Devastation

Freedom, Ain’t It Grand: the Afghan secret police have issued an order that journalists may not criticize American and other foreign troops, may not portray the Afghan military as weak, may not interview or film insurgent leaders, may not make militant activities their lead story. Journalists were called to a meeting and issued their new marching orders.

Speaking of dark, secretive thugs meeting journalists, Dick Cheney went to the National Press Club today, and defended his “last throes” remark (Think Progress has the video). Evidently when we look back on it in ten years we’ll realize that he was right. Something to look forward to.


He did admit not having anticipated that the invasion of Iraq might result in, you know, violence, nor did they anticipate “the devastation that 30 years of Saddam’s rule had wrought, if you will, on the psychology of the Iraqi people. Very, very hard to go from the way they were forced to live for a long period of time to a situation in which they have the opportunity for self-government, for setting up and operating their own free and democratically-elected society.” Given the format of the event, there was no follow-up, so it was unclear what events, specifically, he was blaming on the devastated psychology of the Iraqi people or what the nature of that devastation is. Remember when Bush kept saying that Some People were saying that maybe certain peoples weren’t prepared for democracy and I asked who, in the real world, was actually saying that? Turns out it was Dick Cheney.