barbarically clueless than Cheney-Bush
Bush yes, but he was only ever a cipher. Cheney is as coolly analytical as Putin, but motivated by greed. I'm not sure what motivates Putin, but it's not greed.
Where Cheney went wrong was in thinking that military might is all you need.
Cheney rolled the dice, and he lost. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
