you, but I have a quibble with this post:
This is a recycled right-wing talking point, and it's false.
The anthrax attack was a terrorist attack.
About 1 year after 9/11, in 2002, an Egyptian gunman killed 2 people at LAX (I blogged about it on Kos, when this point was recycled in January.
If you count attacks on US embassies and consulates, that number goes up as at least one embassy or consulate was attacked post 9/11.
March 30, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of the 1930's-style racist Lieberman, Rosenberg remarks "So far he's all talk."
And it doesn't matter what the content of that talk is, because a person's future is always just like his past.
March 30, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ,
Still not so sure about Lieberman? How about this from the BBC? Israel FM rejects Annapolis deal
And this is his first day on the job! Lieberman did say that Israel was bound by the Road Map, even though he voted against it in Parliament. But, as we all know, that agreement requires nothing of the Israelis - except for a putting a stop to settlement construction, which, to the Israelis, is an abstract concept not fixed in space or time - until the Palestinian Authority can first control the militant elements within its' "borders". So basically, the racist FM of Israel, who believes that Arab Israelis should take loyalty oaths, has stated that Israel is essentially free to do as it likes where the Palestinians are concerned.
You Can't Go Home Again
April 1, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink