He's probably right, and you're either intentionally misreading your quote or just wrong.

Cheney is not saying that 'Afghanistan was hunky-dory until January 20, 2009, at which point things went to hell in a handbasket.' The only way you can put forward that interpretation is if you ignore the previous sentence. He is saying that in his opinion the current mess that is Afghanistan was not caused by Iraq. This is the only way for an honest Earthperson to read the quote in the context you provided.

The notion that Iraq caused Afghanistan to fall into a mess was a meme created by the Kerry campaign for political gain; it certainly is not proven by any stretch. Bob Shrum, Kerry's campaign mgr has admitted this was created to overcome the historical weakness of his part on national security matters, so it is a simple fact. And, in fact, if you look at what has happened since Obama placed more resources in Afghanistan (and therefore refocusing from Iraq), is that the situation there has gotten worse. So, to honestly rephrase from the quote you provided, would be: Cheney does not buy into the Kerry campaign's meme that Afghanistan is a mess because of Iraq.

Really, the only conclusion one can draw from your post is you are either daft or lying.

Why don't you sketch out an Afghanistan policy after 2001 that you think would have brought us to a materially better position? A hundred words or fewer. Give us approximate numbers of troops, year by year, and what they would have been doing (training, securing cities, securing the countryside, etc.). Give us a similar sketch for civil and economic support, however you choose to characterize it. Would we still be there, or would we be done now?

Perhaps I am a bit more cynical, but is this news?

Judging by the manner in which the Bush administration handled pretty much anything, doesn't it stand to reason they couldn't see anything straight?

As for a policy of one hundred words or fewer: PLAN STRATEGICALLY SO MILITARY CAMPAIGNS COINCIDE WITH THE LENGTH OF YOUR TERM(S). This way, successes are rewarded and failures are shined shit that our populous will have to think critically about (snicker, snicker, populous thinking critically) in order to decide on whether to re-elect your team errr party.

Oh, I have a better idea, lets start another war/step into a quagmire less than half way through. Hubris pure and simple... And I was trying so hard not to get angry

"I am not aware of a case of a former president or vice president behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power."

I'm sure this is correct. The "despicable" part is a judgment, but whatever...

On the other hand, let's see if this makes sense: "I am not aware of a case of a sitting president or vice president behaving as despicably as Obama and Biden have done in the ten months since assuming power," which refers to their continual whining over the problems they "inherited" and "blame Bush" angle on everything. I know it's hackneyed by now, but imagine if Bush had insisted he had "inherited" the jihadist problem from Clinton, etc etc.

"I am not aware of a case of a former president or vice president behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power."

I'm sure this is correct. The "despicable" part is a judgment, but whatever...

On the other hand, let's see if this makes sense: "I am not aware of a case of a sitting president or vice president behaving as despicably as Obama and Biden have done in the ten months since assuming power," which refers to their continual whining over the problems they "inherited" and "blame Bush" angle on everything. I know it's hackneyed by now, but imagine if Bush had insisted he had "inherited" the jihadist problem from Clinton, etc etc.

I don't think Richard Cheney is daft at all. I think he's a liar only when he needs to be.

The bottom line for Cheney is Cheney. That's really about it. He rejects blame for the mess in Afghanistan because he served in the administration that left it to Barack Obama. He's say the same thing if the incumbent President were someone other than Barack Obama, and would say something completely different if he himself hadn't been Vice President for the last eight years.

By historical standards his orientation is pretty reprehensible for someone who has served in national office. It is not dramatically outside the political tradition of the part of the country Cheney comes from, and it should not come as a surprise given the way Cheney conducted himself when in office. Cheney's friends tended to make out pretty well because he served in national office; his daughter and son-in-law made out well in government jobs; his other daughter, undistinguished by anything besides her parentage and the fact that she was a homosexual, wound up with a book deal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cheney himself was set after cashing in on his service in the first Bush administration, so the interests he has to look out for now chiefly involve his reputation rather than his finances. His orientation remains consistent.

I note his defenders here, and would remind them of the one-sided nature of their relationship with the man they are defending. Bottom line: if they wrote a check to Dick Cheney, he'd cash it. That's about all he'd do for them. It's up to them, but personally I prefer to let a public figure under attack defend himself.

I think Cheney should be able to say whatever he wants, I certainly appreciated Al Gore's post-VP activity, including strong condemnations of the Bush Administration. Plus Cheney is delusional and frightening to most people, so the political benefits go to the Obama Administration (insofar as he excites people its that radical GOP base that thinks Obama is an alien from Kenya.) Besides, most of the policies Cheney criticizes (Iraq policy, Afghan policy, Guantanamo Bay, civilian trials for terrorists, etc) are a continuation of the second term policies of the Bush Admin. Its an inadvertent way of criticizing Bush as well, which he could not do 2005-2009

I think Cheney should be charged with war crimes along with his subordinate, George W Bush.

Dick Cheney has been living in an alternative universe ever since he became a vice president. Once upon a time during Iraq War I, he correctly stated that a military occupation of Iraq would lead to a quagmire, but when he drank the Kool Aid of the Project for a New Century, and decided that taking out Saddam would lead to the democratization of the entire Middle East, he entered the realm of Coocoo-land.

This fall, I read a historical CIA report on how easily and effectively a few special operations forces (in conjunction with Northern Alliance) had just about totally neutralized any Taliban or Al Queda forces in Afghanistan in 2002. Well, if that's the case, then how come President Obama had to committ another 30,000 troops (at a cost of $1M per soldier) to Afghanistan after we've had nearly a 1,000 brave men and women die fighting there?

Isn't it possible that there was just a teensy bit of inattention to Afghanistan under the Bush regime while we were trying to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq? Just wondering.

No surprise it is a continuum of his performance as Vice President. "That's LIAR! LIAR!! LIAR!! LIAR!!"

Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review.

He is author or co-author of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

http://original.antiwar.com/roberts/2009/11/12/myths-of-our-time/

Myths of Our Time

by Paul Craig Roberts, November 13, 2009

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It is conventional wisdom that it was the draft that ended the Vietnam war. According to this explanation, cowardly college students subject to the draft and their unpatriotic families, forced an end to the war. This is Karl Marx’s explanation. Material interests, not empty morality, are said to have brought the war to an end.

The fact that in those days the US still had an independent media of sorts that sometimes framed the war in moral terms is ignored. Are we sure, for example, that the film of the naked little girl running in terror down the road burning with napalm was ineffectual in arousing moral opposition to the war? Are we certain that it wasn’t an aroused moral conscience that brought about the end of the war but was college students’ fears for their lives and limbs?

If we ascribe ending the war to material interests, it makes ending the war look as unworthy as the war itself.

Yet, virtually every conservative columnist, commentator, newsperson and politician, as well as today’s antiwar protesters and apparently the Pentagon, believes that a military draft would reduce Americans’ toleration for wars because of body bags coming home to middle and upper class parents. Apparently, the lower class doesn’t mind its kids coming back in body bags.

Those in thrall to this explanation, which derives from Marx’s materialist explanation of history, do not notice that Vietnam was our longest war. It apparently took almost forever for the material interest of students and their parents to realize itself and stop the war.

Why are we afraid to say that the war stopped because American troops and the American population got tired, offended even, from killing women, children and noncombatants? Vietnam had not attacked the US. The US had interjected itself into a civil war in a far off place, as it has done in Afghanistan.

By invading Iraq the US started a civil war between Sunni and Shi’ite. In Pakistan the US has started a civil war between the religious tribal population and the secular US puppet state. In Palestine the US started a civil war between Fatah and Hamas.

One continuously reads from those Americans opposed to America’s wars of aggression that the wars are possible because they don’t affect Americans, just those few who sign up for the voluntary military. Thus, there are insufficient material interests at stake to stop the war. This is a common explanation for the weakness of the antiwar movement.

One could argue instead that it is the triumph of Karl Marx’s materialist thinking that has made moral protests impotent. What is morality? You can’t weigh it, define it, measure it. It can be dismissed as the whining of material interests. In contrast, material interests, such as lives, limbs, and bank accounts are real.

For whatever the reason, morality has shown itself to be an impotent force in 21st century America. Americans show no remorse at over one million dead Iraqis and four million displaced Iraqis due entirely to an American invasion based on lies and deception. The lies and deception are now well proven. Yet, there has been no apology for the horrors that Americans inflicted on Iraq.

Afghanistan is another example. Intentional lies conflated the Taliban with al-Qaeda and "terrorists." The diverse peoples in Afghanistan who were first ravaged by Soviet bombs are now ravaged by American bombs. Weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, people waiting for fuel or food, people asleep in their homes, people attending mosques have all been murdered and are murdered routinely by US and its NATO puppets.

Each time civilians are murdered, the US denies it, only to be contradicted every time by the evidence.

Why is the president of the United States contemplating sending yet tens of thousands more US troops to kill people in Afghanistan?

The answer is that the United States is an immoral country, with an immoral people and an immoral government. Americans no longer have a moral conscience. They have gone over to the Dark Side.

Humanity has endeavored for millennia to control evil with morality. In the American "superpower," this effort has collapsed and failed.

The United States needs to be censured for its immoral behavior, not have that behavior rationalized as being in its material interests.
Read more by Paul Craig Roberts

* America, Israel’s Lackey – November 11th, 2009
* The Evil Empire – November 6th, 2009
* The Nobel War Prize – October 9th, 2009
* The Threat to Your Liberties Is Here – October 4th, 2009
* Another War in the Works – September 28th, 2009

what did you expect from a guy even bush marginalized towards the end of his administration. Bush should have sent him to his bunker and left him there This guy's big mouth, as well as his wife and daughter, should all be marginalized for what they represent - misrepresentation of the Bush Iraq and Afghanistan policies. Afghanistan should have been Bush's focus, that is where Bin Laden planned and executed 9/11, not Iraq. As far as Cheney's view that there was nothing wrong with his administration strategy on Afghanistan is totally insane and I would say verge on the criminal (torture, etc.). Let's hope the major media outlets just let his bullshit lie where it falls, in histories gutter.

What did you expect from a guy even Bush marginalized towards the end of his administration. Bush should have sent him to his bunker and left him there. This guy's big mouth, as well as his wife and daughter, should all be marginalized for what they represent - misrepresentation of the Bush Iraq and Afghanistan policies. Afghanistan should have been Bush's focus, that is where Bin Laden planned and executed 9/11, not Iraq. As far as Cheney's view that there was nothing wrong with his administration strategy on Afghanistan is totally insane and I would say verge on the criminal (torture, etc.). Let's hope the major media outlets just let his bullshit lie where it falls, in histories gutter.

Great Britain is investigating the nature of accusations and legality of going into Iraq...I would expect some fingers pointing our way based on what I remember of the seemingly already determined policy of invading Iraq and then the subsequent search for reasons.
Afghanistan however is a special hell for a country caught in its own CIA designed Vietnam flytrap for Russia. It takes a special kind of hubris to go rushing right into one's own predesigned Veitnam flytrap but worse yet is useing the Afghan people and subjecting them to 30 years of their own personal hell all in the name of the good ole Cold War and it's immorality.

Dick Cheney is a criminal. He has no experience from which to draw on with reference to things military. He has no well from which to draw concerning what the American people think or what the Middle Eastern people think. These wars are crimes. They are based in oil, not freedom and democracy, since they deny americans these things. He and the republicans have been caught on virtually countless occasions lying flagrantly. At least the Criminal Bush has had the presence of mind to keep a low profile, and his mouth shut. cheney isn't that smart. He has no legacy worth defending, and with any luck AT ALL, he will be charged with crimes against humanity, the Constitution, International law, and other forms of malfeasance unique to his and the Bush Cartel's "squat" in the White house.