“This world can be messy and dangerous, but it’s a world made better by American power and American values,”

—Dick Cheney, aboard a carrier this week

I am so appalled and set on edge by the arrogant and dangerous swagger of this man.  And as I ponder all the efforts to get Iran to stop enriching uranium,  I always shake my head and ask “so why don’t countries ask the United States to cease its uranium enrichment,  a country whom it is known to be enriching weapons grade uranium,  for that expressed purpose,  in the name of “deterrence”.  This administration goes beyond “deterrence” and says that “all options are on the table”.  I am reminded of the James Carroll book I read last summer, House Of War,  which chronicles the rise of the Pentagon and the efforts by all the branches of the armed forces to gain supremacy by touting their own abilities to best handle the soviet threat,  and offering their own versions of how that threat is manifesting itself. 

When our own country is the only one to ever actually use nuclear bombs on populations,  how is it that we are one of those nations absolved of the moral responsibility to abolish them and be forbidden to use them.  The rationale and justifications used then are well within reach of this administration’s arrogance, ignorance of international dynamics,  and greed.  This administration is dripping with it.  The images of “evil empire” have never been more aptly illustrated in this country’s history. And with “leadership” like this,  so influenced by a man who is a war profiteer and a corrupt and vengeful politician,  the “nuclear scare” should be all the more at the forefront of our assessments of this world’s prospects for steering clear of the arms race,  and a more concerted effort toward addressing the criminality of bombing civilians as “defense” and “smoking out terrorists”.  As police procedures, these types of actions are considered unacceptable as means of protection against crime.  But when wielded by the state in the name of our own security,  these actions become the apparatus of national idolatry.

Source: Cheney, on Carrier, Sends Warning to Iran – New York Times