So what exactly is Dick Cheney up to?

While the words of Dick Cheney are jamming the airways like a Clear Channel property, they provide very little insight into the man's dark psyche. Cheney is taking a serious chance defending torture as a welcomed addition to the U.S. defense toolbox. He proudly admits his involvement in deploying a torture "program" throughout our military, as well as the CIA and its contractors. Why would he leave himself open to prosecution like that?

The most obvious reason given by the media is his belief that he'll never face trial for his deeds. Thus far, the Obama administration doesn't appear to be contradicting this. A corrolary belief is that if he is brought to trial at some point, he'll be vindicated because any jury in the land would surely understand that torture is the only thing that stands between us and total capitulation to our enemies.

I've been mulling over two other possibilities. Both are based on what we've come to learn about torture: it can strenthen the resolve of its subjects to go on fighting. If Cheney can sucessfully bully the Obama administration into continuing the torture program, the U.S. could remain at war indefinitely. Yummmm.

With this in mind, the first possibility is that Cheney fancies himself a Horseman of the Apocalypse, specifically the Red one:

"And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." (Revelations 6:4)

As such, Cheney fancies his "great sword" hastening the "End of Days," when his messiah can make an appearance, save believers and exercise terrible judgements on non-believers. With what we now know about Bush's military intelligence reports reaching his desk with scriptural quotes on their covers (see one post below), this delusion is not altogether impossible.

A more this-worldly alternative is that Cheney's current waxings are consistent with the long-term, right-wing Norquistian goal to "starve the beast." The longer we're at war, the more depleated the U.S. treasury, the sooner the Federal government can be forever "drowned in a bathtub." As an added bonus, depletion of the treasury would likely be accompanied by corresponding enrichment of Cheney's master, Halliburton (and likely Cheney himself).

It would seem that the Bush administration did its best to bankrupt this country during its tenure, but it needed a little more time. By pushing the Obama administration toward increasingly bellicose "security" measures, Cheney's rantings could help provide it.

I believe that, like Wall Street, Dick Cheney operates on the twin emotions of greed and fear. The fear side seems to be getting a lot of press lately. What about prying open this guy's head and examining the greed? Or would that hit his observers too close to home?