CHENEY CALLS GEORGE WASHINGTON A FOOL

During a two-hour interview, on October 14, 2014, Dick Cheney said that anyone who believes in isolationism has “got to be a fool.”  Whether intentional or not, his accusation would include George Washington.  Remember the Great Rule from Washington’s once canonized Farewell Address of 1796?  It was simple—stay out of the foreign world politically, or as Cheney calls it, remain isolated from the foreign world politically.  “The great rule of conduct in regard to foreign nations,” Washington cautioned, “is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” 

As justification for the Great Rule, Washington warned that the foreign world was “engaged in frequent controversies.”  Those controversies, he explained, are “foreign to our concerns” and it would “be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”  The artificial ties that Washington was talking about were what Jefferson often referred to as “entangling alliances”.  “It is our true policy,” Washington concluded, “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world;”  Id.

Looking back, now, from the 21st Century, we can see how prophetic Washington’s dire warnings have become – we have been plagued with “frequent controversies (i.e. war)” of some kind for a solid 100 years.  This modern plague has been sustained and propagated by the philosophy of entangling alliances promoted by Cheney and his cohorts. 

Perhaps one of our foremost entangling alliances has been the one with NATO.  We entered into the NATO alliance in response to the world wars instigated by Germany.   NATO’s charter states in Article 5 that an “attack against one or more of” NATO’s members “shall be considered an attack against them all.”  This provision, of course, means that the Constitution is no longer controlling when it comes to the decision of going to war.

It is also somewhat unnerving to think that our war problems began this way considering the words of Madison and Hamilton:  “The history of Germany,” they both wrote in 1787, long before the two World Wars that Germany instigated, “is a history of wars . . . so common, that the German annals are crowded with the bloody pages which describe them.”  Hamilton and Madison, The Federalist Papers, Letter 19.  By ignoring the Great Rule, Hamilton predicted that America would no longer control its own destiny as we would be “gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars;” Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, Letter 7. 

According to RT.com, when “The 73-year-old [Cheney] sat down with neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol” to discuss “the threats we face today”, it was all about getting more entangled in that “pernicious labyrinth” of foreign wars and intrigue.   Cheney told Kristol that “You’ve got to be a fool to believe isolation as a strategy is the way to go.  We have no choice but to be involved in that part of the world, and if we’re not actively involved, there are some very bad things that are going to happen”.  Did  you hear that?  Just as predicted by the Framers, according to Cheney, we now “HAVE NO CHOICE” in the matter–our destiny is now under the control of our foreign entanglements.

What Cheney and so many like him do not seem to get is that PLENTY of “some very bad things” have already happened BECAUSE we listened to him and others like him and got entangled with the foreign world.  Cheney and his ilk like to talk about the here and now, the impending threat just around the corner, but none of them ever ask the truly difficult question—what is the end game?  How will your entanglement policies finally end? 

We got ourselves entangled in a constant state of foreign wars by listening to politicians like Cheney tell us that the Great Rule was all wrong and anyone who disagrees is a fool.  However, much to the horror of the human race, out of the first European entanglement came a weapon so horrible in scope that it can be used to destroy the entire human race.  Did we learn anything from that entanglement?  Our politicians have still been telling us for the last 50 years that the isolationist policies of the Great Rule are still foolish.  They tell us that if we do not stay entangled with wars in the foreign world, we will not be able to keep that horrific weapon, which we created in the first place, out of the hands of terrorists.  

According to RT.com, this is exactly the rationale that war mongering politicians like Cheney believe – “if the Iranians get nuclear weapons, it won’t be long before others in the region also have nuclear weapons, hinting that the deadly weapons could fall into the heads of the Islamic State or Syria.”  This is another hard question that Cheney is not answering – how logical is it to think that Iran, ISIS, Syria or some other rogue state will never be able to get their hands on the bomb even if we keep staying entangled in foreign wars?

Coincidentally, it should be noted that Cheney’s warnings of “some very bad things” happening to America comes in conjunction with other politicians getting into the nuclear attack preparedness program who obviously believe that terrorists will eventually get hold of the bomb.  Foremost on the list is New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM).  

According to CBS, the OEM ran training exercises as recently as October 22, 2014, simulating a 10-kiloton nuclear device exploding in Times Square.  CBS news explained that, under the drilled scenario, 100,000 people were instantly killed and a wave of overpressure took down buildings for a half-mile radius while damaging other surrounding buildings for up to a two-mile radius.  OEM commissioner, Joe Esposito, went on record to warn that the nuclear blast would produce an electromagnetic pulse that would permanently take out the electrical power of the entire East Coast.

Had we listened to Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson in the first place, we would not even be in this position, since it was clearly the entanglement policies of war mongering politicians that have produced the situation in which we now find ourselves.  Yet, in order to fool the unsuspecting public, Cheney and company continue to attack the isolationist policies of the Great Rule so as to cover up the fact that it was actually their entanglement policies that got us into this position in the first place! 

The grim reality of entanglement policies is best summed up in the words of Einstein – insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Every time an entanglement politician like Cheney tells us that we need to get back into another war in order to prevent “some very bad things” from happening again, we need to remember Einstein’s quote – Washington and those who believed in the Great Rule are NOT the fools.  The fact of the matter is Cheney and his cohorts are INSANE!  They keep telling us that doing the same thing over and over again is going to eventually produce a different result – if we keep getting into more entanglements, then, eventually, we are going to get a different result than just more “very bad things” from happening. 

Do you feel safe?  Do you think another war in the Middle East, Asia or Europe will end war for good?  Do you believe that the bomb will never fall into the hands of a terrorist?  Remember the definition of insanity the next time you hear a politician tell you that isolationists are fools.

©November 2014 Cheney Calls George Washington A Fool, Madame Publius™