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New Heart or Pot Calling the Kettle Black?

His heart told him to evade the Vietnam War draft and then, while serving in the Nixon Administration, it encouraged him to send more U.S. troops to their deaths. At the same time, he supported massive aerial bombardment campaigns that killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Having voted against Head Start and the U.S. Department of Education while in Congress, he also vetoed a bill that would have imposed economic sanctions on South Africa's brutal Apartheid system. As U.S. Defense Secretary, he failed to mention to the American people that during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama over 5000 innocent civilians were slaughtered and more than 60,000 left homeless.

During the first U.S.-Iraqi War and while watching smoke pour out of a civilian shelter, along with rescue workers collapsing in grief excavating the remains, pitching their dead cargo to the ground, and then vomiting from the stench of the sizzling corpses-nearly all women, children, and babies burned beyond identification, he blamed Saddam Hussein for putting civilians "in harm's way"-in a residential neighborhood. His heart then told him to rationalize that the civilian missile shelter was a "military command post" and had no idea as to why civilians were at this location. He assured Americans, though, that Iraqis and others living in that region "do not share our value in the sanctity of life."

In 2001, having accumulated over thirty-million dollars as chairman of several major energy conglomerates, as vice-president he lectures Californians blaming them for the energy crisis and massive electrical blackouts that have caused dozens of fatalities. His heart scolds them for not building more power plants and of eating granola, hugging trees, and celebrating Earth Day. He fails to mention how California's energy markets were deregulated and his largest campaign contributor, Enron Corporation, monopolized the state's energy and purposefully cut power to raise energy costs. Millions suffer in the heat. Electricity prices rise ten-fold. Enron execs laugh and yell "burn baby burn!"

On learning of the horrific and terrifying news of the Sept. 11 attacks, he encourages the president to go into hiding. He is heartened by thinking he is neither part of the Executive nor Congress. He acts as "supreme" military commander of a fearful, vulnerable nation and races to a map to pinpoint and blame Iran, Iraq, the Palestinians, and other predominantly Islamic nations for the attacks. After ordering fighter jets to destroy a hijacked passenger plane, he remembers the Project for a New American Century and surmises how the Persian Gulf is now a U.S. protectorate, one surrounded by dozens of military and naval bases for the main purpose of controlling energy sources.

In his heart, he believes the U.S. is morally, politically and economically exceptional. He advances a blueprint for world domination. Learning that the Sept. 11 attack was caused by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden-who is somewhere in Afghanistan, he asserts that any negotiations with Afghanis are naive and counterproductive, even suicidal. Secretly, he still dreams of invading and toppling Iraq and Iran. A Cold War ideologue at heart, he still hopes to subjugate Russian and China by controlling the world's oil. He is heartened that his corporate-military business will become more dominant by manufacturing advanced nuclear weaponry, drone-piloted stealth bombers, and pocket-sized robot fleets.

With a new heart Dick Cheney, age 71, is back. In a televised interview, he claimed the grueling transplant operation left him seeing his own mortality in the mirror. Having faced the end, he attributes it to the "miracles" of doctors and of science, even "life" itself. In spite of a new heart, the most unpopular and anti-democratic vice-president in the nation's history had some harsh words for others. When asked if Sen. John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin for a vice-presidential running mate in 2008 was a mistake, he emphatically said "Yes!" and explained how she had little experience as Governor of Alaska and had not passed "the test" of being ready.

But Cheney and his new heart reserved their most severe criticism for President Barack Obama. He believes President Obama has been one of America's weakest presidents. Even though he gave some credit to President Obama for killing bin Laden, the supposed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against mainland America, Cheney took credit saying that a lot of intelligence, preparation and groundwork for locating and either arresting or assassinating bin Laden was due to the Bush Administration. In his heart, he also believes that militarily exiting Afghanistan, along with dozens of other heavily armed and occupied nations, would be a major mistake.

The phrase, "The pot calling the kettle black," is a well known and common expression used to claim that a person is guilty of the very things of which they accuse another. In other words, some individuals (pots) are unable to see and comprehend that they share the same faults as other individuals (black kettles), sometimes even worse faults and abnormal behaviors! People with self-serving biases, viewing themselves much better and more qualified than others and what they actually are, remember and justify their past actions in self-enhancing ways. Political leaders that have an inflated, self-enhancing "dark side" rationalizes crimes against peace and humanity, even genocidal-actions.

Self-serving perceptions and overestimations of one's own behaviors and actions of their "in group" is absolute hypocrisy. Leading up to the preemptive invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the hypocrisy of Cheney's (who advised then-President George W. Bush in daily private meetings) overall national security strategy was monumental. If having weapons of mass destruction and a history of using them is a criteria, then he and the U.S. posed one of the greatest threats to humanity that has ever existed...While the U.S. was massively expanding its biological weapons research capabilities and other advanced weapons systems, he was blocking a protocol allowing international inspectors.

Cheney's participation in the U.S.-Vietnam War, a series of conflicts that expanded into Cambodia eventually killing six million people; vetoing anti-Apartheid legislation while trying to sabotage domestic educational and social uplifting programs; trying to justify and rationalize massacres in Panama and Iraq; the need to try and still control China and Russia by monopolizing energy resources in the Persian Gulf; and the desire to invade and topple foreign governments and then attempt to rebuild them patterned after American Exceptionalism, reveals a weak, dangerous and demagogic leader, even a Cold War and xenophobic ideologue.

Cheney's inflated self-portrait was more destructive than reality could sustain! Asked if he had any regrets, he could not think of one. Cheney did claim, though, that the real test for vice-president is this one: "Is this person capable of being president of the United States?" Was Cheney?

"For I am so clean-without blemish or blot-That your blackness is mirrored in me," said the pot to the kettle.

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling
http://article.wn.com/view/2012/08/08/New_Heart_or_Pot_Calling_the_Kettle_Black/