Dick Cheney, Powerful Former VP, Dies at 84 128
Dick Cheney, who served four Republican presidents and became one of the most powerful and controversial vice presidents in American history as an architect of the post-9/11 war on terror, died at 84. His family said he died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
Cheney served as vice president under George W. Bush for two terms beginning in 2001 and relentlessly advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many Americans came to view the war as a strategic and humanitarian disaster. The conflict had far-reaching policy and political consequences that helped turn the public against intervention and upheaved Republican politics. Cheney continued to defend the invasion long after leaving office in 2009.
He had heart disease for most of his life and underwent a transplant in 2012. That allowed him to live to see his daughter Liz Cheney follow in his political footsteps to become a House GOP leader. Before serving as vice president, Cheney was defense secretary under George H.W. Bush and chief of staff to Gerald Ford at age 34.
Cheney served as vice president under George W. Bush for two terms beginning in 2001 and relentlessly advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many Americans came to view the war as a strategic and humanitarian disaster. The conflict had far-reaching policy and political consequences that helped turn the public against intervention and upheaved Republican politics. Cheney continued to defend the invasion long after leaving office in 2009.
He had heart disease for most of his life and underwent a transplant in 2012. That allowed him to live to see his daughter Liz Cheney follow in his political footsteps to become a House GOP leader. Before serving as vice president, Cheney was defense secretary under George H.W. Bush and chief of staff to Gerald Ford at age 34.
Hellfire (Score:3)
His infernal engine ran out of hellfire.
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Re:Hellfire (Score:5, Informative)
The infernal engine is a Baldurs Gate 3 reference, a far cry from religion.
Cheney was a murderous bastard who pushed for the Iraq War and made bank off of it. Up to a million people died in a pointless war based on lies. Whether one believes in hell or not, Cheney lived a life deserving of it.
Re:Hellfire (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot to mention that he destabilized the Middle East and the resulting power vacuum basically sucked Iran into much more influence than is doing any good.
However it seems that Cheney developed certain regrets before he died. The modern fake Republican Party is largely Dick Cheney's creation and he sort of seemed to regret the YOB he helped put in the White House. Then again, Mitch McConnell deserves more discredit and even seems to have bigger regrets. When he's conscious at all.
But I was actually expecting some kind of "heartless" joke. Ah, I found the attempts on searching the comments, but none of them are yet modded Funny.
Re: Hellfire (Score:2)
Believers are made when God answers prayers.
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Sounds even dumber than when William Lane Craig said it first.
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Who's "they"?
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Cheney was in charge below before he decided on a walk-about up here. Having spread chaos and evil for a bit he is returning to his day job as lord of hell.
He will be greeted as a liberator. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He will be greeted as a liberator. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure they're preparing rose petals and rice water to receive him. /s
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I'm sure they're preparing rose petals and rice water to receive him. /s
Do not besmirch horchata by somehow associating it with Dick Cheney!
Re:He will be greeted as a liberator. (Score:5, Informative)
You may not remember, Those bastards claimed that US troops would be greeted in Iraq by citizens sprinkling rose petals and rice water in their path, a traditional way of celebrating pageants in the Middle East. Instead they were greeted by technicals and IEDs.
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You may not remember, Those bastards claimed that US troops would be greeted in Iraq by citizens sprinkling rose petals and rice water in their path, a traditional way of celebrating pageants in the Middle East. Instead they were greeted by technicals and IEDs.
To be fair, I blocked out a *LOT* of the bullshit spew during that era, since the entire administration seemed hellbent on riding their bad intentions to the worst possible outcomes. I only have so much capacity for political dribble, and these days that capacity is eternally overflowed.
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Jeesh if you blocked out that era, you must have gone completely off grid since about 2016. ;-)
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Jeesh if you blocked out that era, you must have gone completely off grid since about 2016. ;-)
I wish I could.
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Ah to be so innocent when that was the level of political BS we had to deal with. We thought it couldn't in any possible way get any worse. Or that people would take it as a challenge to make things worse.
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Ah to be so innocent when that was the level of political BS we had to deal with. We thought it couldn't in any possible way get any worse. Or that people would take it as a challenge to make things worse.
Dick Cheney crawled so the current crop can soar. In bad animated form. While pretending to dump feces on protestors.
My dorg, what have we wrought?
Re: He will be greeted as a liberator. (Score:2)
And yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Even after a heart transplant, he was still heartless.
Good News! (Score:1)
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Unlikely, dude is the consummate political player. He'll be running the place as Special Consult to the Office of the Fallen One (SPECOFO) by Friday having sent off Saddam, Pol Pot, Osama, Hitler, Dave from Wendy's and John Denver to the mines.
Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead (Score:3, Interesting)
And there were celebrations and festivities throughout the world . . .
Haven't been this happy over a death since Pol Pot. I'll pour out a glass tonight in memory of the millions of innocent people whose deaths he caused.
A corrupt and controversial politician. (Score:5, Interesting)
And it likely had a strong influence on his planning the action to take Iraq...
(Not that I feel sorry for Saddam)
Re:A corrupt and controversial politician. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A corrupt and controversial politician. (Score:5, Informative)
Before that he was an asbestos salesman.
Now now, he didn’t really sell asbestos, he simply headed a corporation that mass produced it while covering up the health risks and peppered the public with constant lies.
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Perhaps you should put your dusty old login back into storage.
"asbestos salesman" is functionally equivalent to "heading a corporation that bought and owned a subsidiary that mass produced and sold products that had asbestos".
He could have divested that part of the company Halliburton bought from their portfolio. They did not. Ergo, he was an asbestos salesman.
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Just before the 2000 election France was going to indict him for $180,000,000 in bribes that Halliburton had paid to government figures in Nigeria during his time as CEO. Of course after the (s)election that case quietly was dropped. Either he approved the bribes, or he was a remarkably incompetent CEO, take your pick.
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**Sigh** Reading comprehension and clear writing seem to be lost arts.
Re: A corrupt and controversial politician. (Score:2)
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I just question whether Darth ever had any "friends", he was far more like Rump, surrounded by lackeys and brown nosers all looking for an advantage.
Re:A corrupt and controversial politician. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, under Cheney they bought one of Halliburton's main competitors, Dresser Industries, whose stock had tanked as it was looking at huge asbestos liability. Cheney spun off the asbestos liabilities into a subsidiary of Dresser and then sold it off, apparently assuming that it would be allowed to go bankrupt and take the claims with it (an old and now frowned-upon tactic from the chemical companies to avoid paying court decisions). Cheney resigned to become VP, but before he could do anything about the asbestos claims a court decided that Halliburton was at least partly liable. The company's stock took a hit, but not nearly as large as if they had kept Dresser intact, and the taxpayers ended up responsible for most of the asbestos payouts.
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and peppered the public with constant lies.
That skill proved useful in his later career.
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Do you think when G.W. joins him Cheney will shove his hand up Georgie boys ass again and puppet him around for old times sake?
Miss the old JibJab political cartoons (Score:3)
Enter, win, get out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dick was the one with no sense. What should have been done with the Middle East was to go in, break the back of the Taliban, have a victory celebration, and leave. Iraq should have never been touched, except for a retaliatory strike if they did attack.
It was predicted by every Middle East expert that toppling Saddam would create a power vacuum, filled by the most brutal and violent tyrants imaginable. Well, we got ISIS, and that definitely met those "requirements", and it took a global military push in many theaters to get ISIS off the world's stage as a core player.
He might have won some contracts, but overall, cost US businesses trillions, as countries started cozying up to China.
Re:Enter, win, get out... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never been clear why it was so necessary to "break the back of the Taliban", they never attacked the US or any other allied country except Pakistan. The offered to hand over Binladdin THREE TIMES, even though he was a hero of their fight against the USSR, if the US could just provide them with a modicum of evidence of his involvement in the 9-11 attacks. Since they had none Shrub just insisted, "We don't need no evidence, just hand him over because I say so!"
After two decades and over a $1,000,000,000,000 and hundreds of US lives and tens of thousands of Afghan lives the Taliban was greeted back as rescuers. You know you've done something wrong when people prefer the frelling Taliban to rule rather than your government. As someone on the old Never Give UP forums said, "Which would you prefer? That your son has to go to a madrassa and your daughter has to wear a burka, or that your son can be forced into being a child soldier and your daughter can be kidnapped, raped and probably killed by the local warlord's people?"
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Afghanistan was always a pretence for the invasion of Iraq. There never was any real plan for Afghanistan. And the only plan for Iraq was to decapitate and destroy the ruling regime, and loot certain records. Oh, and it cost a lot more in lives and money.
The question is why so fixated on Iraq in the first place? I think the answer is simply that Israel wanted it done. USA always seems to be wagged on that one.
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The question is why so fixated on Iraq in the first place? I think the answer is simply that Israel wanted it done. USA always seems to be wagged on that one.
My understanding has always been Bush wanted revenge for Saddam's attempt to kill his daddy.
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My understanding has always been Bush wanted revenge for Saddam's attempt to kill his daddy.
"After all this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."
https://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPO... [cnn.com]
Re: Enter, win, get out... (Score:2)
Taking out the Taliban is no simple task. The entire 20 year war had to essentially run through Pakistan with Pakistan's approval.
Take out a map and the difficulty becomes pretty clear. U.S. has no presence in the area to operate logistics from. Add to that the terrain making it impossible to use planes effectively and the altitude being too high for most helicopters and the caves and the guerilla nature of the warfare, taking out the Taliban would be next to impossible.
Especially given the Taliban had supp
Evil doesn't die (Score:2)
Re: Evil doesn't die (Score:2)
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Indeed, it does. And good men continue to do nothing or far too little.
Still, I have got a toast to make.
I just got up (Score:5, Funny)
Weird obsession with Iraq (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Canadian who was working in the US at the time, I can say that this period (2001 to ~2004) was just "weird". In particular, the pivot from a focus on Afghanistan to a sudden focus on Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan made sense simply because Al Qaeda was known to be operating out of there and was being supported by the Taliban. There was broad international support for this.
The sudden push to invade Iraq came out of left field and didn't make any sense to me. Almost all of the 9/11 hijackers were actually Saudi Arabian. The Iraqi regime, while certainly evil, was contained and the no-fly zones over the north and south of the country were keeping the minority groups safe. And the presentation that the US did at the UN to provide evidence that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" was unconvincing. I had previously respected Colin Powell, but after that presentation I really lost respect for him. So there was no UN support. The US went ahead with the invasion, but lost a lot of credibility in the process.
Yes, there was oil involved, and Cheney had ties to the oil industry. That's certainly part of it. But I've never been 100% satisfied that this was the only reason for the invasion. I heard a more nuanced theory, that the US was dealing with terrorist organizations who could cross borders with impunity, and trying to fight them from country to country would be almost impossible, so they needed a way to convince the countries of the middle east not to let these organizations operate in their countries. The solution: a show of strength in Iraq... "this is what we could do to you if you give us a reason."
I still think the 2nd Iraq war was a terrible decision because it was the beginning of the end of the rules-based world order, which is something the US created for its own benefit, and benefited the most from, even if it was costly to support. And Cheney was an undeniable hawk when it came to Iraq. He wanted the invasion, and was looking for any excuse. His legacy will always be overshadowed by that reality.
Re:Weird obsession with Iraq (Score:4, Informative)
Iraq was revenge by Bush II over this https://www.cia.gov/readingroo... [cia.gov]
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Ah, yes, confessions extracted under torture are always true . . .
Re: Weird obsession with Iraq (Score:2)
America has long used distractions of creating new external problems instead of solving our internal problems.
Politicians in general are experts at patting themselves on the back for "solving" problems they created in the first place.
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I think the real answer is enough leadership recognized that controlling Afghanistan would likely be impossible.
Nationalist pride prevented any kind of public admission that the lessons of history also apply to the USA however. I think there was a real and sincere desire thought to get OBL and related terrorist leadership. That was a problem because it would mean they'd likely be able to dodge around mountain regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan (a nominally ally) indefinitely.
The 'solution' was then to tr
Re:Weird obsession with Iraq (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it was likely Karl Rove, and not Dick Cheney, who was the source of the 'anonymous' quote that "every so often you have to throw one of these crappy little countries up against a wall to intimidate all the others", but I'm sure that stated Cheney's thoughts as well.
I agree with all your comments, but would stress that the REALLY bad thing about the Iraq war was not the strategy, but the open, transparent, obvious lies. I mean, when the WHOLE WORLD rolls its eyes at your story, at the UN, when nobody is convinced, and you go forward ANYWAY, you're basing your whole national stance on lies.
"We can lie and get away with it because we are too powerful to hold to account", was the underlying power of Cheney. That same conversation with the "crappy little nations" comment had the even more quoted line: "We're an empire now, and we create our own reality".
To perhaps belabour the obvious, I'm talking about Trump, and how Cheney and Bush showed the way for Trump to just really go for it, and blatantly make America an Empire based on any lies he feels like, the more-preposterous the better, to rub our noses in it.
Re:Weird obsession with Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
you're basing your whole national stance on lies.
Oh man I wish we were back in the days where this only meaningfully affected a small part of the middle east and a bit of world credibility. It's like the USA Republicans decided the process of basing everything on lies was their most successful strategy ever and put it right at the top of the party manifesto.
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I had always read that it was because Saddam was beginning to trade in something besides the petro-dollar and was apparently gaining some success.
This freaked out the administration, and both Ds & Rs decided he needed to be eliminated. But they needed a flimsy excuse.
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Yes, there was oil involved, and Cheney had ties to the oil industry. That's certainly part of it. But I've never been 100% satisfied that this was the only reason for the invasion. I heard a more nuanced theory, that the US was dealing with terrorist organizations who could cross borders with impunity, and trying to fight them from country to country would be almost impossible, so they needed a way to convince the countries of the middle east not to let these organizations operate in their countries. The solution: a show of strength in Iraq... "this is what we could do to you if you give us a reason."
I still think the 2nd Iraq war was a terrible decision because it was the beginning of the end of the rules-based world order, which is something the US created for its own benefit, and benefited the most from, even if it was costly to support. And Cheney was an undeniable hawk when it came to Iraq. He wanted the invasion, and was looking for any excuse. His legacy will always be overshadowed by that reality.
I agree it was a terrible terrible decision, I hated it at the time and I believe it's been responsible for millions of deaths, but I think the motive wasn't as bad as you suspect.
Basically, the Middle East outside of Israel was a bunch of dictatorships, some theocratic, some military, and many awkwardly allied to the US, but none of the Arab nations had a functioning liberal Democracy.
The neocons believed that they could go in, overthrow the dictator, and a functioning Democracy would pop up in it's place
Re:Weird obsession with Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
ISIS is a direct result of a destabilized Iraq.
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ISIS is just Al-Qaeda remnants and offshoots with more pragmatic / regionally focused leadership. Al-Qaeda for its part still exists as well and is still quite active, still quite a threat in places like Mali even now.
Sooner or later their would have been some kinda of coup against OBL's leadership or he would have evolved toward a more ISIS like agenda to keep the movement alive.
Our post 9/11 policy certainly changed the names in the terrorist recruitment videos and likely moved the hotspots from where th
Medical Marvel (Score:3)
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It's amazing what having a government health care plan does for you.
Now only if everyone had that available to them - a policy vehemently opposed by Dick Cheney.
Daughter (Score:3)
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If you're honest, she deserves condemnation from most of the political spheres out there.
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Dick, and Bush II, hated that damned buffoon Trump. I always thought his daughter was supporting him, not the other way around.
Re:Daughter (Score:4, Insightful)
Liz Cheney had a deep believe in what she was doing, investigating the January 6 riots. She deeply believed that Trump was a scourge on the Republican party and on America. It was not something she did just to please Dad. She sacrificed everything for her beliefs. I respect that in a politician. It's rare indeed.
Now moving on... (Score:2)
Now moving on, to a career as Walmart greeter...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Not sure if its moving on up on moving on down...or just stuck between worlds...???
--JoshK.
A-12 Avenger II (Score:2)
I did not attend the funeral (Score:5, Funny)
but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
Blessed life Indeed (Score:1)
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I think he died in great sorrow and sadness, because the GOP he took to great heights is now in the hands of a guy who will probably have Cheney's daughter killed if he can get away with it. No family in the GOP is as utterly disempowered and cancelled as the Cheney family; Liz couldn't get elected dogcatcher in Wyoming now or in 20 years.
Alas, the ICC didn't exist (Score:1)
...when he committed his war-crimes.
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wouldn't have mattered if they did.
The USA doesn't recognize the ICC's jurisdiction with regards to US citizens.
Assumed he was already dead (Score:2)
What must have been over a decade ago remember watching him on TV with his battery powered heart. There were two batteries running the thing and he did some kind of weird show and tell on air. From what I remember disconnecting one of them eliciting beeps or flashing lights I don't remember exactly. I do distinctly remember thinking to myself too bad he didn't pull the other one too.
Did he die of (Score:2)
He was one of the few ... (Score:2)
Dick Cheney was one of the few people I was actually looking forward to their death. Sadly that list has gotten longer in the last decade rather than shorter.
I'm not cheering like I did when Scalia died, but I'm going to raise a glass later and toast "Good riddance, Mr.Cheney, may the Yama give you everything you deserve."
Dick Cheney, Powerful Former VP, Dies at 84 (Score:2)
henry kissinger is getting company
Cheney and Kissinger (Score:2)
are finally room buddies!
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When a person embodies pretty much everything evil of our modern culture celebrating their removal from our population is only rational. Or did you refuse to speak badly when Pol Pot died as well?
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And, if you'd like to expand on the 'political leanings' thing; I'd be more than happy to call anyone whose politics involve thinking that Cheney did a great job
Re:The level of irony. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd make a poll about the political leaning of each of those people but I don't think we need to.
Are you sure? Plenty of conservatives disapprove of Cheney. He and his buddies involved the US in an unnecessary war that cost a trillion dollars, compromised the credibility and independence of US intelligence, harmed US relations with important allies, motivated nations like Russia and China to step up their ability to oppose western interests, and emboldened nations like Iran which to this day continues to promote instability and terrorism in the middle east. And he did all this knowing of these likely consequences.
Not good at all for conservative ideals.
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But a good example of the incompetence of the United States Yale/Harvard ruling elite and its lack of accountability for repeated failure.
If you say so. Cheney did attend Yale for a bit, it didn't seem to agree with him, he ended up getting his degrees from a public school in a very rural state.
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What's your point? That he wasn't a member of the United States ruling elite? That is ludicrous.
Yes that's ludicrous which is why I didn't say anything like that.
My point was that the notion that Cheney is
a good example of the incompetence of the United States Yale/Harvard ruling elite
is misapplied since he's a dude from Wyoming (via the midwest) and a product of public school. In fact the whole GW Bush administration was rather renowned for its disdain for "elite" education ("C students, you too can be president.") This continues in the GOP today and contributes to a fair amount of the makeup of the GOP House. Not to mention the current President (though he's a different kind
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Good or bad (mostly bad) our leaders have come from Harvard or Yale for the last 50 years. There have been 2 people appointed to the Supreme Court in that time who didn't attend either Yale or Harvard law school.
That's interesting data but I don't see what it proves if nearly all your samples come from the same pot. Show an interesting correlation (and beware of the law of small numbers). Are you saying that Rehnquist, O'Connor, Stevens, and Barrett (more than two!) were Good supreme court justices and the others were Bad? Show a plausible mechanism. What is it about Stanford and Northwestern that makes justices Good when the east coast schools make them Bad? Would a law degree from Columbia, or Cornell satisf
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My point is that the country's elite is very narrowly drawn from a small community of people
That's what I'm hearing. Something like "Lots of justices came from bucket A, I don't like the justices, therefore being from bucket A must be the cause of bad justices. Getting people from any other bucket B or C would make the court better." But I'm not hearing a convincing argument to back that up. You're not saying that the B and C justices are better. You're not saying why they should be expected to be better.
They're mostly right-handed too, aren't they? Would society be improved if we picked lef
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Most Americans will condemn something, then vote for it again in the next election cycle. The Republican party did not shift away from Cheney, it went full bore into it.
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Plenty of conservatives disapprove of Cheney
Correction: Plenty of Trump-followers disapprove of Cheney. Trump, nor his followers, are conservative. They believe in one thing: whatever Trump says. Conservativism has nothing to do with it.
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Watching people here celebrate the death of someone, whilst calling them "heartless" and "evil" is another level of irony.
If I am to be labelled heartless for my complete hate of Dick Cheney then it will have been a worthy sacrifice for my heart. I can not think of anyone more deserving of being labelled heartless for. He is but one man to hate. One man that has ruined the lives of millions.
I mean even Hitler had upsides: Hitler killed Hitler. That was an objectively good piece of work he did. I can't however think of a single positive thing about Warlord Cheney. It's good that he's dead, it's bad that it has taken so long to