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Mister Dithers
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Richard Bruce Cheney
Like a bad penny, former Vice President Dick Cheney keeps turning up. First, he seemed to be throwing George W. Bush under the bus by defending the government's torture of detainees under the Bush administration. Now he's saying that President Obama is "dithering" by not being more decisive in his actions vis-à-vis the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. To "dither" is to be indecisive.
Thank God for our current vice president, who questioned why anyone should listen to Dick Cheney at this point. Andrew E. Mathis
But let's consider for a moment who really is the ditherer — not because there's merit in what Cheney says, but rather because it's always fun to point out the hypocrisy of conservatives.
We all recall that Cheney was Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush. And we recall that Cheney famously had gone to Baghdad, where he had been greeted warmly by then President Saddam Hussein. That President Bush the Elder went to war against Saddam Hussein should have caused some cognitive dissonance, then, for Cheney, right?
Well, no, because Bush the Elder had to win an election in two years and the economy was in the toilet. A war was just what the doctor ordered.
Let's not forget that it was partly on Cheney's counsel that Bush the Elder did not pursue the Iraqi Army to Baghdad — not that it would have been a good idea or within the goals of the Persian Gulf War — and did not sufficiently fund either the Kurds in northern Iraq or the Sunni majority in southern Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein régime.
So surely it must have caused some cognitive dissonance when the idea of going to war against Iraq was raised in the aftermath of 9/11, right?
Wrong again, sparky. In fact, it was largely Cheney's idea to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Why was that again? Oh, yeah: It was those undeniable links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, not to mention the rock-hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction being produced in Iraq.
Remember that?
Meanwhile, there was another country with which we'd begun a conflict. It was harboring the man responsible for 9/11. What country was that again?
Oh yeah! It was Afghanistan.
So here we are, more than eight years after 9/11, and we're still fighting a war — and not winning it, either — in Afghanistan. And while it may, in fact, be that the reason we aren't winning is because, according to the conventional wisdom, Afghanistan is where "empires go to die," at the same time, few can doubt that if victory were possible in Afghanistan, it would have been secured when Cheney was still vice president — if he hadn't led us into a five-year detour that led through Baghdad.
Back to the main point: Dick Cheney says the President dithers. What I see the President doing is seeking the advise of military counsel and our regional and international allies — again, something not done when Cheney was on the National Security Council.
Might not finishing a job that badly needed finishing, i.e., a war with a country harboring the person who planned and carried out the worst act of terrorism ever committed against Americans, be considered irresponsible? Might shaking a man's hand and then going to war with him less than two years later be considered flaky? Might opting to leave Saddam Hussein in power and then deciding to oust him later on be indecisive? Might it be, dare I say, dithering?
Yes, Dagwood. I think it would be.
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