Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit

[Sallow]

There were probably a half-dozen or more reasons why we went to war with Iraq.

All or most of them being bullshit.

This was merely one of them.

Something that's been generally known by the American Public for some years now.

Old, old, old news.

Resurrected for half-a-second by a GOP splinter-group mouthpiece.

Nothing likely to help save the Dems in November 2014 or November 2016, though.

Next slide, please.

Saving Democrats from what?

Right now, Democrats aren't in a bad position for 2014.

Looks like they will keep the Senate and possibly make some gains in the House.

Republicans are doing a fine job of shooting themselves in the kneecap.

55 votes to repeal ObamaCare and the Ryan budget assure that as well.

And 2016?

Say hello to another President Clinton.

Eh... it's more likely Democrats lose ground in the mid-term. Why? Because that's what the American people do in mid-terms. There have been three exceptions since the Civil War but other than those, the party in the White House always loses ground in a mid-term, regardless which President.

These are pretty extraordinary times.

And considering the performance of the GOP since 2010? This might be time number four.

 

[Pogo]

Well you do have a point there.

 

[Sallow]

Who the fuck would believe a racist POS like Rand Paul about anything? .....

The UK's Guardian and researchers who wrote the article in the link at the top of this page. That's who. When all else fails, look at the facts..

But Rand Paul wants all white lunch counters, no one should believe anything he says!.....

Why exactly?

 

[bayoubill]

Wow..

Last week, continuing the sometimes catty intraparty feud between Republican hawks and GOPers skeptical of foreign intervention, former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). But Paul is not likely to be fazed by criticism from Cheney, for several years ago the Kentucky senator was pushing the conspiratorial notion that the former VP exploited the horrific 9/11 attacks to lead the nation into war in Iraq in order to benefit Halliburton, the enormous military contractor where Cheney had once been CEO.

Speaking at a private Las Vegas gathering of Republican funders and activists on March 29, Cheney blasted what he termed isolationists within the GOP. "One of the things that concerns me first about the [2016] campaign, that I'm worried about," Cheney said, "is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party." He didn't name names, but he didn't have to—at least, in one case. He obviously had Rand Paul in mind. And Cheney, who also approvingly talked about bombing Iran, chided the unmentioned Paul and other less hawkish GOPers for having not learned the supposed lessons of 9/11.
WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit | Mother Jones

This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

not devastating... not in the least fuckin' bit...

there's always been a line drawn between the libertarian and neo-con sides of the GOP...

the only thing different 'tween then 'n now is that, after 30+ years, the libertarian side has finally gained enough traction so that, after all those years of neglect and abuse from the neo-cons, the libertarians are finally now in a position to tell the neo-cons to go fuck themselves...

 

[Sallow]

Wow..

Last week, continuing the sometimes catty intraparty feud between Republican hawks and GOPers skeptical of foreign intervention, former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). But Paul is not likely to be fazed by criticism from Cheney, for several years ago the Kentucky senator was pushing the conspiratorial notion that the former VP exploited the horrific 9/11 attacks to lead the nation into war in Iraq in order to benefit Halliburton, the enormous military contractor where Cheney had once been CEO.

Speaking at a private Las Vegas gathering of Republican funders and activists on March 29, Cheney blasted what he termed isolationists within the GOP. "One of the things that concerns me first about the [2016] campaign, that I'm worried about," Cheney said, "is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party." He didn't name names, but he didn't have to—at least, in one case. He obviously had Rand Paul in mind. And Cheney, who also approvingly talked about bombing Iran, chided the unmentioned Paul and other less hawkish GOPers for having not learned the supposed lessons of 9/11.
WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit | Mother Jones

This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

not devastating... not in the least fuckin' bit...

there's always been a line drawn between the libertarian and neo-con sides of the GOP...

the only thing different 'tween then 'n now is that, after 30+ years, the libertarian side has finally gained enough traction so that, after all those years of neglect and abuse from the neo-cons, the libertarians are finally now in a position to tell the neo-cons to go fuck themselves...

And you don't think that's devastating?

They made Ron Paul sit in a corner for how long?

Jeez..

 

[Crystalclear]

Wow..



This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

not devastating... not in the least fuckin' bit...

there's always been a line drawn between the libertarian and neo-con sides of the GOP...

the only thing different 'tween then 'n now is that, after 30+ years, the libertarian side has finally gained enough traction so that, after all those years of neglect and abuse from the neo-cons, the libertarians are finally now in a position to tell the neo-cons to go fuck themselves...

And you don't think that's devastating?

They made Ron Paul sit in a corner for how long?

Jeez..

Yeah, and that was really stupid. Ron Paul would have been a great president.

 

[Silhouette]

Cheney's hand picking Jeb Bush or Romney again to carry out his actual continued presidency as puppet. Neither are electable. Bush's name = defeat. And a dynasty. This country won't stand for three traitors from the same royal schmucks to run this country back into the ground. Romney is such a slimey douche that it oozes from every poor. All I can think of when I hear him talk is "what a slick" or "hidden agenda" "Malleable" "puppet" and ultimately "Dick Cheney's boy". This country cannot stand another four years of Dick Cheney's foreign policies.

 

[driveby]

Rand Paul is a racist, therefore anything that comes out of his mouth is a lie and irrelevant........

 

[Kondor3]

Cheney's hand picking Jeb Bush or Romney again to carry out his actual continued presidency as puppet...

Why do you think that Cheney has that kind of muscle?

Neither are electable.

We agree on Mittens. I don't know a thing about Jeb, so I really can't say.

Bush's name = defeat.

I wonder if that's actually accurate.

And a dynasty.

Too late. Already there, in connection with several families, yes?

This country won't stand for three traitors from the same royal schmucks to run this country back into the ground.

George I was OK, but lost Round 2, to a younger, more energetic, charismatic and vision-driven opponent who was more in-touch with The People.

George II was a disaster in a half-dozen ways, but did some good things, as well, and was no traitor, by any mainstream definition that I understand. I don't want him back, but 'treason' isn't gonna cut it in dealing with him.

Romney is such a slimey douche that it oozes from every poor. All I can think of when I hear him talk is "what a slick" or "hidden agenda" "Malleable" "puppet" and ultimately "Dick Cheney's boy".

I agree that Mittens is un-electable. Always was. But I don't know why he would be viewed as Cheney's bitch.

This country cannot stand another four years of Dick Cheney's foreign policies.

Again, I really don't follow Cheney, and I'm completely clue-less as to why you say that any subsequent GOP candidate (Jeb, or Mittens, or anyone else) is going to subordinate their own policies for some preexisting 'canned' foreign policy solution inherited from previous administrations. Mebbe I'm just being dense here, but, I don't get it.

 

[Sallow]

Rand Paul is a racist, therefore anything that comes out of his mouth is a lie and irrelevant........

How does hating people of different races equate lying?

 

[nodoginnafight]

Wow..

Last week, continuing the sometimes catty intraparty feud between Republican hawks and GOPers skeptical of foreign intervention, former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). But Paul is not likely to be fazed by criticism from Cheney, for several years ago the Kentucky senator was pushing the conspiratorial notion that the former VP exploited the horrific 9/11 attacks to lead the nation into war in Iraq in order to benefit Halliburton, the enormous military contractor where Cheney had once been CEO.

Speaking at a private Las Vegas gathering of Republican funders and activists on March 29, Cheney blasted what he termed isolationists within the GOP. "One of the things that concerns me first about the [2016] campaign, that I'm worried about," Cheney said, "is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party." He didn't name names, but he didn't have to—at least, in one case. He obviously had Rand Paul in mind. And Cheney, who also approvingly talked about bombing Iran, chided the unmentioned Paul and other less hawkish GOPers for having not learned the supposed lessons of 9/11.
WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit | Mother Jones

This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

Of course Cheney pushed the war to profiteer. We all knew this long ago.

 

[Pogo]

Again, I really don't follow Cheney, and I'm completely clue-less as to why you say that any subsequent GOP candidate (Jeb, or Mittens, or anyone else) is going to subordinate their own policies for some preexisting 'canned' foreign policy solution inherited from previous administrations. Mebbe I'm just being dense here, but, I don't get it.

Neither does the rest of America, but hey, Dubya axed him to come up with the best VP candidate, and he came up with himself, so obviously it must have been the right answer.

Kinda says a lot about both of them...

 

[Kondor3]

Again, I really don't follow Cheney, and I'm completely clue-less as to why you say that any subsequent GOP candidate (Jeb, or Mittens, or anyone else) is going to subordinate their own policies for some preexisting 'canned' foreign policy solution inherited from previous administrations. Mebbe I'm just being dense here, but, I don't get it.

Neither does the rest of America, but hey, Dubya axed him to come up with the best VP candidate, and he came up with himself, so obviously it must have been the right answer.

Kinda says a lot about both of them...

Mebbe... mebbe not... I just don't understand why our colleague thinks that Cheney has that kind of pull on the GOP side of the aisle any longer.

Like I said, I don't follow the guy... couldn't care less... but I've been under the impression that he's fully retired and completely sidelined by health issues.

Perhaps I'm wrong.

 

[Theowl32]

FrontPage Magazine - The Facts on Halliburton

It is certainly true that during a two year period Halliburton’s revenue from Defense Department contracts doubled. However, that increase in revenue occurred from 1998 to 2000 - during the Clinton administration.

In 1998, Halliburton's total revenue was $14.5 billion, which included $284 million of Pentagon contracts. Two years later, Halliburton’s DoD contracts more than doubled.

Regarding the Iraq contracts, Halliburton was accused by Democrats of receiving special "no-bid" contracts because of Cheney’s influence. One advertisement by the Democrats charged, "Bush gave contracts to Halliburton instead of fighting corporate corruption."

FactCheck.org an organization which ascertains the validity of political campaign advertisements researched this accusation. According to FactCheck, "The Bush administration is doing a fair amount to fight corporate corruption, convicting or indicting executives of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, Worldcom, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, HealthSouth Corporation and others, including Martha Stewart. The Department of Justice says it has brought charges against 20 executives of Enron alone, and its Corporate Fraud Task Force says it has won convictions of more than 250 persons to date. Bush also signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in 2002, imposing stringent new accounting rules in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal."

When Factcheck.org checked the facts about allegations by Democrats that there was a scandal because of the "no-bid" contracts awarded to Halliburton they stated, "It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November." (Emphasis added.)

The Center for Public Integrity another public interest group also investigated the purported scandal of the Halliburton "no-bid" contracts. They wrote:


In Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) has been awarded five contracts worth at least $10.8 billion, including more than $5.6 billion under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, an omnibus contract that allows the Army to call on KBR for support in all of its field operations. When the Army needs a service performed, it issues a "task order," which lays out specific work requirements under the contract…From 1992 to 1997, KBR held the first LOGCAP contract awarded by the Army, but when it was time to renew the contract, the company lost in the competitive bidding process to DynCorp after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent (some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands). KBR (obtained) the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001…n November 2002 the Army Corps of Engineers tasked KBR to develop a contingency plan for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq…[O]n March 24, 2003, the Army Corps announced publicly that KBR had been awarded a contract to restore oil-infrastructure in Iraq, potentially worth $7 billion. The contract KBR received…would eventually include 10 distinct task orders. KBR did not come close to reaching the contract ceiling, billing just over $2.5 billion…The contract was awarded without submission for public bids or congressional notification. In their response to congressional inquiries, Army officials said they determined that extinguishing oil fires fell under the range of services provided under LOGCAP, meaning that KBR could deploy quickly and without additional security clearances.

Neither the Center for Public Integrity nor Factcheck.org determined anything sinister about Halliburton’s no-bid" contracts for the Iraq war. Two nonpartisan, nonaligned, public interest organizations have investigated the Halliburton allegations and found them to be specious allegations made for purely political purposes.

An L.A. Times op-ed of April 22 said, "Halliburton Received No-Bid Contracts During Clinton Administration For Work In Bosnia And Kosovo." An October 2003 article in the (Raleigh, NC) News & Observer quoted Bill Clinton's Undersecretary Of Commerce William Reinsch as saying "'Halliburton has a distinguished track record,' he said. 'They do business in some 120 countries. This is a group of people who know what they're doing in a difficult business. It's a particularly difficult business when people are shooting at you.'"

If Democrats want to investigate a scandal involving Iraq they should devote their efforts to the UN "Oil-for-Food" program instead of Halliburton. However, they will not because Saddam Hussein is not a candidate in this presidential election.

--------------------------------------------

I already completely and thoroughly destroyed the liberals in this thread with factchecks in regards to their false claims.

They did not even attempt to refute this the first time I posted it, nor the second or third.

Surprising, cause usually the morons on the left try and refute facts. Then again they do the other thing when they cannot refute it. They ignore, pretend they did not see it, and make the same stupid claims.

Read the bold faced everyone. It sums everything up. Go ahead and save it too. It is has been a while since the left wing morons crowed about Halliburton.

 

[zeke]

Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War
By Angelo Young, International Business Times
20 March 13


he accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels.

Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops.

Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday.

The No. 1 recipient?

Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007.

The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.

Who were Nos. 2 and 3?

Agility Logistics (KSE:AGLTY) of Kuwait and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Together, these firms garnered $13.5 billion of U.S. contracts.

As private enterprise entered the war zone at unprecedented levels, the amount of corruption ballooned, even if most contractors performed their duties as expected.

According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.

Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying governement employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses. (Despite promises by President Barack Obama to reel in this habit, the trend toward granting favored companies federal contracts without considering competing bids continued to grow, by 9 percent last year, according to the Washington Post.)

Even though the military has largely pulled out of Iraq, private contractors remain on the ground and continue to reap U.S. government contracts. For example, the U.S. State Department estimates that taxpayers will dole out $3 billion to private guards for the government's sprawling embassy in Baghdad.

Nah, Cheney wouldn't want his old buddies at his old company to take care of ole Dick when the dust was all settled. NO way. People are not like that. Especially people like a Dick Cheney.

How much money did you say Halliburton made off the Iraq war?

 

[Theowl32]

Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War
By Angelo Young, International Business Times
20 March 13


he accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels.

Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops.

Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday.

The No. 1 recipient?

Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007.

The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.

Who were Nos. 2 and 3?

Agility Logistics (KSE:AGLTY) of Kuwait and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Together, these firms garnered $13.5 billion of U.S. contracts.

As private enterprise entered the war zone at unprecedented levels, the amount of corruption ballooned, even if most contractors performed their duties as expected.

According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.

Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying governement employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses. (Despite promises by President Barack Obama to reel in this habit, the trend toward granting favored companies federal contracts without considering competing bids continued to grow, by 9 percent last year, according to the Washington Post.)

Even though the military has largely pulled out of Iraq, private contractors remain on the ground and continue to reap U.S. government contracts. For example, the U.S. State Department estimates that taxpayers will dole out $3 billion to private guards for the government's sprawling embassy in Baghdad.

Nah, Cheney wouldn't want his old buddies at his old company to take care of ole Dick when the dust was all settled. NO way. People are not like that. Especially people like a Dick Cheney.

How much money did you say Halliburton made off the Iraq war?

FactCheck.org an organization which ascertains the validity of political campaign advertisements researched this accusation. According to FactCheck, "The Bush administration is doing a fair amount to fight corporate corruption, convicting or indicting executives of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, Worldcom, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, HealthSouth Corporation and others, including Martha Stewart. The Department of Justice says it has brought charges against 20 executives of Enron alone, and its Corporate Fraud Task Force says it has won convictions of more than 250 persons to date. Bush also signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in 2002, imposing stringent new accounting rules in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal."

When Factcheck.org checked the facts about allegations by Democrats that there was a scandal because of the "no-bid" contracts awarded to Halliburton they stated, "It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November." (Emphasis added.)

------------------------------------------------------------
Put the pot down Zeke. You have been wrong about every single thing you have believed....basically your entire life.

It must suck.

FrontPage Magazine - The Facts on Halliburton

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How much money did Halliburton make off of the non-bid contracts under Clinton?


Fact check: It is certainly true that during a two year period Halliburton’s revenue from Defense Department contracts doubled. However, that increase in revenue occurred from 1998 to 2000 - during the Clinton administration.

In 1998, Halliburton's total revenue was $14.5 billion, which included $284 million of Pentagon contracts. Two years later, Halliburton’s DoD contracts more than doubled.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not that a pathetic double talking, hypocritical, perpetually stoned left wing ass like you would care. Cause you don't.

Fucking morons.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Wow..

Last week, continuing the sometimes catty intraparty feud between Republican hawks and GOPers skeptical of foreign intervention, former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). But Paul is not likely to be fazed by criticism from Cheney, for several years ago the Kentucky senator was pushing the conspiratorial notion that the former VP exploited the horrific 9/11 attacks to lead the nation into war in Iraq in order to benefit Halliburton, the enormous military contractor where Cheney had once been CEO.

Speaking at a private Las Vegas gathering of Republican funders and activists on March 29, Cheney blasted what he termed isolationists within the GOP. "One of the things that concerns me first about the [2016] campaign, that I'm worried about," Cheney said, "is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party." He didn't name names, but he didn't have to—at least, in one case. He obviously had Rand Paul in mind. And Cheney, who also approvingly talked about bombing Iran, chided the unmentioned Paul and other less hawkish GOPers for having not learned the supposed lessons of 9/11.
WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit | Mother Jones

This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

No it isn't devastating. It's just additional proof that Rand Paul is a dickweed.

Yes. There is a gulf between the CONSERVATIVES in the GOP and the RINOs and the Libertarians. So? What the fuck else is new except that Rand Paul is willing to make his stupid mark early on? Good. He's outed himself and he will not get any support from the conservatives. Big deal. He never had much support from the conservatives anyway. Talking stupid baseless tripe like he just spewed isn't going to help.

 

[Indofred]

YES GOP. YES, please have this fight haha!!!

The Democrats suck. But I'd love nothing more than to see the Republican Party rot in hell!

That's a pretty good post and says a lot more than most will realise.
So many people are up their preferred party's arse so far, they can't see the truth.
Obama and his lot are pretty shit but the Republicans are even worse.

You lot need a third option - someone fresh and untainted by the corruption that both parties are guilty of.
Every politician on the hill has been bought out by someone. The right by the gun and military lobby, the left by god knows who.
Votes are no longer conscience, more votes dependent on who pays them the most.

 

[sealybobo]

Wow..

Last week, continuing the sometimes catty intraparty feud between Republican hawks and GOPers skeptical of foreign intervention, former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). But Paul is not likely to be fazed by criticism from Cheney, for several years ago the Kentucky senator was pushing the conspiratorial notion that the former VP exploited the horrific 9/11 attacks to lead the nation into war in Iraq in order to benefit Halliburton, the enormous military contractor where Cheney had once been CEO.

Speaking at a private Las Vegas gathering of Republican funders and activists on March 29, Cheney blasted what he termed isolationists within the GOP. "One of the things that concerns me first about the [2016] campaign, that I'm worried about," Cheney said, "is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party." He didn't name names, but he didn't have to—at least, in one case. He obviously had Rand Paul in mind. And Cheney, who also approvingly talked about bombing Iran, chided the unmentioned Paul and other less hawkish GOPers for having not learned the supposed lessons of 9/11.
WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit | Mother Jones

This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

A popular narrative took hold that the British, the French, and the defense industry together had duped the United States into wasting its resources and the lives of its young people. Companies that made and sold weapons became known as "merchants of death."

This was far from a fringe view. A 1936 report by a bipartisan Senate committee declared that enriching arms manufacturers was the major cause of the war.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Wow..

Last week, continuing the sometimes catty intraparty feud between Republican hawks and GOPers skeptical of foreign intervention, former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). But Paul is not likely to be fazed by criticism from Cheney, for several years ago the Kentucky senator was pushing the conspiratorial notion that the former VP exploited the horrific 9/11 attacks to lead the nation into war in Iraq in order to benefit Halliburton, the enormous military contractor where Cheney had once been CEO.

Speaking at a private Las Vegas gathering of Republican funders and activists on March 29, Cheney blasted what he termed isolationists within the GOP. "One of the things that concerns me first about the [2016] campaign, that I'm worried about," Cheney said, "is what I sense to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those terms, in our own party." He didn't name names, but he didn't have to—at least, in one case. He obviously had Rand Paul in mind. And Cheney, who also approvingly talked about bombing Iran, chided the unmentioned Paul and other less hawkish GOPers for having not learned the supposed lessons of 9/11.
WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit | Mother Jones

This is a huge rebuke of the Bush administration and a line in the sand between the Libertarian and Neo Conservative wings of the Republican Party.

It's also pretty devastating.

A popular narrative took hold that the British, the French, and the defense industry together had duped the United States into wasting its resources and the lives of its young people. Companies that made and sold weapons became known as "merchants of death."

This was far from a fringe view. A 1936 report by a bipartisan Senate committee declared that enriching arms manufacturers was the major cause of the war.

How does murdering six million Jews enrich arms manufacturers? Gas and fire don't require artillery and airplanes.