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Originally Posted by The Reaper
I liked Cheney, and thought he did his best to keep America safe and GWB conservative, as much as he could.
Anyone here who has never had someone move into their line of fire has not yet hunted enough. Most of us have, on occasion, been lucky. Not an apologist, but sometimes, shit happens. I didn't see any Ted Kennedy type cover-up or excuses. The media sure covered it thoroughly.
IMHO, given the non-stop attacks on the Bush administration since his election, and the complaints from the current administration since their campaign started, someone needs to stand up and call a spade a spade. I see no issues with the former VP doing it.
TR
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Anyone who has ever hunted dove on Camp MacKall on opening weekend knows how it gets when there are birds flying everywhere and there are 40 hunters out there slaying birds left and right. It gets nuts and you get shot, period. It stings and it starts a lot of fights, but it happens every year. You try to get away from anyone you can, you yell "low bird" if you see someone about to flag your way, you do what you can, but the bottom line is you wear eye protection because you are going to get stung. No blood, no foul.
Anyone who formed an opinion of Cheney based upon the dove hunt thing...well shame on you. Go hunt birds. I wasn't there when Dick supposedly shot the guy, but like you said, TR, s**t happens. There is little doubt we did not hear the whole story anyway!
As you pointed out also, Cheney and Bush withstood a DAILY barrage of crap from the left from day one. They were accused of ridiculous things like being part of a 9-11 conspiracy and whatever the left could cook up. So much of it was straight up lies. There were many times when I wondered why they never spoke up about certain issues that the left insisted were great big issues worth hanging the whole GW administration over. My guess is they realized that it did not matter what they did, it was going to be wrong in the eyes of the demoncrats and they would get beat up over it anyway, regardless which side of the fence they stood on so they just conducted business and kept their mouths shut. Who the hell can blame them?
It is perfectly appropriate for Cheney to speak out right now and 10 years from now, whether or not he holds any particular office or not. If Carter and slick Willie C. can run around influencing US foreign policy, why can't the former Sec Def and VP speak out and call a spade a spade? He certainly did more good for our country than that idiot peanut farmer and the former impeached *cough* president...
Really though, it will never be ok for Cheney to speak out because he is a Republican and his viewpoints are counter to those in power. That's modern political correctness for ya.
I would like to see some specifics on Cheney's ties to Haliburton. If he does have money invested with them who cares really? Dick does not do the contract work at any level, never did. Furthermore, when did Haliburton NOT have the government contracts for ALL of that shit anyway? There are some companies that can compete in some areas, but none that can do what they can as a package deal. If Bill Clinton had money invested in Haliburton you wouldn't even hear a peep about it.
So I ask, who has done the no horseshit research and found where Dick directly benefitted financially because of either his position under Bush I or Bush II and his interests in Haliburton? I haven't ever seen it in print or heard anyone produce any facts, just accusations with no facts to back it up. because of that I would assume that it was more slander and libel cooked up by the left to tarnish the view of the right. Certainly if there was any wrongdoing he would be in prison by now considering the scrutiny he underwent for the last 8 years. Shame on anyone who believed any part of that Haliburton stuff.
I was in Afghanistan saw the battle early on and was there to begin construction on one of the most recent firebases. I can tell you Cheney had no direct part in any big change in operations Afghanistan. None whatsoever.I can tell you what did and the day it all changed...the day we went from winning that war to gradually losing it little by little, which has caused us to be where we are today. It's the day our mission statement changed from "Kill, destroy, capture..." to having "...deny and disrupt..." added in there. It changed everything about the way we all operated over there. That wasn't Dick's doing. It was the accomplishment of conventional force commanders on the ground with no prior combat experience outside of JRTC/NTC *cough*. Same d***h**ds who screwed up COUNTLESS missions trying to "kill, destroy, capture..." My guess is they added in "Deny and disrupt" because that's all they could accomplish within their leadership capabilities with any given chance of success. I digress...It goes deeper than that, but that began the spiral. It is a qualifiable, quantifiable fact.
It also gave room for some asshats at all levels of command to somehow think we can coexist in some way with the Taliban. Now even this moron VP and big Hillary C. are saying we are going to work with the Taliban when they don't truly know who the f***ing Taliban are. I do and I'll tell you there aint no co-existing with them, period.
No, if you think Cheney had any direct impact on the war in Afghanistan you are incorrect unless you say that he was the champion of the open checkbook policy for SOF and thus helped a lot more of us come home safely and aided us in sending a shitload of fresh booger-eaters to Allah. For that you can correctly place blame squarely upon Mr. Cheney.
None should form their opinions of Dick Cheney based on anything other than what they research for themselves, or know personally to be true. Judge him by what you know, by what he does and says, not by what the MSM has to say. If anything is evident with the current situation in this country...our media is all shit. Don't believe ANY of it.
I had a chance to work for him for a short period of time and my opinion of Dick Cheney is as high as I could give almost anyone. He is a good man and he loves this country as much as any of us. It is unfortunate that he served at a time when the media was so biased against his party and policies.