Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Dick Cheney, 1941-2025
Dick Cheney passed away last night at the age of 84. The former Vice President of the United States was one of the real powerbrokers in Washington, a town full of wannabes. He rose quickly in the 1970s to become the youngest White House Chief of Staff in history. He served in Congress as well, and by the time the 2000 election rolled around, he was able to make himself the running mate of his old boss' kid. When 9/11 happened, Mr. Cheney embarked on a Global War on Terror [GWOT] that failed miserably to achieve its ends. The nation is still reeling from that idiocy. In a small act of decency, he did show up to commemorate those who fell on January 6, when most GOP members of the House failed to attend. It was far from enough.
Others will remark on his meteoric rise and his early career, but Mr. Cheney becomes one of the main figures in Republican Party politics as Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, after John Tower was denied the job because he drank like a fish. He held that job during the liberation of Kuwait, Desert Storm. He was a voice for restraint after victory. "The idea of going into Baghdad, for example, or trying to topple the regime wasn’t anything I was enthusiastic about," he told Thomas E. Ricks who wrote Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.
When he was tapped by George W. Bush (Bush the Lesser to regular readers) to find a vice presidential running mate, Mr. Cheney interviewed a few before the younger Mr. Bush decided he wanted Mr. Cheney himself. That, at least, is the official story. It seems odd that the man in charge of the search found the ideal candidate was the first person singular. The true story is probably not quite the same as the official one.
As VP, Mr. Cheney was the one in the White House when New York and Washington were attacked on September 11, 2001. His attitude grew paranoid, and frankly, his every action on foreign policy after that seemed to be shoot first and ask questions if necessary later (but ideally ask no questions). He and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumseld (known as Field Marshall von Rumsfeld here) were the main cheerleaders for the American war of aggression in Iraq. The term "war criminal" applies as Nuremberg judges held that the act of aggression is the crime that makes all the others possible.
America went to war to find and destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist. America spent 20 years at war as a result, spending trillions of dollars. In the end, Afghanistan is run by the Taliban once again, and Iraq now threatens its neighbors not because it is a dictatorship with a strong army but because it has a weak government and numerous militias exist freely. Failure is the only way to describe it.
Mr. Cheney would and did argue that there was not a terrorist attack on American soil after 9/11. That is only partially true. There has not been a jihadi attack. The indigenous right in America has been perpetrating acts of terror at least since Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.
When a genuine terror attack occurred on January 6, a violent attempt designed to achieve a political end by non-state actors (the definition of terrorism), Vice President Cheney came out against it wholeheartedly. Consequently, he was hated by the MAGA Republicans. It did suggest that the man had a principle in play here, and that is something they do not accept. This journal can respect his position as being consistent at the very least.
In the end, his legacy is one of disappointed potential. Had he got the GWOT right, he would have achieved a great objective for the country and world. Rather than small numbers of troops hunting only the killers, he tried to change whole societies. That over-reach may mark the high-tide like in American history.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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