Bad Things Come in Threes

                                       

Wonder how we got into this mess?  You may have heard your grandmother say something like "bad things come in threes."  Well, Granny wasn't kidding.  Call them what you will, the threesome of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, but check out this article, "U.S. endorsed Iranian plans to build massive nuclear energy industry, Cheney Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz behind Iran Nuclear Program initiated during Ford Administration" on Global Research.Ca (Center for Research on Globalization) by Ed Haas. 

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford signed a directive that granted Iran the opportunity to purchase U.S. built reprocessing equipment and facilities designed to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.

When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, the current Vice President of the United States, Richard B Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.[1]

In August 1974, the current Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld served as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He then became Chief of Staff of the White House and a member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975)[2] and was the Ford Administration’s Secretary of Defense from 1975–1977.

The current President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz served in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Gerald Ford.[3] Wolfowitz is considered as a prominent architect of the Bush Doctrine, which has come to be identified with a policy that permits pre-emptive war against potential aggressors before they are capable of mounting attacks against the United States.

[1] The White House, Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/, [Accessed March 4, 2006]

[2] United States Department of Defense, Biography – Donald H. Rumsfeld, http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html, [Accessed March 4, 2006]

[3] Washington Post, Realism, Rewarded, George F. Will, May 12, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051101815.html, [Accessed March 4, 2006]

 And there we thought Gerald Ford's administration was dull!  Little did we realize that the boys were already setting things up.  They just needed a front man!  It would be interesting to count the "threes" we've had to deal with since the 2000 election.

 This is a lot like the Rumsfeld/Saddam connection that Julian Borger wrote about on Tuesday December 31, 2002 in The Guardian, titled "Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'", "Declassified papers leave the White House hawk exposed over his role during the Iran-Iraq war." 

I could state the obvious, that here are two glaring examples of geopolitical hypocrisy, but I'm sure you are already there. 

Oh what a tangled web we weave,  when first we practise to deceive! 

–Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.   Scottish author & novelist (1771 – 1832)

Fighting the War that You Make

Richard Cohen talks today in his WAPO column about Bush’s determination to go to war in Iraq. This is nothing new, we’ve been hashing and rehashing, screaming from the left and the right about the “rightness/wrongness” of this war. Cohen, as have others in the last three and a half years, says that perhaps the Bush probably truly believed the feeds his advisors, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the other neocons gave him. I’m not saying anything new or profound here, just venting. I agree because all the evidence available to the general public (minus actual intelligence scores) indicate that Bush’s intellect isn’t high enough to facilitate deep analytical abilities. He seems to be a very concrete thinker so if you tell him something that fits into his ideas of the world he will believe it. The dangerous part is that all of his feed is coming from one trough in the sty; no balanced diet here. Why are we willing to follow a man who can only see one way? This is a weak post but I’m short on time.