Dick Cheney, Rogue Meister

We’re not supposed to live under a junta or a dictatorship. We’re supposed to be a democracy, with a refined system of checks and balances. But Cheney despises democracy.

The more we find out about the Bush Administration, the more it becomes obvious that there wasn’t a rogue operation here and there, once in a while.

The whole thing was a rogue operation, 24/7.

And the rogue-meister was Dick Cheney.

It’s hardly shocking that Cheney told the CIA not to inform Congress about a secret assassination program it was working on.

Cheney has nothing but disdain for Congress and for the rule of law.

So what if the National Security Law of 1947 requires Congressional notification?

So what if the 1981 Intelligence Authorization Act requires it?

If you’re Dick Cheney, you don’t care.

Not about laws. Not about the Constitution. Not about treaties.

If the president wants to spy on Americans without a warrant, no problem. (And it looks like there was much more illegal spying going on than we’ve been led to believe, with Cheney’s office pushing for it all the way.)

If U.S. interrogators want to waterboard their prisoners, go to it. (Attorney General Eric Holder says there was more going on than even that, and what he found out “turned my stomach.”)

If U.S. interrogators tortured some prisoners to death, well, that’s war, for you. (A couple of dozen prisoners died while under U.S. interrogation, a hideous fact that has not received nearly the attention it deserves.)

And if our allies in Afghanistan suffocated or shot hundreds of prisoners to death, there’s no need to investigate.

As far as not telling Congress about the CIA’s assassination program, Cheney’s daughter, Liz, says her father was just trying to protect the national security of the country.

But that’s the excuse that every fascist gives.

We are not a monarchy. We’re not supposed to live under a junta or a dictatorship. We’re supposed to be a democracy, with a refined system of checks and balances.

But Cheney despises democracy.

And it’s not just Cheney who flagrantly violated the law. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld did, too. Even back in 2005, Amnesty International http://www.progressive.org/?q=mag_impunity

said there was “prima facie” evidence that Bush and Rumsfeld had committed “war crimes,” and that foreign countries had an obligation to apprehend them if the U.S. judicial system did not do its job.

We need a special prosecutor now with wide-ranging powers to get to the bottom of the war crimes and other felonies that the most senior members of the Bush Administration committed.

Let there be accountability.