georgeob1 wrote:
Do you believe that former Chancellor Schroeder's current position as a consultant to Gasprom now reveals the truth about his policies?
You claim this frequently, George, without giving a source for it.
(What we know here is that he is the -unpaid [?]- "Head of the shareholders' committee".)
Do we know he is unpaid? That would be unusual for someone who works for a major corporation as head of the shareholder's committee (German: Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender).
I don't,and that's why I questioned it.
On the other hand, if he gets money from that would reduce his pensions (if he tells about it, that is) for nearly the same sum.
Here's me doing it - according to my knowledge of the "civil service pension law" and personal experiences at state, county and university level (at least, that's the way how it is handled in the A and B as well as R-groups of the 'normal' civil servants salary classes [a federal chancellor gets 5/3 of B11]).
Thomas, could you please expound on why you think Cheney's position(s) relate to the breaking of the 'office oath'.
Thanks.
Strange -- I know of quite a few professors with consultant jobs in the industry. Evidently this is lucrative for them, even considering any reduction in pensions.
I don't doubt that. However, if an ex-minister/teacher/general/judge teaches at university, the university salary reduces his pension.
(So that really might only be "öffentlicher Dienst" related what I wrote above. Sorry.)
Brand X wrote:Thomas, could you please expound on why you think Cheney's position(s) relate to the breaking of the 'office oath'.
Thanks.
Well, I was going to present a devastating response to that, but it fizzled after I reread the Vice President's oath of office. It is well-established, at least to my knowledge, that Cheney was a driving force behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The video also establishes that he knew the likely consequences of the invasion. That means he knowingly
didn't defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". To the contrary, he knowingly weakened the United States in the face of those enemies.
I thought that constituted the breach. But then I read the Vice President's Oath of Office, which reads in full:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
On reading this, I realized I had misremembered the oath. I thought it was the United States as a country that the Vice President has to defend against all enemies; but it was only its constituion. It is consistent with the oath of office to knowingly weaken the defense of the United States against foreign enemies. Although Cheney's actions stink to high heaven, they do not technically violate his oath of office.
Thanks for helping me discover my error.
Thomas wrote:Brand X wrote:Thomas, could you please expound on why you think Cheney's position(s) relate to the breaking of the 'office oath'.
Thanks.
Well, I was going to present a devastating response to that, but it fizzled after I reread the Vice President's oath of office. It is well-established, at least to my knowledge, that Cheney was a driving force behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The video also establishes that he knew the likely consequences of the invasion. That means he knowingly
didn't defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". To the contrary, he knowingly weakened the United States in the face of those enemies.
I thought that constituted the breach. But then I read the Vice President's Oath of Office, which reads in full:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
On reading this, I realized I had misremembered the oath. I thought it was the United States as a country that the Vice President has to defend against all enemies; but it was only its constituion. It is consistent with the oath of office to knowingly weaken the defense of the United States against foreign enemies. Although Cheney's actions stink to high heaven, they do not technically violate his oath of office.
Thanks for helping me discover my error.
He's more guilty of trashing the Constitution in the name of exaggerated and unnecessary secrecy, warrant-less wiretapping, and exposing secret agents, then he is taking us to war. But that's a big part of it too.
Cycloptichorn
Theorizing that oil is NOT a central factor in the attack on, and occupation of, Iraq seems a pretty serious foolishness. What other commodity is as essential to the continuation of the economic and political arrangements in the modern world? What historical examples might one offer up where a resource of such central importance to existing power structures has failed to direct and determine the policies of those power structures?
george seems entirely correct in arguing that the campaign in Iraq had/has a complimentary push from folks aligned with Likkud, both in Israel and within the US. But if one is entirely honest about this, it seems rather clear that the US relationship with Israel is itself profoundly colored by Israel's geographic location...in other words, if Israel had been founded in South America, or anywhere far from any significant resource-rich nations, then Israel would not have ended up central to US foreign policy concerns. How many times have we read some support of Israel wherein the speaker's proscription says something like, "our friend, in this important part of the world" or some such? It ain't sand that makes that part of the world 'important'.
Cycloptichorn wrote: He's more guilty of trashing the Constitution in the name of exaggerated and unnecessary secrecy, warrant-less wiretapping, and exposing secret agents, then he is taking us to war. But that's a big part of it too.
Yep. But that's not what I said in the post BrandX was responding to. He did probe a weak spot there.
Thomas,
My problem with your argument -- that, because in 1994 Cheney expressed arguments against the toppling of Saddam's regime in Iraq that resonate with contemporary perceptions, his subsequent active support of such an effort was necessarily a knowing violation of views he then still held -- is that it presumes a great deal about Cheney's inner motivations, including the assumption that the many statements he made as Vice President were necessarily lies. On what basis do you prefer the veracity of one statement among others coming from the same individual?
I certainly can't prove that you are wrong, anymore than you can prove that you are right. I believe the difference is one of likelihood, given what we know about human nature and the historical evolution of strategic conflicts. I believe you are simplistically ignoring other far more likely possibilities.
I recognize that the contemporary judgement of the Bush Administration is that it was - at best - wrongheaded in the extreme, and that the invasion of Iraq was ill-conceived, poorly executed and will leave a legacy of trouble for at least a generation. However, contemporary judgements do not always, or even often, coincide with those of history.
I have had the recent experience of conceding my own errors to an old friend, a former CENTCOM, who bitterly opposed the Iraq invasion from the start and whose analysis I sharply contested at the time. His view, much compressed, is that frustration with the fecklessness of the Clinton years, hubris, and an ill-conceived desire to strike a decisive blow that (in their view) would simultaneously provide a new model for Islamic governance and advance the security interests of Israel, - were at the heart of the Administration's strategic blunder. He also expressed the belief that the many social and political malignancies of the Arab world (tribalism, religious conflict, intolerance, no tradition of freedom of expression, etc.) would preclude even any short-term success, and that the authors of the policy should have known better.
It is hard to argue with this analysis, given the facts before us. At the same time one should recognize that the complacent criticism of the Western world's liberal establishment is not accompanied by any alternative plan for dealing with an aroused and largely backward Islam - a confrontation whose roots long precede the invasion of Iraq (and in the case of our European critics, were largely planted by them).
Finally, history unfolds along its own chaotic paths. We can't predict the future state of human affairs any more than we can that of the turbulent flow of a river.
georgeob1 wrote:
I have had the recent experience of conceding my own errors to an old friend, a former CENTCOM, who bitterly opposed the Iraq invasion from the start and whose analysis I sharply contested at the time. His view, much compressed, is that frustration with the fecklessness of the Clinton years, hubris, and an ill-conceived desire to strike a decisive blow that (in their view) would simultaneously provide a new model for Islamic governance and advance the security interests of Israel, - were at the heart of the Administration's strategic blunder. He also expressed the belief that the many social and political malignancies of the Arab world (tribalism, religious conflict, intolerance, no tradition of freedom of expression, etc.) would preclude even any short-term success, and that the authors of the policy should have known better.
I think what Thomas was saying is that Cheney's words are evidence that at least he DID know better, could and should have reasonably predicted the outcome, and yet pushed for the action anyway without anything mitigating the risks he ticked off in the interview.
Cheney's later words suggest that he subsequently changed his analysis. On what basis do you assume that one was a more reliable expression of his actual state of mind than the other?
georgeob1 wrote:Cheney's later words suggest that he subsequently changed his analysis. On what basis do you assume that one was a more reliable expression of his actual state of mind than the other?
Whether or not Cheney actually believes the words coming out of his mouth I won't speculate. I don't assume either is or is not a reliable expression of his actual state of mind, only that the first analysis was startlingly accurate and that the subsequent analysis did not effectively rebut or refute the first. As a leader of our country he had/has an obligation not to lead us into a predictable mess. Clearly this mess was predictable.
Not everything that is - after the fact - complacently proclaimed as "predictable" by critics was predicted by them before the fact.
Not everything that is proclaimed to have been predictable is in fact truly predictable at all. There are elements of chaos in human affairs, just as there are in observable dynamic systems.
Contradictions between the rationalizations offered for proposed actions and what ultimately unfolds do not necessarily mean that the authors acted in knowing defiance of reason.
Errors and misjudgements are far more common than convoluted conspiracies in human affairs. One cannot, with certainty, discriminate between the two. A critic who proclaims that he can somehow make this distinction, and who implies that he did accurately predict outcomes before the fact, is merely inviting the skepticism of wise observers.
There is nothing new in these observations. Thucidides made them long ago in reference to another matter.
georgeob1 wrote:Not everything that is - after the fact - complacently proclaimed as "predictable" by critics was predicted by them before the fact.
In this case, it was predicted by Cheney and those predictions have played out (hence my conclusion that it was predictable). If he subsequently changed his mind, he never adequately rebutted his earlier assessment of the risks.
Quote:Not everything that is proclaimed to have been predictable is in fact truly predictable at all. There are elements of chaos in human affairs, just as there are in observable dynamic systems.
This is certainly true, but it doesn't stop us from attempting to evaluate the likely outcomes of our actions within a reasonable margin of error. We expect this of our government before committing our resources to a foreign war.
Quote:Contradictions between the rationalizations offered for proposed actions and what ultimately unfolds do not necessarily mean that the authors acted in knowing defiance of reason.
How about contradictions between those rationalizations and the words of one of the authors himself?
Quote:Errors and misjudgements are far more common than convoluted conspiracies in human affairs. One cannot, with certainty, discriminate between the two.
What are our options in this case? What errors or misjudgments can explain this? Did he fail to consider the earlier analysis? Did he let idealism overcome the objections? Or were each of the risks he so clearly explained determined to be mitigated and if so, by which incompetent?
Quote:A critic who proclaims that he can somehow make this distinction, and who implies that he did accurately predict outcomes before the fact, is merely inviting the skepticism of wise observers.
Again, I'm not saying I predicted this, I'm saying Cheney did.
You are missing the point. Did Cheney alter his views and assessment, or did he knowingly act in defiance of what he then believed was best for the country? My point is that we cannot know the answer to this question, but it is more likely that he altered his assessment.
georgeob1 wrote:You are missing the point. Did Cheney alter his views and assessment, or did he knowingly act in defiance of what he then believed was best for the country? My point is that we cannot know the answer to this question, but it is more likely that he altered his assessment.
I wonder what evidence he used in order to alter this? What new data came in that showed the result of attacking would not in fact be a quagmire such as the one he had earlier posited?
My guess is that there was in fact no new data; what altered his assessment was something else entirely.
Cycloptichorn
