Across a table of rellenos and burritos, The Kid says to us "You know, Dick Cheney is a lot like Cartman on South Park". Whooo Lord, out of the mouths of babes, even if they are 6'-2". Yuppers, holiday platitudes aside, I couldn't wait to rush home and get this entry done.
In one of my favorite episodes of South Park, "Red Sleigh Down", Eric Cartman is ranked "Naughty" on the naughty-or-nice list. Cartman has just a few days to alter his naughty-or-nice standing so he can qualify for a Haibo Robot Dog which is his heart's desire. In order to secure his desire, Eric will do anything, including jeopardizing Christmas for the rest of the world, Santa and even Jesus. In pursuit of his own profit and agenda, Eric Cartman will use Mr. Hankey and the boys, convince Santa to fly over Baghdad to spread Christmas to the poor Iraqis and, when Santa is shot down, enlist Jesus for an armed rescue attempt.
In the end, the reindeer all die, Santa is tortured, the boys, with the aid of Jesus, rescue Santa only to have Jesus shot down and despite all of his selfishness (no improvement on naughty), Cartman is rewarded with the coveted Haibo Robot Dog. Unfortunately for Eric, Santa also gives Kyle and Stan robot dogs as well. This lack of exclusivity pisses Cartman off so badly that he kicks his Haibo Dog off into the South Park snow, muttering curses. A miracle of Christmas redemption is not in the cards for Cartman: no Clarence will save him from himself.
Eric Cartman is the spirit of Christmas Past, Present and Future as well as Jacob Marley's salvation compared to Dick Cheney. In 1992, while acting as the US Secretary of Defense, Cheney had the Pentagon pay Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, nine million dollars to produce a report which said that private companies (like Halliburton ) could provide logistical support to US Army Corps of Engineers. Soon enough, Brown & Root rake in over two billion (yeah, with a "B") dollars in revenue in the Balkans doing just that
A few years after the sudden influx of the two billion dollars into the Brown & Root coffers, Dick Cheney takes over as CEO of Halliburton. He manages this without any prior business experience. Wow! Talk about your American success story! That's using the old bootstraps!
From 1995 until the end of the "w" presidency, (intentional lower case), Cheney is busy giving Cartman a schooling on keeping your eyes on the personal prize. Whether is helping in the creation of the Project for a New American Century, human rights abuses in Burma on Halliburton pipeline projects or engineering a bogus cause for war with Saddam Hussein, Cheney is right there, trying to get his Haibo Dog and succeeding brilliantly.
"Red Sleigh Down" ends just before the bombing of Baghdad and the start of Cheney's war with Iraq. For Cheney, now the Vice-President of the US and one feeble and corroded heart-beat away from the presidency, this is just the beginning. The start of the war against Saddam Hussein means one thing to Cheney and Halliburton: money. Lots and lots of money. Pallet loads of the stuff, ready to move forward all of the no-bid contracts awarded Halliburton to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure after Cheney's buddy Rumsfeld bombed it back into the stone age. It takes a great deal of taxpayer money, mountains of it, to keep Halliburton chugging ahead without any fiscal oversight whilst they rebuild that which US Forces, under the direction of Rummy and Cheney, had unbuilt.
The no-bid contracts keep rolling in for Cheney and Halliburton. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, have a continuing "cost-plus-award-fee indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity service" agreement with the US Department of Defense This ten year contract started in 2001 and remains in effect as of this blogging.
You can't help make money with a no-bid contract. In fact, you can make so much money that your company will have to pay a measly two million back to the government to settle a lawsuit for over-billing. The difference between the billions in and a few million back out is, well, lots of money. Enough money to buy lots of toys of your choice.
Cartman jeopardized Christmas, Santa and Jesus to get his desire. And guess what, its a cartoon.
Cheney has disregarded domestic and international law, subverted the democratic processes of the United States, played a pivotal part in justifying a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and defrauded the citizens of this country of billions of dollars.
The biggest difference between the two is that Dick Cheney isn't the product of the imagination of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. He is a dangerous nightmare that is all too real.
And its old news.
No comments:
Post a Comment