Whose Afraid Of A Few Canadians?

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was making headlines Tuesday after canceling an appearance in Toronto, his spokesperson said that Cheney and his daughter "decided it was better for their personal safety they stay out of Canada."

From a March 13, 2012 story in the Los Angeles Times. Hat Tip to Colorado Pols.

Canada, of course, is famous for having far less crime than any of its neighbors to the South, and is not known for being a hotbed of terrorist activity. A lawsuit by a Canadian citizen faulting the Canadian government for cooperating in the Cheney devised policy of extraordinary rendition that caused their citizen to be tortured abroad has caused major headlines there.

The bottom line is that while Cheney always talked tough while in office, he now looks like a cowardly wimp.

A recent appearance by Cheney in Vancouver brought out fierce protests from usually docile Canadians that required police intervention.

Cheney also faces a 2010 felony indictment in Nigeria related to bribery his company, Haliburton, allegedly engaged in there while he was his CEO which Canada might extradict him upon, since Canada respects internationally legal arrangements and voluntarily participates in them much more so than the United States.

Cheney was the chief architect of an aggressive and constitutionally questionable set of tactics to deal with terrorism, and was a war hawk pushed for war with Iraq based on what turned out to be false pretenses related to weapons of mass destruction and a non-existent connection to the 9-11 attacks, during the administration of George W. Bush. Lawsuits against him in the United States based upon his alleged war crimes and civil rights violations have been dismissed on procedural grounds and under doctrines designed to protect senior political officials from liability for national security decision making.

His companies, which provide private security services in war zones, have also been criticized for creating an unaccountable legion of mercenaries who harmed local Iraqis with impunity and damaged U.S. diplomatic interests while enriching him and his shareholders.

In Cheney's recent memoir, which his trip was probably intended to promote to some extent, he was unapologetic.

One For The Road?

Middle East analyst and blogger Juan Cole reports on credible rumors of an effort by the Vice President's office to stir up a significant minority is support of going to war with Iran, on top of the war with Iraq, starting the week after Labor Day 2007.

What the hell? The President is a lame duck, so from his perspective, why shouldn't he start one more war in his last sixteen months in office against a country he proclaimed to be evil when he started the job? He's already secured regime change in both of Iran's biggest neighbors . . . he probably sees it as a manifest destiny thing at this point.

My first response is, "with what Army?" We have no ground troops to spare for an invasion of Iran, given that we already have troops overtaxed trying to maintain wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and other foreign deployments in places like South Korea on top of those deployments. Of course, the United States does have an Air Force and a Navy that are not overtaxed. Stranger things have happened, and the Democrats who control Congress are notoriously spineless. So, such an effort, if it does manifest, isn't necessarily dead on arrival, as it should be. If I were an oil futures trader, it would be enough to make me want to lock in relatively low prices now before this possibility manifests more seriously.

Resident Evil

Vice President Dick Cheney, and his counsel, David Addington, are the drivers behind almost everything evil that has been done in the administration of George W. Bush. This is the conclusion of Marty Lederman at Balkinization who makes the argument persausively, supported largely by continuing coverage of Dick Cheney at the Washington Post (emphasis in the original):

[A]s we have recounted in the NSA/FISA matter and elsewhere, and as Gellman and Becker elaborate at great length, virtually any time Cheney and Addington adopt an extreme position, they are met with strong resistance from many conservatives within the Bush Administration -- including many important players at DOJ (Ashcroft, Comey, Goldmsith, Philbin, Olson, Clement, etc.), and elsewhere (Rice, Gates, Powell, Bellinger, Waxman, Kavanaugh, Berenson, etc.) Not to mention huge swaths of the intelligence agencies, the State Department, the uniformed military (especially the JAGs), et al. If you have any friends who have served in this Administration, you know that there are countless very conservative supporters of this President within the government who have constantly been at loggerheads with Cheney and Addington, and who simply cannot believe the positions adopted by (and, frequently, the terrible misjudgments of) the Vice President's office. And they are even more incredulous that those positions have, rountinely, become state policy, no matter the amount or intensity of dissent from other components of the Administration.

And yet . . . the Vice President does consistently prevails in the internal debates. He wins virtually every battle -- or at least bollixes things up sufficiently to prevent others from prevailing. . . .

This is the great mystery of the Bush Administration, and the question that no one, including Gellman and Becker, has answered: It's not very newsworthy that the Vice President has strongly held views, and that he fights hard for them. (So did Vice President Gore.) Nor is it even terribly notable that he is constantly opposed by others in the Administration. What is remarkable is that time and again, Cheney wins. . . .

Gellman and Becker provide part of the answer -- namely, that Cheney and Addington are more astute and clever and ruthless than everyone else: "The vice president's unseen victories attest to traits that are often ascribed to him but are hard to demonstrate from the public record: thoroughgoing secrecy, persistence of focus, tactical flexibility in service of fixed aims and close knowledge of the power map of government. On critical decisions for more than six years, Cheney has often controlled the pivot points -- tipping the outcome when he could, engineering a stalemate when he could not and reopening debates that rivals thought were resolved."

But the larger explanation, of course, is that Cheney wins internal battles because the President constantly sides with Cheney over all his other trusted advisers. . . .

And so the $64,000 Question is: Why has this President, unlike every other, so uncritically deferred to the Vice President, even where the rest of his Administration is begging him not to do so? . . . I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the uncompromising nature of the Cheney and Addington worldview appeals to the Manichean side of Bush that emerged in full force post-9/11.

The New Monarchists

Dick Cheney is on the record arguing that the Presidency of the United States should have monarchial powers. He isn't alone in the neo-conservative right in believing this, and a post at Daily Kos looks at a major academic support of this reactionary theory of American government.

The Monarchists are on the march again in America. Will it take another American revolution to displace them?

Listening To The Wrong People On Gitmo

The Denver Post, citing the New York Times as its source, argues that Guantamo Bay remains open because President Bush has relied on two of the least well regarded members of his administration for advice.

President Bush should have listened to Robert Gates in January as the newly appointed defense secretary repeatedly urged that the American prison in Cuba be shut down as quickly as possible. The facility holds nearly 400 detainees, suspected in some way of being complicit with terrorists.

Gates argued the prison had such a tainted reputation abroad that any legal proceedings held there would be seen as compromised. It was a view supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials who discussed moving Guantanamo detainees to U.S. military brigs. . . .

[I]n the end, objections by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney carried the day . . . and the prison remains open.

Why is it so hard for President Bush to realize that he should listen to his own Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State, rather than to his disgraced Vice President and Attorney General, in matters of national security?

Alberto Gonzales has lost the support of almost every Democrat in Congress (he did't have support from many of them in the first place), and a number of Republicans in Congress, because documents disclosed by the Justice Department make clear that he lied to Congress about the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys. The Inspector General of the Justice Department has revealed that while Gonzales has been AG, the Justice Department routinely broke the law by spying on American citizens even though their powers to do so legally were greatly expanded by the PATRIOT Act. Even his staunchest supporter, Colorado's own Ken Salazar, has been forced to start to come to terms with the fact that his friend is a crook.

Dick Cheney is one of the least popular men in the United States today. According to a CBS News/New York Times Poll taken March 7-11, 2007 of 1,362 registered voters, just 18% have a favorable opinion of the Vice President, while 48% have an unfavorable opinion of him. His Chief of Staff, Scotter Libby, is a convicted felon. There is a strong implication that Libby leaked a covert agent's identity at the behest of his boss. Cheney has been the strong voice in the administration for torture and against the rule of law, from the beginning. He's offered to resign, but the President, unwisely, didn't take him up on the offer.

President Bush is not innocent. The better angels of his administration have repeatedly and resolutely urged him to do the right thing. He received a bold warning that an attack on Americans by Osama bin Laden was coming and did nothing. The CIA and State Department told him that the aftermath of the Iraq invasion would turn out as it in fact has turned out. His generals told him that they didn't have enough troops at the beginning of the Iraq War to conduct it properly. High officials in the administration have told him that his regime of torture and extralegal detention to fight a "war on terrorism" was wrong and perhaps even made him a war criminal. He has remained determined in the face of advisors giving him the chance to do the right things, to instead harm our country.

Scooter Libby Guilty (Updated)

A Washington D.C. jury of eleven has found I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, 56, guilty on four of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice charges, after ten days of deliberations, following a five week trial. Libby resigned from his post as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney when he was indicted in 2005. Libby leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, and then lied about it to FBI investigators. He faced a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a fine of $1.25 million if he had been convicted on all counts. As it is, he faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million. A maximum sentence is unlikely in this case.

UPDATED: The sentencing guidelines appear to call for an 18-37 months sentence. But, a sentence of as much as ten years would be plausible is the uncharged crime of covering up the crime of disclosing Plame/Wilson's identity was included in setting the sentence.

The only count upon which is was found not guilty was the third count, making false statements. Libby was found guilty on the obstruction of justice charge, a making a false statement charge, and two perjury charges. For the record, Daily Kos had the news before CNN did.

While an appeal is almost inevitable, and Libby will remain free on bond pending appeal, once sentencing is complete (sentencing is set for June 5), this conviction manifestly displays the corruption that exists in this administration all the way into the White House itself. It is also yet another feather in prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's cap. And, on appeal, every defense win in the trial process is a loss for the defense in the appeal process (since that issue can't be appealed), and every loss for the defense at trial is a potential win on appeal.

The counts (per CNN):

Count one: Obstruction of justice [Guilty]
Alleges that Libby intentionally deceived the grand jury about how he learned, and "disclosed to the media," information about Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA. . . .

Count two: Making a false statement [Guilty]
Alleges that Libby intentionally gave FBI agents false information about a conversation he had with NBC's Tim Russert regarding Valerie Plame Wilson, who is married to Joseph Wilson. . . .

Count three: Making a false statement [Not Guilty]
Alleges that Libby knowingly gave the FBI false information about what he had told reporter Matt Cooper of Time magazine regarding Valerie Plame Wilson. . . .

Count four: Perjury [Guilty]
Alleges that Libby knowingly provided false testimony in court about a conversation he had with Russert. . . .

Count five: Perjury [Guilty]
Alleges that Libby knowingly provided false testimony in court about his conversation with reporters regarding Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA employment.