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I'm sure there are plenty of intelligent, power-hungry people working for our government in either a martial or administrative capacity. Dick Cheney is an examp

I'm sure there are plenty of intelligent, power-hungry people working for our government in either a martial or administrative capacity. Dick Cheney is an example of such a person.

TriinT 17y ago
Your certainty that there are intelligent people working for the U.S. government stems from 1st hand experience, or does it stem from wishful thinking? I thought Cheney was no longer in the government. And if he's so smart, why didn't he anticipate the Iraq quagmire? Maybe he desired one?
- erlanger 17y ago
  You can be very smart and still be incorrect at times. Blunders happen.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    It's relatively easy to measure how smart a mathematician is. How do you measure how smart a politician is? Then there's another problem: in certain organizations, it does not matter if you're very smart because you can't act on it. There's no better career suicide than making your superior look dumb in the corporate world. Your co-workers may feel threatened and conspire against you. In government, you can't do certain things because the powerful interest groups or public opinion just won't let you. Hence, I ask again: how do you measure the performance or the smarts of a politician? BTW, Cheney himself said in the early 1990s that going to Baghdad in 1991 would have resulted in a Vietnam-like quagmire. How ironic.
- DTrejo 17y ago
  >And if he's so smart, why didn't he anticipate the Iraq quagmire? Maybe he desired one? He desired and planned one.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    That makes sense. A quagmire would provide the U.S. Military an excuse to stay in Iraq for years and control the Middle East's oil fields. With NATO in Afghanistan and closer ties with the former Soviet republics in Eurasia, the U.S. could deny China land access to energy resources. The icing on the cake would be a major war against Iran. That would allow the U.S. to effectively control the world's energy resources.
    - DTrejo 17y ago
      Cheney and Bush have strong ties to many of the corporations making money in Iraq as a result of the conflict.

I'm sure there are plenty of intelligent, power-hungry people working for our government in either a martial or administrative capacity. Dick Cheney is an example of such a person.

TriinT 17y ago

Your certainty that there are intelligent people working for the U.S. government stems from 1st hand experience, or does it stem from wishful thinking? I thought Cheney was no longer in the government. And if he's so smart, why didn't he anticipate the Iraq quagmire? Maybe he desired one?

erlanger 17y ago
You can be very smart and still be incorrect at times. Blunders happen.
- TriinT 17y ago
  It's relatively easy to measure how smart a mathematician is. How do you measure how smart a politician is? Then there's another problem: in certain organizations, it does not matter if you're very smart because you can't act on it. There's no better career suicide than making your superior look dumb in the corporate world. Your co-workers may feel threatened and conspire against you. In government, you can't do certain things because the powerful interest groups or public opinion just won't let you. Hence, I ask again: how do you measure the performance or the smarts of a politician? BTW, Cheney himself said in the early 1990s that going to Baghdad in 1991 would have resulted in a Vietnam-like quagmire. How ironic.
DTrejo 17y ago
>And if he's so smart, why didn't he anticipate the Iraq quagmire? Maybe he desired one? He desired and planned one.
- TriinT 17y ago
  That makes sense. A quagmire would provide the U.S. Military an excuse to stay in Iraq for years and control the Middle East's oil fields. With NATO in Afghanistan and closer ties with the former Soviet republics in Eurasia, the U.S. could deny China land access to energy resources. The icing on the cake would be a major war against Iran. That would allow the U.S. to effectively control the world's energy resources.
  - DTrejo 17y ago
    Cheney and Bush have strong ties to many of the corporations making money in Iraq as a result of the conflict.