To double down on the irony of the Wyoming State Bar inviting a war criminal to be their keynote speaker are the dates of their annual meeting which will be held between Sept 9 - 11.
The worst, most criminally corrupt and most incompetent Vice President in US History, Dick Cheney, will be speaking on Sept 10.
Dick Cheney can thank President Obama for not being indicted on war crimes.
Cheney's list of war crimes include his role conspiring and falsifying US Intel, presenting those lies (falsified Intel) to Congress and the UN in his effort to invade a sovereign country to steal Iraqi oil for Big Oil Privatization.
Here are some things Dick Cheney can include in his speech to the Wyoming lawyers:
He can recall that after being sworn into office in January 200, that August, (7 months later) GW Bush was on a month-long vacation. Then Dick Cheney can tell the WY. lawyers that he recalls the incompetence and "dithering" of himself and the rest of the GW Bush Administration after they got the August 6, 2001 CIA PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike America" where on page 2 it states that Bin Laden had people in New York City and were plotting to hijack planes. Sadly, due to Bush Administration's utter ineptitude, a little over a month later, 9/11/2001 happened.
Then Cheney can rub his disgusting, dripping-of-death hands together and explain that after that horrible terrorist attack, that happened on his watch, the plot to deceive, lie to the world, and cause hundreds of thousands of innocent people to die in his, Cheney's, effort to privatize Iraq oil was catalyzed and sped-up by war criminals: GW Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld and others in the Bush Administration.
Or maybe, he'll keep it short and say:
I, Dick Cheney, conspired with private Oil Corporations, helped falsify U.S. National Security Intelligence, sanctioned the outting of a CIA agent, sanctioned torture in violation of various U.S. Treaty obligations, lied to Congress, lied to the U.N and lied to the American public so deadly force could be used to invade Iraq and steal Iraq oil that resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, destroyed billions of dollars of property -- oh -- and I nearly left out, I, Dick Cheney and the entire Bush Administration was so incompetent that, given 8 long years, no one in the Bush Administration was ever competent enough to capture Bin Laden ... in fact, we let him go when we had him in our sights in Tora Bora in December, 2001, and that was a catastrophic National Security blunder.
United States Special Ops Command described how they had Bin Laden in their sights.
At approximately 1600 local, Afghan troops reported that they had not only spotted UBL but had him surrounded, ans asked for additional help.
In 2009, CNN
reported
It [the report] said former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top U.S. commander Gen. Tommy Franks held back the necessary forces for a "classic sweep-and-block maneuver" that could have prevented bin Laden's escape.
Dick Cheney's legacy:
In 2012, the anti-apartheid crusader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu blasted Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for their lies that led to the invasion of Iraq.
The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilized and polarized the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.
~excerpt from article Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in 2012
Tutu went on
the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the specter of Syria and Iran before us.
~Desmond Tutu in 2012
Tutu then explained why GW Bush, Dick Cheney and others should be facing trial at the Hague.
The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.
On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague."
~Desmond Tutu in 2012
In an interview Matt Lauer had with Dick Cheney in 2011, Dick Cheney still insisted that he did the 'right thing' by invading Iraq and stealing their oil for his oil pals.
LAUER: ...and we sit here some eight years later, 4,000 Americans lost their lives, maybe 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives. It cost about a trillion dollars. Was it worth it? Did you give the right advice?
CHENEY: I think I did ...so it was--it was the right thing to do ... I don't think that it damaged our reputation
around the world. I just don't believe that.
~Dick Cheney 2011 interview
I notice Cheney failed to mention to Lauer that a result of his invading Iraq, he, Dick Cheney also created ISIS in 2004.
Here's what Tutu says about the ghoulishness of the likes of war criminals like Dick Cheney, GW Bush, Tony Blair, etc.
Leadership and morality are indivisible. Good leaders are the custodians of morality. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level.
If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?
In Rachel Maddow's
documentary “Hubris: Selling the Iraq War,” a choked up Republican Representative Walter Jones says about his vote:
JONES: If I had read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, I probably would have been — have done myself a favor by being better informed on the intelligence rather than listening to the administration.
In my heart, I knew that a no to the authority for the president was the right vote, but yet I was not strong enough to vote my conscience.
I was more concerned about the politics in my decision, rather than what is right, and what is wrong. I have prayed to God many times that he would forgive me for sending his children to die in a war that never had to happen.
Even rightwinger Allen Greenspan said
GREENSPAN: Yes, the war was about oil.
Declassified documents show the talking points GW Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld etc were to use to deceive the world on why Bush/Cheney should privatize Iraq's oil in the guise of WMD.
Michael Isikoff read the declassified documents and wrote that just hours after 9/11 Bush/Cheney Administration were plotting ways to claim Saddam Hussein was in on 9/11 with Bin Laden:
Just hours after the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met in the Pentagon with Air Force General Richard Myers, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top aides.
Notes taken by Rumsfeld aide Steve Cambone (and referred to pages 334 and 335 of the 9/11 Commission Report) show the secretary asked for the “best info fast..judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time—not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].”
Rumsfeld also tasked Jim Haynes, the Pentagon’s top lawyer, “to talk w/ PW [Paul Wolfowitz] for additional support [for the] connection w/ UBL.” Other comments from the notes: “Need to move swiftly…go massive–sweep it all up things related and not.”
Michael Isikoff went on to describe the plot
By late November, Rumsfeld was meeting with Gen. Tommy Franks, Centcom commander, to plot the “decapitation” of the Iraqi government, according to the now declassified talking points agenda from the sessions.
The talking points suggest that Rumsfeld and his team were grappling with a tricky issue: “How [to] start?” the war. In other words, what would the pretext be? Various scenarios were outlined: “US discovers Saddam connection to Sept. 11 attack or to anthrax attacks?” reads one of them. “Dispute over WMD inspections?” reads another. “Start now thinking about inspection demands.”
The declassified documents can be read
here
Back to the lawyers hosting the WY State Bar, here are some former keynote speakers from this same annual event that the WY State Bar hosts:
2013
CBS News Legal Analyst Jack Ford a CBS News Legal Analyst and anchor of Jack Ford: Courtside on COURT TV. He began his television news career in 1984 as the Legal Analyst for WCBS-TV in New York.
2012
Sandra Day O'Connor, former U.S. Supreme Court justice.
2010
Honorable Alan C. Page. Justice Page is an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Dick Cheney invaded a country which was not a threat to our country. He sanctioned torture in violation of various U.S. Treaty obligations. He sanctioned the outting of a CIA agent. He conspired and helped falsify National Security Intelligence ... Of course Dick Cheney is a war criminal
So, what lawyer over at the WY State Bar thought up the not-so bright idea to invite a war criminal to be their keynote speaker? (SMH)