Cheney, Four Sad Years Later

[Bob T]

* CHENEY, FOUR SAD YEARS LATER

Sun Jan 9, 2005

Dear Thirsters:

I regard Mr. Dick Cheney as intelligent and able, in a TACTICAL sense. He is much smarter than Mr. Bush, and I believe the press reports that he is, in most respects, the real power behind the throne.

I also regard Mr. Cheney as being terribly misguided in a STRATEGIC sense. Strategic decisions must be guided, to a considerable extent, by moral values, and his “moral values” are not my moral values. He is, in my view, in some ways downright evil.

On January 20, I will be in an airplane returning from Costa Rica in time to be at our Stammtisch that evening. I will thus be spared the ordeal of watching on TV as this man is sworn in for an additional four years -- an occasion, in my view, for national mourning, not celebration.

I will be recalling the morning of January 20, 2001, when I watched Mr. Cheney’s first inaugural. As it happened, at the precise moment I turned on my TV, Mr. Cheney was being sworn in. Then I opened my morning Oregonian, there to discover my Op Ed on this gentleman. I reprint it below, as submitted to that journal (which made minor changes).

Happy Inauguration Day, everyone!

Best,

Bob

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DICK CHENEY'S UNACCEPTABLE ETHICS

Dick Cheney is emerging as the virtual Prime Minister of our country. He will be one of the key foreign policy advisors to President Bush, who assumes office with virtually no foreign policy background.

Will the advice Cheney gives to Bush be good advice? Ethical advice? Or will Cheney advance an agenda that allows American corporations to make handsome profits overseas in countries whose dictatorships FORCE their citizens into UNPAID labor?

The answer is predictable. Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton Inc., has already enriched himself in just this fashion. After just five years of service with Halliburton, Cheney is about to receive a multi-million dollar separation allowance, part of which will be traceable to Halliburton's very profitable oil equipment operations in Burma.

According to data supplied by the ruling Burmese military junta itself, on any given day that regime forces some 800,000 Burmese citizens to do unpaid labor. This regime has been repeatedly condemned by the UN General Assembly, the International Labor Organization, the European Community, the AFL-CIO, Amnesty International, and the US government.

We Americans settled the issue of whether it is legally and ethically acceptable for businesses to profit from forced unpaid labor here at home 135 years ago, at the cost of 620,000 American lives. What remains unsettled to this day, however, is whether it is ethical for American companies to take advantage of forced unpaid labor OVERSEAS. Cheney says Yes. I believe this makes him a clear and present danger to world peace.

The devious involvement of Halliburton and Cheney in Burma is carefully documented in the October 27, 2000 edition of the Wall Street Journal:

"Halliburton's Burma connection is a potentially embarrassing episode for Mr. Cheney….Since 1988, when the Burmese army killed thousands of pro-democracy protesters to stay in power, the country's military junta has been widely condemned as one of the world's most brutal violators of human rights. The U.S., which withdrew its ambassador and suspended aid to Burma a decade ago, banned new US investment in the country in 1997 and has led international efforts to isolate the regime."

The article then refers to the notorious Yadana pipeline: "The Western companies that in partnership with the country's military rulers sponsored the pipeline and hired contractors like the Halliburton venture already knew the project was benefiting from forced Burmese labor and 'numerous acts of violence' by Burmese military, according to recent findings by a US federal judge in Los Angeles."

Halliburton's involvement in Burma is clearly contrary to the spirit of existing US policy. This policy, pursuant to Public Law 104-208 and other statutes, was promulgated by President Clinton on May 20, 1997, in Executive Order 13047, which banned all new American investment in Burma. Because Halliburton began its investment in Burma prior to that date, it enjoys exemption from this order. Otherwise, Halliburton's investment there would be illegal.

It is instructive to contrast Halliburton with the numerous American corporations that could have qualified for the same exemption, but instead chose to cease business involvement in Burma on their own initiative, without even waiting for the Clinton Administration to act. These companies include Texaco, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, PepsiCo, and Portland's own Columbia Sportswear.

More recently, even conservative Republican senators like Jesse Helms and Mitch McConnell, noting the steadily deteriorating civil rights situation in Burma, have been pressing for a policy that would go beyond banning investment, and ban all imports of any kind from Burma.

But far more relevant than any American voice is that of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, "the Nelson Mandela the free Burma movement," who has continually called for all foreign companies to stay out of Burma until democracy and rule of law are restored.

I call upon Mr. Cheney to:

1. publicly acknowledge his ethical error;

2. contribute that portion of his separation allowance attributable to Halliburton's activities in Burma, to an organization such as the International Red Cross;

3. urge his company to withdraw completely from Burma; and

4. support rather than obstruct the spirit of the existing bipartisan US policy of promoting democracy and human rights in Burma.

Absent some such form of redemption, in my opinion Mr. Cheney will never qualify ethically to be our Vice President.