May 31, 2004

Washington scandal du jour: "A Pentagon e-mail said Vice President Dick Cheney coordinated a huge Halliburton government contract for Iraq, despite Cheney's denial of interest in the company he ran until 2000."
posted by SideDish 20 years ago
  • Are we surprised? No. Will anyone get slapped on the wrist for this? No. As I've said before.. where is Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?
  • Ermm... hate to be paranoid, Nost, but you might want to rephrase that. On the other hand, it's promising to begin to see this kind of hard evidence surfacing to the 'mass' media. Maybe there's hope for somebody else winning in november... maybe...
  • Where's an independent counsel NOW? Cheney seems to shed a LOT of questions with a mere "nod" from the "press" The real issues of the energy hearings got distracted by the hunting trip "story". didn't the issue have something to do with Government/Corporate Energy (cotract$) issues??? Never fear, the MASS DISTRACTION continues. Are we ALL blind? Or being hoodwinked?
  • so uh... why's this thread onyl garnered a measly 4 comments so far (including me)? and why isn't dick cheney in jail? he east babies, you know. i mean, just look at the guy. he. eats. babies.
  • It's curious to note that, before Clinton was in office, Republicans allowed the independent counsel law to die, saying that it was unfair and used only for partisan attacks (like, say, Iran Contra). Then Clinton got a hummer, and they revived it. Now we're not talking about using it? Feh. As for mass distraction, just wait until October. I have a feeling that we ain't seen nothin' yet. No, he won't go to jail. We've known for a long time that (a) the government gave out the contract without taking competitive bids (which is illegal for many government departments, but not the White House), and (b) Cheney used to pilot the ship at Halliburton. Anyone who was not a Cheney apologist knew this wasn't some grand coincidence. But most of the country seemed to shrug over that one. Will they do much more over this?
  • I think there aren't that many comments because if there were a lot, the cries of, "Agendafilter" or, "echochamber" would come from the few neocons that do frequent the monkey. Still in all, I wouldn't mind hearing from a couple of voices on the right to see what they think of the situation and if maybe we're just a bunch of conspiracy nuts.
  • Jesus, people, wake the hell up would you, please??!! Can't you see we have more important issues going on here? I mean, hello....Martha Stewart....hello? Who the hell is worried about Cheney when we've got the likes of her running around? I mean, really.:|
  • Well, you can always sing this little song if you need a little cheering.
  • This thread gives me the urge to eat mass quantities of donuts and coffee. Maybe that's why most Americans don't react to this with outrage, they are spurred to go to that coffee place that has those great donuts.
  • mmmmmmm....... donuts. /homer
  • Pretty much the whole top administration seems to believe that God gave them babies to eat, so it's a holy sacrement to do so. But, maybe if we got to know them personally, we'd find that they really are nice, honorable folks at heart with great senses of humor and altruistic reasons to make the world a better place for everyone. However, each new revelation or action hacks off another piece of my ability to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they've actually done something I approved of, but for the life of I can't think of what it was due to the rather overwhelming accumulated weight of stuff like this. I've gotten to the point that it seems hopeless to chime in on the breaking story of the day threads. Maybe I should start reading the neocon pundits on the internet so I could convince myself that there's good news about these guys. And, yeah, did anyone not have a suspicion that the Haliburton contracts might be patronage way back when they were awarded? Even our more conservative friends?
  • Shit, I gave the Halliburton lowdown in my blog 4 months ago about how companies were going directly to Cheney to get contracts. On a side note: David Chambers - Director of Programs Middle East Institute.
    Iraq's debt cancellation, however, does not lie in a vacuum, and a neo-Conservative Bush II Administration does not call upon the likes of a Reagan Conservative like Jim Baker to deal with Iraq's debt unless the need is extreme -- like bailing Bush II out of the 2000 election situation. Baker is the top Republican fireman: follow him to find out where the most serious political fires need to be quenched. And when someone like Baker proves unable to solve Iraq's foreign debt problem, then it's time to worry, indeed. In fact, how could Baker solve this Bush II-created problem? While the US has been pushing for most debt to be written off, it has complete control over Iraqi reconstruction; European nations hold most of the debt notes yet have at best a weak shot at contracts being awarded by the US government or its primary contractors. More simply, the US has been asking Europeans to cancel billions of dollars in debt for no guaranteed reconstruction contracts. Such a background reduces American gains at the UN last week to a slight of hand. Nothing has really improved between the US and its European NATO allies, so how can anything improve in Iraq, still held by Coalition forces?
  • Heh. Man, the things you miss when on vacation. Right in the midst of Gay Beach Week down in Pensacola, too! I'll comment more when I've read up...