Jon Stewart Outs Cheney as an Iranian Double Agent and War Criminal

This is why Jon Stewart deserves a Peabody Award for journalistic excellence and why I, for one, am going to miss him when he leaves 'The Daily Show':

On Thursday night (04/16/2014), Stewart demonstrated why the Beltway Press should never lend credence to anything former Vice President Dick Cheney says, particularly about Iraq or Iran.

Here's my own transcribed transcript of the segment.

Cheney (on Iran):  "This is a totally radical regime; that is the premier sponsor of state terrorism in the world, and Obama's about to give them nuclear weapons. It's a...I can't think of a more terrible burden to leave the next president than what Obama's creating here."

Stewart:  "Really? You can't think of an administration that left a more terrible burden? Think hard. [Pictures of George W. Bush and Cheney on the screen] No wait. Think, if I can ask you, harder. Maybe you need a visual aid. Can you think of an administration that left?...can you?...all right.

"But that wasn't the worst thing he had to say."

Cheney:  "...if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world...reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies, and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama is doing."

Stewart: [mocking Cheney in a Burgess Meredith as 'The Penguin' voice from the old "Batman" TV series]: "Wah, wah. Is Barack Obama a traitor? Wah. I don't... Wah. I don't know if he's a traitor but...Wah...but he does a great impression of a traitor. Wah.

"But basically the vice president's point appears to be this: Anyone who strengthens the strategic position of Iran is, by definition, working to weaken the United States of America. So, I guess the formulation would be whoever strengthened Iran more would be the greater threat to America.

"Using Dick Cheney's own metric as our baseline can we uncover a greater threat to America than even Barack Obama? Well, we find out in tonight's installment of: 'The Jon Stewart Mysteries Presents The Case of the Iranian Agent!'

"Thank you for joining me in the library Mr. Vice President, represented here by a balloon with a frowny face painted on it.

"Vice President Cheney, you leveled some serious charges that Barack Obama has strengthened Iran. Is there anything else you can think of over the last, say, I don't know, 12 years and 28 days that could also be seen as fundamentally strengthening Iran's position in that region?

[Video clip of Robert Gates, former Defense Secretary]: "One of the consequences of that invasion of Iraq was ultimately to strengthen Iran's role and influence in the region."

Stewart [in Sherlock Holmes-style deer-stalker hat with Meerschaum pipe]: "Well, and who, sir, was responsible for that invasion? Who, sir? Here, let me look it up in my history books. [mumbles] ... By gum, it was you! [pointing at the Cheney balloon] It was you!"

"I take your reddened face as embarrassment. And if invading Iraq not only removed Iran's closest foe but complicated America's ability to actively countervail Iran's nuclear program [headline from 08/10/2005 Philadelphia Inquirer "...the Iraq quagmire has deprived the United States of the option of bombing their nuclear facilities."], well, in fact, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, by the end of your administration, Vice President Cheney, Iran had 20 times the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges as when you came into office. And that...could that not be considered handing Iran a nuclear weapon, sir? A conclusion so damning it could only be spoken through two different oral affectations.

"I see the smile and lines and topography has gone from your face.

"Yes, Dick Cheney, you took out Iran's enemies while giving Iran time to build up their nuclear program. But surely you could course correct this by just installing in Iraq another strong anti-Iranian government to take Saddam Hussein's place. As any America-loving vice president would do. What was your move, sir?"

[News footage from 07/29/2014 "Frontline"]: "In Baghdad, with violence growing, the Bush team began urgently looking for an Iraqi leader to unite the country and stop the fighting. A CIA officer at the embassy had a suggestion: a relatively unknown Shiite member of Parliament, Nouri Kamil al-Maliki."

Stewart [in Sam Spade-style fedora]: "And that's when Maliki walked in, and I decided to shift genres. Maliki, he was a heart-stopping dame—actually, a middle-aged Iraqi man—who called himself al-Maliki. He had a pair of get-away sticks that went all the way up from the floor to his pelvic region like a normal adult. Who was this brave future enemy of Iran?"

[clip from 06/25/2014 "The Lead with Jake Tapper", with Fareed Zakaria]: "For 25 years, this guy's been a hard-line Shiite sectarian politician. When he was in exile from Saddam Hussein's regime, he lived in Iran. He was funded by the Iranians."

Stewart: "For an American administration to replace Saddam Hussein with a man emboldened and indebted to our greatest regional enemy, according to Dick Cheney's own logic, anyone who trusted Maliki would have to be naive or deliberately trying to weaken America."

[07/29/2007 clip of Cheney on CNN's "The Situation Room"]: Wolf Blitzer: "Do you trust Nouri al-Maliki?" Cheney: "I do. At this point I don't have any reason not to trust him."

Stewart: "Do you? Well, it seems you're getting sweat on your brow. [misting balloon] It seems you're getting a little hot in here isn't it, Mr. Vice President. Strange! I find the temperature quite mild.

"Still not gonna' confess your disingenuous, utterly lacking in self-examination, ironic attack on the Obama administration? Well, I guess I'll have to give up. Guess I'll just have to go back and report to my superiors that I couldn't crack the case. Eh, what're you gonna' do?

[Stewart now doing a "Columbo" impression]: "I got just one more thing. One more thing, Mr. Vice President. I just can't get it out of my mind. You mentioned earlier there's a reason why you would never want an American president to deal with Iran, and you've thought so for quite some time. Isn't that true?"

[03/07/2006 C-SPAN clip of Cheney]: "Iranians have endured a generation of repression at the hands of a fanatical regime. That regime is one of the primary state sponsors of terror."

Stewart: "Wah. State sponsors of terrorism? So, you yourself would never do something or engage with a regime such as that for their benefit or perhaps yours even when, let's say, in 1998, you were CEO of a giant oil services company. What was the name again? Ah, wah, Halliburton was what it was called. Halliburton."

[06/23/1998 clip of Cheney with subtitles]: "We find ourselves these days, American firms, cut out of the action, in terms of anything that develops with respect to Iran. ... Unfortunately, as has been point out repeatedly in recent weeks, our government has become 'sanctions happy.'"

Stewart: "Wah. Very interesting. You, sir, were arguing for the United States to life sanctions on Iran so your company, Halliburton, could get contracts with this radical regime. Contracts worth millions of dollars. And pardon me if I'm impugning your character—I hate to do it—but what would you make of a man whose final act in the business world before joining the American government as vice president would be to enter into contracts with the number one state sponsor of terror just before leaving to become Bush's running mate. [on-screen screenshot of 10/09/2004 newspaper: "...before Cheney left Halliburton to become Bush's running mate...Halliburton Products & Services...opened a Tehran office in early 2000..."] Contracts that were only legal because you did them through a foreign subsidiary, Mr. Cheney.

"And then once you were in office, in gratitude for Iran's money, you hand Iran the greatest prize of all...Iraq.

"Isn't it you, sir, who is the double agent determined to bring America down? Isn't it you...[balloon releases]...He's getting away!...Damn you, Dick Cheney!"

This, my friends, is utter brilliance. Satire of a like that would make Juvenal or Swift proud. There's no one else (now that Steven Colbert's gone and excepting, perhaps, John Oliver) out there that can do this with such authority and humor. It's funny! And, frankly, it puts the Beltway media's journalism, which report Cheney's critical words about Obama but do little to put them in proper context, to shame.

And, yes, it sounds like a war crime!

I did the transcript for my own future benefit and for those of you who would rather read than watch a video. All its flaws are mine. For the rest of you, here's the full 10 minute clip. It's worth a watch.

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Fouling the Nest

[credits: Dan Swenson, The Times-Picayune]

"This animation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was created using actual overflight information and forecast models from the NOAA and Unified Command.

The red dot is the location of the Deepwater Horizon oil well, which exploded on April 20, releasing oil into the Gulf near the Louisiana coast that has yet to be contained. Eleven rig workers died in the explosion.

The animation begins Aprill 22, the day the first image of the spill via flyover was released."

I'm heartsick. And angry.

Here's why. Let me introduce you to some new words. 'Waiver' 'Indemnity' 'Reorganization'.

After what may turn out to be the worst human-caused environmental/ecological disaster in U.S. history, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon deep-water oil drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico (here's the timeline of events), we read that BP, the lessee of the oil rig, is seeking waivers from coastal residents. The oil giant is offering up to $5000 to residents of Alabama if they give up their right to sue the company. Apparently, the AG of Alabama put the kibosh on this maneuver. No word yet about residents in Lousiana, Mississippi, Florida, or Texas.

BP knows that the real disaster—the one to their bottom line—is yet to come. And this is their first line of defense. It will not be their last.

Other maneuvers are starting to take shape, even as the giant oil spill heads toward the fragile wetlands that protect the city of New Orleans from storm surge and the pristine beaches of the Emerald Coast—America's third coast. [Full disclosure: As my regular readers know, I make an annual pilgrimage to the Gulf of Mexico, St. George Island, a barrier island off the coast of Apalachicola, FL. Pictures of its beauty are just a few posts down from this one. I love this place.]

BP, on its website, is already starting to shuck off the blame.

'"We are responsible, not for the accident, but we are responsible for the oil and for dealing with it and cleaning the situation up," Hayward said. He said the equipment that failed on the rig and led to the spill belonged to owner Transocean Ltd., not BP, which operated the rig.'

Transocean, the rig's owner, a Caymans Island company, is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor. Halliburton, the oil services company that sponsored Dick Cheney's political ascendancy which, by all rights, should be a Dubai company, is apparently involved as well in the maintenance of the rig.

Here's how it will go down: there will be tons of lawsuits, civil and possibly criminal. It will take years, if not decades, to organize and coalesce them; class actions will have to be certified, individual actions will be merged, etc. BP and the others will use their phalanxes of lawyers to fight each and every maneuver tooth and nail—much the way the Republicans fought the health care reform bill—delaying everything, conceding nothing, not even dates for depositions and meetings. They will seek extensions of each and every deadline. At every opportunity, the lawyers will take 'interlocutory appeals' which stop the entire process until an appellate court decides some small matter. Everything will be a fight. And lawyers will rake in tons of money. And no one will see a penny of damages for years and years.

Then, once a gazillion procedural hurdles have been surmounted—again, after years and years of wrangling—issues of who's really liable will start to be addressed. Halliburton, Transocean, and BP will turn on each other. Blame will flow as freely as the oil from the bottom of the Gulf. Some small company which supplied a pump or a winch or a derrick and which can't afford so much legal activity will be found to be the ultimate culprit. Or some sub-contractor which supplied labor or tools and equipment or some other service (say, consulting) to the bigs will have been found negligent. And their contracts with the bigs will have indemnification clauses. Responsible parties will be absolved of liability.

In the meantime, the corporate shell game will get underway. Companies in the industry will merge and reorganize. New entities will form. Some will be subsidiaries, some shells, some holding companies. Profits will flow to some of the reorganized companies and liabilities to others. The profitable companies will continue on about their business and the companies that assumed the liabilities will mysteriously fold.

If there is any liability left at the end of this process, then, and probably only then, the company or companies taking the biggest hits will turn out to have 'caps' on their liability (even though they didn't put caps on their well!) or will file for bankruptcy or reorganization so that they won't have to pay off those debts—or at least only have to pay a part of them.

The bigs will probably share some portion of liability, but it will only be contributory. And they will make PR hay about how they've done their civic duty. Meanwhile, their managers—the ones who made the fatal decisions that led to the negligence and liability that caused this disaster (such as the failure to install an acoustic switch or pressure shutoff valve—will have moved on to other ventures and other companies or retired wealthy.

And the damages? Well, some clean-up and containment costs will certainly be a part of the damages incurred by the bigs. But it will be minuscule in comparison to the total costs of this disaster.

Who will pay the costs of the shrimpers, fishermen, oysterers, etc. who've lost their livelihoods? Who will pay to remediate and reconstruct the lost wetlands? Who will pay for the lost revenue due to the decline and demise of area tourism? Who will pay for the devastated cities', parrishes', counties', states' economies? Who will pay to repopulate the fish, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, sea birds, and other wildlife destroyed by this environmental catastrophe? Who will pay to rebuild their habitats? And what will happen if, as some have predicted, this giant oil slick gets caught up in the Gulf Stream and meanders around Florida and up the East Coast fouling everything in it path? Who will be liable for those costs?

Probably NOBODY.

And EVERYBODY.

BP and Halliburton and the oil industry, in general, are some of the biggest whiners about government regulation (see this post about Tax Time and the Tea Party 'movement' and the Koch brothers), but as soon as something goes wrong they want the government to step in and save the day. And hey, let's not forget that eleven people died in the initial explosion. Add those lives to the 29 miners who died in the West Virginia coal mining disaster to begin tallying the costs of our society's reliance on carbon-based and fossil fuels and those industries' recent successes in obtaining deregulation and lax enforcment of safety regulation during the Bush administration.

This Gulf disaster will turn out, once again, to be another case of corporate welfare: socialize the risk, privatize the reward. We taxpayers will wind up paying the vast majority of consequential damages from this disaster and the big oil and oil services companies will continue trying to game the system and squeeze every drop of profit they can from our public natural resources.

BP, Transocean, and Halliburton will get off by paying as little as they possibly can, and if that amount becomes too great, they will simply reorganize and go on about their business under another name.

And by that time, once this disaster is off the front pages of the news, the political chorus of 'Drill, Baby, Drill' and 'Drill Here, Drill Now' will perk back up. Never forget: this was one of the primary themes of the 2008 Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Steele all chanted this refrain.



Nor is President Obama blameless in this. Less than one month before the explosion, he caved to the oil industry's pressure and opened up even more areas for offshore drilling. We can only hope he will reconsider.

It's enough to make you sick.