Dick Cheney is neither stupid nor naive.  I can say a lot of things about the man, but neither of those really apply.  However the rhetoric he is spouting about freedom while perusing the Middle East might lead one to that conclusion.

“You and I know what it means to be free…”

That is one of the most laughable things I think I have ever heard the man say.  Americans have no idea what freedom is.  If you think it is having an alternative between Coke and Pepsi or McDonalds and Burger King, you would be wrong.  Freedom was having the choice of dozens of smaller locally owned businesses to choose from that Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds, and Burger King forced out of business in a war of corporate consumerism. America rolled over, because giving up freedom to choose was supposed to be the cool thing to do.  Too much individualism would lead us down the dark and murky path to anarchy.  Bullshit!  Too many choices meant we were free to choose something other than the establishment.

We keep telling the troops that we are fighting to give the Iraqi and Afghan peoples freedom, but that is the last thing we want them to have.  Do you know what happens when they have true freedom?  They inevitably make choices that are not in our best interests.  The Palestinians had the freedom to vote and what did they do?  They chose Hamas.  What is needed right now in Iraq and Afghanistan is not freedom, it is security.

“We’re helping them fight back because it’s the right thing to do and because it’s important to our own long-term security,” Cheney said. “As President Bush has said, the war on terror is an ideological struggle and as long as this part of the world remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.”

If these people wanted freedom, they would need us to fight back for them.  When The World Trade Center was attack, we were told this was a financial attack on America.  Oh how right they were.  What has been the cost of it so far?  I am not talking just about the deficit spending by the government either.  How has the rise of prices and down turn in other areas affected your ability to function?  How will the war affect your children’s economic well being?  We were told this war would pay for itself?  Will it fix the economy of the dead and dismembered?

Dick tells the troops we are doing this because it is the right thing to do.  I scratch my head at this notion.  These were people who didn’t yet want freedom, they weren’t willing to give up everything in the name of it.  Janice Joplin got it right when she sang “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose…” When the pain of change is less than the pain of death for you and your family, then you are ready for freedom.  Neither the Iraqi nor the the Afghani people were ready for that yet.  What we did was give them anarchy in the name of our own national vanity.

Dick wants you to believe that their lack of freedom was a threat to our nation’s interest, he also thought that helping corporate giants squash middle class mom and pop businesses was good for your freedom.  It is time to think for yourself and not be a Dick!