"When members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines and other arbitrary measures, they are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out," Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Of course, when our guys are outnumbered 1,000 to 1 and regularly blown up by devices that don't pose much risk to the insurgents planting them--unlike, say, the risk of injury or death sustained by people who engage in an actual firefight--watching the clock between explosions and waiting is pretty much the strategy of choice too.
Amazingly, Cheney hasn't had much to say about another issue at the center of presidential war spending, you know, the surprise announcement that obscene war profiteering, no-bid contracting, Cheney pension paying Halliburton is moving its headquarters to Dubai.
Texas-based Halliburton, which was led by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000, did not specify what, if any, tax implications the move might entail. It plans to list on a Middle East bourse once it moves to Dubai -- a booming commercial center in the Gulf. The company said it was making the moves to position itself better to gain contracts in the oil-rich Middle East."This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years," said judiciary committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.
Halliburton's malfeasance is responsible for a sizeable chunk of the war's drain on the treasury ($2.7B in overcharges, at last count) and enormous profits for its executives and shareholders ($2.3B last year, a record). And now Halliburton is a Dubai-based corporation that will be pouring exactly no tax dollars back into the American treasury to, say, help fund the VA programs and hospitals returning soldiers and marines rely on to patch up their bodies and psyches. In the face of this, Dick Cheney has the temerity to castigate the Democrats for "not supporting the troops" when they show signs of balking at continuing to dump dollars on the conveyor belt running to the Iraqi incinerator.
Dave Lindorf at the Atlantic Free Press sees something darker than mere profit lust at the base of the Dubai move, given comments describing the move as "putting Halliburton in the 'primary theatre of the entire product' and a 'move into the hub for the entire world':
So how do we feel knowing that virtually the entire supply line for our over-extended troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is now in the hands of a Dubai corporation, and that it has its hooks into the central policy arm of our government, Blair House and the Office of the Vice President?
Next time Halliburton’s KKR subsidiary serves our troops toxic, bacteria-ridden food, or puts untreated Euphrates River water into their canteens, maybe we should look harder to see if this was just another case of corporate corner and cost-cutting, or whether something more sinister was at work.
We — and members of Congress, if they still remember how to do their job — ought to be asking whether Halliburton's move to Dubai has anything to do with anticipated business should Cheney get his way and the U.S. attacks Iran this spring. Since such a war would inevitably include the destruction of much of Iran’s state-owned oil industry, it would represent a huge new business opportunity for Halliburton, which first and foremost is an oil-services company.
This smacks of a little too much tinfoil conspiracy thinking for my tastes, but the Iran possibility could certainly be a tasty little chocolate shaving atop the larger tax-break cream pie Halliburton's helping itself to. Shame has become a rarer commodity than oil.
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