Cheney shooting case: How utterly predictable

Classic example of an imbalanced world where money buys impunity

Photo: Cheney shooting case: How utterly predictable

So what does Richard (better known as Dick) Cheney do when he isn’t sending his legions across the borders of sovereign nations against international law to commit acts of torture, rape, sodomy and mass murder? He shoots birds...and to spice up the weekend, peppers his friends with buckshot.

But how utterly predictable. Predicatable that Richard Cheney should spend his free time shooting. Predictable that in the event what he shoots in perhaps the most defenceless animal on God’s Earth – the bird. Predictable that the bird he chooses is perhaps the most defenceless feathered creature of all – the quaint little quail which not even a peck can offer in self defence. Predictable that the shooting incident was confirmed only after a day’s silence and after the local press got hold of it and predictable that Cheney did not have his documentation in order.

We have seen this before. We remember the UN teams scouring Iraq and finding nothing, while Cheney and his regime were declaring that not only did Saddam Hussein have Weapons of Mass Destruction, they also knew where they were (failing to tell the UNMOVIC teams the location).

We remember the forged documents linking Baghdad to yellowcake uranium from Mali – so documentation and Dick do not exactly go hand in hand.

Yet these questions are not the core issue, neither is the fact that this man’s heart pumps on bloodlust, neither is the unfortunate and accidental shooting incident. The core issue here, and the irony, which proves how imbalanced and uncivilised our world has become, is that Richard Cheney can be facing a minor embarrassment when shooting quail (and his friends) – which pales into insignificance when one examines his track recird.

Here is a man who is Vice-President, number two of a regime which has committed acts of wanton slaughter, which has broken the Geneva Conventions, which has broken the UN Charter, whose troops have murdered tens of thousands of civilians in an illegal war, have committed rape, have committed acts of torture, have committed sodomy on defenceless prisoners.

And what happens? Nothing. Not even a slap on the wrist for not being licensed to slaughter quails on one of his bloodthirsty weekends.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY