Over at the Daily Kos, Bill of Portland (Maine) has an interesting and somewhat curious diary entry:

Wow...this is an unbelievable admission from Dick Cheney. Let's set it up step-by-step:

1. The Republican "hawks" love to boast of how quickly and efficiently the Iraqi security forces are getting trained and deployed to defeat the terrorists inside their country. They promise that "as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down."

2. The Republicans also love to boast that invading Iraq made America safer because we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

3. Yesterday, Dick Cheney blew #1 and #2 all to hell with this jaw-dropping admission that we can never, ever pull our troops out:

"If we pull out, [the terrorists in Iraq] will follow us. It doesn't matter where we go. ... And it will continue---whether we complete the job or not in Iraq---only it'll get worse. Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists."

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the vice president---the architect of this war---is, we're screwed. So today I bid a warm welcome to our Iraqi brothers and sisters who now belong to America's 51st state: Cheneyoming. Whether they, or we, like it or not.
P.S. Who's undermining the morale of our troops now by admitting the mission will never be accomplished? Who could that be, Dick?

Of course, Mr Cheney, whom many consider to be the prime architect of the ridiculous military response in Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, understands that the final goal is actually two goals: undisputed ‘ownership’ of all the oil resources in the middle east, and the undisputed and perpetual mastery of the US political scene by the Republican Party, held in escrow for their masters, Corporate Big Business.

Mr Cheney insists that the US will never leave Iraq (until all the oil is stolen) and pre-positions a perpetual US occupation of Iraq so as to eventually conquer all the other oil-bearing countries in the middle east. Mr Cheney realizes he cannot (once again) tell the truth. He has to camouflage his intent, presenting it behind the veil of anti-terrorism. The fact that “al_Qaeda in Iraq became a self-fulfilling reality is immaterial. I imagine he understood that US occupation of Iraq would draw the crowds, so to speak, and he would be able to point his finger and say, “See? Lots of foreign fighters in Iraq. I told you so.”

There is also an occupation within the US. The Republican Congressional majority, which began in 1994 with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract on America” has been proceeding apace. We had the 7 year long campaign against Bill Clinton, which served two goals. It both marginalized a President, setting him apart from the American public, and served ably to squash any sense of political testicular fortitude among the Democratic politicians in Congress.

And then the stealth campaign to make their hold on power perpetual: the introduction of voting computers in the key states. These machines are eminently hackable, making the reversing of votes for Democrats into votes for Republicans an easy task. At the same time the blocking of many obviously core Democratic voters through the method of just removing large groups of black voters from the voter registration rolls, as was done in Florida in 2000, and in Ohio in 2004.

People have wondered at the recent arrogance and greed of Republican politicians and lobbyists. They shouldn’t be too surprised; expect more of it. Republicans are thieves. And, more to the point, they really don’t expect to ever again lose a national election. They have become experts at the politics of division, ably turning a once-united people into warring factions. A marginalized and divided population tends to revolt by turning its back on the electoral process, and refusing to vote. This enables small, keenly dedicated groups such as the Religious Not-Right maniacs to gain a much larger control over the elections than their numbers should allow them to.

Yes, an almost insurmountable problem, eh? Well, not really. If every one of our readers made a firm commitment to drag TWO like-minded friends or relatives to the polls to vote for Liberal and Progressive candidates, why, that would be 75 more votes for sanity in government. And if you could prevail upon others who think the way you do, and love America, and encourage them to also drag two patriotic Americans to the polls, we might even find ourselves with a huge landslide, one that not even the Republican criminals could cover up.