TomFlannery.com

It’s 2014. Despite the many ghastly lessons of history, many among us still advocate war. It’s all so red white and blue. It’s what we do. We kick ass. We invade and smart-bomb and do it all on TV. The bad guys die and the good guys who die get shipped home in the middle of the night when nobody is looking. In other words, the good guys don’t die.

Then we write bad country music songs about it. It’s a ghastly business.

We seem terribly flippant about the whole thing. It’s so remote. Hell, airstrikes in Mosul are easy. The people advocating for them don’t live in Mosul.

Is there anybody out there who thinks another American soldier should die fighting for Mosul?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The one thing these pro-war folks seem to have in common is that none of them has ever fought in a war. Like Dick Cheney. The former Vice President managed to get himself 5 draft deferments during Vietnam (when asked why he said “I had other things to do”). That’s some serious evading. Ted Nugent shit-in-his-pants worthy stuff. You’d think someone so hawkish about shooting people would have shot somebody himself. In war I mean. Spraying buck shot into the face of a hunting buddy after pounding a 12 pack of Coors for lunch doesn’t count. Or at least it shouldn’t. But we live in strange times. Who knows what lurks in the bowels of evil men?

Not me. I’m not about to check the bastard’s bowels either. But still.

Cheney had his chance to fight for his country. He chose not to.

Hey. Lots of guys chose not to. But most were anti war then and remain so now. They have the courage of their convictions to fall back on. That’s good enough for me. It’s good enough for most Americans I think. But Cheney. This guy seems special. A raving lunatic….a professional torturer…a blood fiend with actual fangs willing to send US boys into harms way for the most disgusting of reasons. Profit. And cheap partisan politics.

Cheney is an American monster, a man with the moral compass of a pack of half starved hyenas. A shredder of the constitution. A genuine war criminal. An abomination not seen since the days Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon were swilling gin in front of the JFK portrait in the White House. Cheney should he in jail. The guy is so twisted he even publicly stomped on his own daughter to score cheap political points. His daughter had the misfortune to be born gay and republican, a combination which is illegal in Wyoming. Or at least in the Cheney home. Lucky for the Cheney’s they have 2 daughters. The other is a homophobe. So she’s the normal one. A true hater like Pops. Imagine that version of “Daddy’s Little Girl” at the wedding? They were probably plotting an assassination mid-dance while everybody cooed “aww, look how nice”.

Cheney is a man who once called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” and then voted against creating a federal holiday for Martin Luther King in case anybody got the wrong idea how he really felt about uppity niggers. Dick Cheney is also a medical miracle. A man without a heart who has somehow managed to have multiple heart attacks. All medical expenses paid for of course….by a government sponsored heath care plan. Ain’t that America for you and me?

I’m sure the man has some decent qualities, although they’ve remained hidden thus far. As a matter of fact, Cheney’s only real rival for the low road in US politics in my lifetime may be Gordon Liddy, the third rate Watergate burglar who’s parlor trick was burning his own arm with a match without flinching to show how loyal he was to his boss, John Mitchell. Mitchell too ended up in jail. Quite a pack of patriots eh? But even Liddy, whom Nixon called “that fruitcake”, served his country in Korea. He also advocated the murder of newspaper men who disagreed with Nixon. And ATF agents, whom he suggested be shot in the head to get around the body armor.

Liddy is also a “Christian”. In case you couldn’t tell.

But I digress.

The Dick has been in the news lately for a series of public utterances so vile and disgusting even some of the storm troopers from Fox News seem revolted….as if they’ve been asked to interview a live snake on television. Cheney seems less human than ever, and more and more like a Grendel-type monster ready to swallow a litter of kitten to scare a pack of 5 year old girls. He’s back to give Iraqi war advice, never mind the fact that the only thing he got right the first time was the location of the oil fields. The sheer Chutzpah of it all has forced even the most fear crazed war mongers in my circle of friends to avoid me in bars and supermarket check out lines. And these are folks who have blow up Reagan dolls under their beds at home. They are not easily thrown off Rush Limbaugh’s talking points. But something is happening here…and even they aren’t sure what it is. But they know they need to shut down this swine before he gives the entire damn charade away. It’s like having Barry Goldwater show up at your house drunk and uninvited with a bunch of guys wearing hoods with saddlebags filled with mescaline and boys underwear. It’s bad PR.

Dick Cheney has finally brought the nation together. We can all agree that he’s an asshole.

And that may be the most patriotic thing the old fool has ever done for his country.

In a bit…

–tf