You may also know that Cheney was secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, and a congressman from Wyoming.
You might even know that Cheney was one of the founders of the Project for a New American Century. The Project for a New American Century, in turn, called for a new American empire well before 9/11, and lamented that, without a "catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor", transformation of America into an empire would be very slow.
But you may not know that -- in the 70's -- Cheney was instrumental in generating fake intelligence exaggerating the Soviet threat in order to undermine coexistence between the U.S. and Soviet Union, which conveniently justified huge amounts of cold war spending. See also this article. This scheme foreshadowed Mr. Cheney's role in generating fake intelligence in Iraq by 30 years.
Or that newly-released documents show that Cheney was involved in debates concerning illegal wiretaps 30 years ago?
Did you catch that the former director of the CIA accused Cheney of overseeing American torture policies ? Or that Colin Powell's former chief of staff stated that Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes for his role in facilitating torture?
And, according to to the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the massacre against Vietnamese civilians, Cheney is the main guy helping to fund groups which the U.S. claims are terrorists (see confirming articles here and here)
And guess who is the prime architect of efforts to bomb Iran? Yup, Mr. Cheney (see also this article).
To recap, Cheney's past includes:
• Oil
• Defense
• Faking intelligence and using scare tactics about enemies to justify a pre-planned military agenda
• Lobbying to give the president the powers of the king
• Calling for an American empire and lamenting the lack of a "new Pearl Harbor"
• Police state type wiretapping
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