Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Went To War In Iraq So Halliburton Would Profit! (or WAR PROFIT
April 07, 2014 MSNBC News ONE TIME ONLY DONATION $1.00 .
By: Josept Aron
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Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Went To War In Iraq So Halliburton Would Profit! (or WAR PROFIT - Video
Chris Matthews: Battle between Dick Cheney and Rand Paul is getting personal
MSNBC 4/8/14.
By: bxtidre7
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Chris Matthews: Battle between Dick Cheney and Rand Paul is getting personal - Video
If she seals the 2016 nomination early, it will free up Democratic and independent voters to cross over into Republican primariesand into the Kentucky senator's embrace.
Jim Bourg/Reuters
Consider this post another installment in the series: Rand Paul could win the Republican nomination. Please stop laughing.
In previous installments, weve argued that Paul will inherit from his father a preexisting campaign structure in Iowa and New Hampshire that few, if any, of his rivals can match. Weve argued that Paul is showing the ability to raise real money, both from GOP insiders and via small donations over the web. And weve argued that, at least so far, Republican primary voters in key early states see Paul as a mainstream conservative, not a libertarian wacko bird.
Which brings us to Pauls other great, unnoticed, strength: Hillary Clinton. While things could always change, the 2016 Democratic nomination is so far shaping up as the least competitive, non-incumbent presidential primary contest in memory. It looks increasingly likely that if Clinton faces any opposition at all, it will be from a Don Quixote like Bernie Sanders or Brian Schweitzer, not a challenger with any genuine political base or ability to raise substantial money.
For Rand Paul, thats fabulous. It means lots of Democrats and independents will cross over to vote in Republican primaries, where the action is. And most of them will vote for him.
When it comes to governments role in the economy, Pauls views are diametrically opposed to most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. But that will be true of his major opponents too. What distinguishes Paul is that on some high-profile issuesgovernment spying, military intervention, prison sentenceshe espouses views that many Democrats find not only agreeable, but downright exciting. On NSA surveillance, for instance, Paul probably better represents the views of many grassroots liberal activists than do many Washington Democrats. Paul is more reluctant to send American troops into harms way than Hillary Clinton. The recently discovered speech in which he suggested Dick Cheney pushed for the Iraq War so that Halliburton would profit.
If liberals dont know that Paul holds these views now, they will by 2016. With the Democratic primary campaign a snooze, the press will devote massive attention to the GOP race. And Pauls Republican opponents will mercilessly attack him for his unorthodox national-security views, thus likely winning him even more sympathy among liberal Democrats and Independents.
The best model for all this is 2000 when John McCainalthough a conventional Republican on many issuestitillated Democrats with his crusade for campaign-finance reform and his criticism of George W. Bushs plan for to cut taxes for the rich. The more the GOP establishment demonized McCain, the more Democrats and liberal independents figured he must be doing something right. Independents comprised almost a third of the voters in the New Hampshire primary that year, and they favored McCain over Bush by 42 points. Independents and Democrats, who in previous years had constituted about 30 percent of voters in Michigans Republican primary, comprised more than 50 percent in 2000, and overwhelmingly backed McCain.
There are differences between McCain in 2000 and Paul in 2012, of course. McCain was considered a strong general-election candidate, which made him harder for the GOP establishment to stopthough of course stop him it ultimately did. Paul, by contrast, is widely considered a Republican George McGovern: an inexperienced ideologue whom Clinton would crush. But on the other hand, Paul has more fervent support in segments of the GOP base, and in the age of the Tea Party, Republican elites are weaker now than they were a decade and a half ago.
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WASHINGTON, April 8 (UPI) -- A video has emerged of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney of pushing for the Iraq war to benefit his former employer Halliburton.
Cheney recently slammed the "isolationists" within the Republican party, whom he said concerned him greatly in the 2016 presidential election, and thereby pointed the finger at presidential hopeful Paul. Now a video from 2009 has emerged, in which Paul expressed some hefty accusations toward Cheney. In the video, Paul claimed Cheney exploited the 9/11 terrorist attacks to go to war in Iraq in order to benefit the giant military contractor Halliburton, of which Cheney was formerly CEO.
"[Dick Cheney's] being interviewed, I think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and he says it would be a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it'd be civil war, we would have no exit strategy," Paul said. "He goes on and on for five minutes. Dick Cheney saying it would be a bad idea. And that's why the first Bush didn't go into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes hundreds of millions of dollars, their CEO. Next thing you know, he's back in government and it's a good idea to go into Iraq."
Cheney has often been criticized for his hawkish attitude and his approval of enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects. The Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and the constant assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs that were never found also marred the Bush presidency.
Paul's office has not commented on the reemergence of the video or the accusations, but has slammed certain members of the Republican party in a speech on foreign policy for promoting "neo-isolationism, in which diplomacy is distrusted and war is, if not the first choice, the preferred option."
[Mother Jones]
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Rand Paul accuses Dick Cheney of pushing Iraq war for Halliburton
The Kentucky senator twice suggested that Halliburton's relationship with Dick Cheney influenced Iraq policy. Is that so crazy?
Reuters
Every American sees that leaders in foreign countries sometimes behave immorally. Yet we often seem averse to believing that our own leaders can be just as malign. That's certainly my bias: Judging the character of U.S. officials, my gut impulse is to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I know that my gut is sometimes wrong, that our institutions rather than anything intrinsic to our compatriots explains the comparative lack of corruption and tyranny in the United States, and that it's important to stay open to the possibility of malign or corrupt leadersbecause otherwise, it's impossible to adequately guard against them. The Founders understood this. So did generations of traditional conservatives. Have today's Americans forgotten?
* * *
An old clip of Senator Rand Paul is in the news.
In 2009, he warned college Republicans at Western Kentucky University to "be fearful of companies that get so big that they can actually be directing policy."The example he used to illustrate the point: Dick Cheney's relationship with Halliburton, a defense contractor that benefited from the Iraq War. After serving as George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense from 1989 to 1993, Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. In the 2009 clip, Paul said that in 1995, Cheney had argued on video that the Bush Administration was right to avoid invading and occupying Iraq.
The clip he cited is actually from 1994. Here it is with a transcript:
If we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anyone else with us. It would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq; none of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government in Iraq, you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have to the west. Part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to claim, fought over for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds; if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you've threatened the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact that we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action and for their families it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?
And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got it right.
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Dick Cheney, Rand Paul, and the Possibility of Malign Leaders