Former acting president VP Dick Cheney, decided to pop out of his retirement seclusion, his hidden bunker, his ground-hog hole, AGAIN. Like some constant reminder of the long winter that still awaits us, the GOP's main Gravitas-gopher is back again -- and he's checking all-things shadow related.
Since the owner's of the soft-soap crate that Cheney likes to stand on -- NEVER asks him any questions about his own role in the promoting and creation "America's Wars" -- I decided to take this simple trip down geo-political memory lane (also known as the "Days of Fire" of the Bush-Cheney years) ...
SO let's first review the recent Cheney shadow-checking appearance on the gopher-promotion network, via the always-compliant FOX-xerox channel, shall we:
Dick Cheney: A bad deal (with FOX Video)
by Kendall Brietman, politico.com -- 6/3/14
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says that the swap between five prisoners released from Guantánamo Bay in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was the product of “really bad staff work” and that the Taliban members will soon return to battle.
“I think there is a distinct possibility that these five will in fact go back into battle,” Cheney told Megyn Kelly on Monday night on Fox. [...]
Lest we forget,
WHY we still have American soldiers to be rescued from the prisons of foreign lands, in the first place ...
We should never forget the tactical resource-game plans, conceived and drawn up IN SECRET -- long BEFORE they had the "WMD excuse" to justify their little exercise dubbed "Enduring Freedom" ... a strategic resource plan, much of it at the behest of our Energy security task-master Richard Bruce Cheney, himself:
Cheney Energy Task Force
sourcewatch.org
The National Energy Policy Development Group was a group, created by Executive Order on January 29, 2001, that was chaired by Vice President Richard Cheney. The group, commonly referred to as the "Cheney Energy Task Force," produced a National Energy Policy report in May 2001. [1] In a cover note to George W. Bush, Cheney wrote that "we have developed a national energy policy designed to help bring together business, government, local communities and citizens to promote dependable, affordable and environmentally sound energy for the future." [2] (pdf) The composition of the task force, according to the report, was confined to government officials.
[...]
* 1 April 2004: U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman rejected arguments by Bush administration lawyers that employees from the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Energy can claim special confidentiality privileges for the period when they worked for the task force, which held private meetings with energy industry representatives as it crafted a national energy policy. [9]
[...]
* 24 June 2004: "The Supreme Court today rejected the Bush Administration's argument that it has a constitutional right to keep the workings of the Cheney Energy Task Force secret. The Court refused to rule on whether Vice President Cheney must produce documents in Sierra Club's suit and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals." [11], [12]
Heavily Censored Energy Department Papers Show Industry is the Real Author of Administration's Energy Task Force Report
[PR:] NRDC Will Seek Full Disclosure in Court Today
nrdc.org
WASHINGTON (March 27, 2002) [...]
Among the more significant revelations unearthed from the heavily redacted documents, NRDC lawyers found:
* A March 20, 2001 email from the American Petroleum Institute to an Energy Department official provided a draft Executive Order on energy. Two months later, President Bush issued Executive Order 13211, which is nearly identical in structure and impact to the API draft, and nearly verbatim in a key section.
* In March 2001, a Southern Company lobbyist emailed a DOE official suggesting "another issue" for inclusion in the energy plan: so-called reform of the Clean Air Act and related enforcement actions. The suggestion was incorporated into the energy plan, launching the Administration's controversial effort to weaken the Clean Air Act and retreat from high-profile enforcement actions against the nation's largest polluters, including the Southern Company.
[...]
"These documents show how the White House task force turned coal and oil company wish lists directly into national policy while ignoring proven technologies that can help us meet our energy needs cleanly and reliably," explained Sharon Buccino, an NRDC senior attorney.
[...]
Why in the world did the
Cheney Energy Task Force fight so hard to keep their goals and decisions, about America's Energy Future --
SUCH a big freaking National secret?
Well, that question is getting a bit "warmer" ... a bit closer to the one that perennial-VP should be asked -- though I doubt anyone at the FOX water-carrying network, will ever bother to asking him.
... besides its all water Oil under the bridge NOW, isn't it?
Well, Mr Cheney is an Oil man, so no doubt he had Oil Profit$$ on the brain, back then.
Iraq Oil Deals Fulfill Cheney's Goals
by Jason Leopold, consortiumnews.com -- July 2, 2008
Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain “a prisoner of its energy dilemma” as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.
That April 2001 report, “Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,” was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney.
In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world’s second largest oil reserves.
“Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East,” the report said.
[...]
And from historycommons.org, this little historical footnote, concerning the SECRET Cheney resource-planning committee documents -- that somehow has drifted into our
National Amnesia zone ...
July 17, 2003: Documents from Cheney Energy Task Force Released; Maps, Charts of Iraqi Oil Fields Included Map of Iraqi oil fields included in released documents.
The conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch releases documents recently turned over by the US Commerce Department through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The documents show some of the activities of the secretive energy task force chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney (the National Energy Policy Development Group -- see May 16, 2001). Cheney and the White House successfully blocked Congress from learning even the most basic information about the task force’s activities (see February 22, 2002). The Commerce Department documents include maps of Iraqi oil fields and oil infrastructure, and other charts showing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a document entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” Other maps and documents show detailed information about oil fields and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All of the documents are dated March 2001. Judicial Watch has sought these documents under FOIA since April 2001, and only secured them after a federal judge ordered their release in March 2002. (The Judicial Watch lawsuit was consolidated with a similar suit from the Natural Resources Defense Council.) [...]
Map of Iraqi oil fields included in released documents. [Source: Judicial Watch]
“These documents show the importance of the Energy Task Force and why its operations should be open to the public,” says Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton. “This was not about national security. This was about an undersecretary talking to a lobbyist.” [Judicial Watch, 7/17/2003; Judicial Watch, 7/17/2003; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 14-15]
Well, you know what every
green-blooded Gopher says:
"All's well Oil's well, that ends well."
Maps and Charts of Iraqi Oil Fields
judicialwatch.org
These are documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002, court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force. The documents contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects [...]
* Iraq Oil Map
* Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts – Part 1
* Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts – Part 2
* United Arab Emirates Oil Map
* United Arab Emirates: Major Oil and Natural Gas Development Projects
* Saudi Arabia Oil Map
* Saudi Arabia: Major Oil and Natural Gas Development Projects
That's a mighty long shadow, Oil-rep Cheney has cast there ... on
'their sands'.
Yup, and it's still there. Marking out the 'exploratory zones' for the Friends-of-Cheney's taking ... If only they can muster up enough troops mercenaries, to claim it.
Big Oil, Now. Big Oil, Later. Big Oil, ALWAYS!!!
Wars have been fought for less ... right Dick?
Now, here's the
Right Question, that Mr Richard
"I have 5 Deferments" Cheney, should be asked someday -- perhaps the next time he pops out of his retirement hole (again):
Was the your war in Iraq -- primarily about about tapping their Oil?
Yes OR No?
Take a moment Mr VP ... and gather your sanctimonious thoughts. We'll wait for them ...
Perhaps sir, you might want to review your notes on Iraq's WMDs, first ... ???
We all know, how hard it is to keep that story straight ... after all these years ...