I see it as a "US Inc" strategy purely for private "Big Oil" and "Big Money" profit, with Bush as Non-Executive Chairman.
Iraq was a hostile takeover, purely for its oil resources. Unfortunately, US Inc fucked up the merger, so Iran did not follow.
Cheney's corporate strategy has failed, big time. He rolled the dice, and lost. I think that the crucial shift came in the middle of last year, and I see Iraq as the US's Suez. ie the moment when the US's creditors called a halt to US adventurism, and in particularly vetoed any hare-brained scheme to attack Iran. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
All of Bush' behaviour has been about testing the limits of what can be done and about setting precedents. Starting a war in contravention of international law, the jailing of a US citizen without trial or recourse to legal advice (Joseph Padilla). Declaring a region where the rule of law is entirely absent for the purposes of torture. Spying on Americans in breach of the 4th amendment, passing a Patriot Act which pretty much shreds the Bill of rights.
All in pursuit of the National Security state which is a necessary precusor of the Imperial Presidency.
As for the "US Inc" corporate state you fault, they are one and the same, as discussed here in ATimes a while back
a an almost-regal function. This is not my belief but one I have seen written and documented on various sites from dKos through FireDoglake to The Sideshow. He has a long history of wanting a "Unitary Executive
As contradictory as it may seem, fascist dictatorship was made possible because of the flawed notion of freedom which held sway during the era of laissez-faire capitalism in the early twentieth century. It was the liberals of that era that clamored for unfettered personal and economic freedom, no matter what the cost to society. Such untrammeled freedom is not suitable to civilized humans. It is the freedom of the jungle. In other words, the strong have more of it than the weak. It is a notion of freedom which is inherently violent, because it is enjoyed at the expense of others. Such a notion of freedom legitimizes each and every increase in the wealth and power of those who are already powerful, regardless of the misery that will be suffered by others as a result. The use of the state to limit such "freedom" was denounced by the laissez-faire liberals of the early twentieth century. The use of the state to protect such "freedom" was fascism. Just as monopoly is the ruin of the free market, fascism is the ultimate degradation of liberal capitalism. [...] Consider the words of Thurman Arnold, head of the antitrust division of the US Department of Justice in 1939: "Germany, of course, has developed within 15 years from an industrial autocracy into a dictatorship. Most people are under the impression that the power of Hitler was the result of his demagogic blandishments and appeals to the mob ... Actually, Hitler holds his power through the final and inevitable development of the uncontrolled tendency to combine in restraint of trade." Arnold made his point even more clearly in a 1939 address to the American Bar Association: "Germany presents the logical end of the process of cartelization. From 1923 to 1935 cartelization grew in Germany until finally that nation was so organized that everyone had to belong either to a squad, a regiment or a brigade in order to survive. The names given to these squads, regiments or brigades were cartels, trade associations, unions and trusts. Such a distribution system could not adjust its prices. It needed a general with quasi-military authority who could order the workers to work and the mills to produce. Hitler named himself that general. Had it not been Hitler it would have been someone else.
Consider the words of Thurman Arnold, head of the antitrust division of the US Department of Justice in 1939: "Germany, of course, has developed within 15 years from an industrial autocracy into a dictatorship. Most people are under the impression that the power of Hitler was the result of his demagogic blandishments and appeals to the mob ... Actually, Hitler holds his power through the final and inevitable development of the uncontrolled tendency to combine in restraint of trade."
Arnold made his point even more clearly in a 1939 address to the American Bar Association: "Germany presents the logical end of the process of cartelization. From 1923 to 1935 cartelization grew in Germany until finally that nation was so organized that everyone had to belong either to a squad, a regiment or a brigade in order to survive. The names given to these squads, regiments or brigades were cartels, trade associations, unions and trusts. Such a distribution system could not adjust its prices. It needed a general with quasi-military authority who could order the workers to work and the mills to produce. Hitler named himself that general. Had it not been Hitler it would have been someone else.
Cheney was part of that group that Bush I labelled as "the crazies in the basement" who were gung-ho to take Baghdad in "Desert Storm". He always wants war as emergencies pre-dispose legislatures towards the directions he wants to go.
That war is profitable for the sort of corporations where Cheney rests his investments is merely a secondary benefit. It's largely beside the point. He wants Presidents who become King Emperor, where he is always the preferred advisor to the Royal line. A dictatorship, miltarised and fascistic, so that he doesn't have to endure anything other than abased compliance to his whims. keep to the Fen Causeway
