The report that American Vice-President (simply 'Vice' to his boss and the inner circle of the administration) Dick Cheney has accidentally shot a fellow quail hunter last weekend is not too surprising. The world — the US and Iraq in particular — have been bearing the consequences of Vice's poor aim. In 2002, by every account, the primary target for the US was al-Qaeda — down but not out, and hiding in the badlands of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
But Vice bullied, harried and harangued the administration to take aim at Iraq instead, a country with no known connection to the gang that carried out the attack on the US on 9/11. Reports were doctored, the CIA and other naysayers within government silenced, and allies dispensed with, all because Vice and his crew of neocon hunters wanted a Saddam shoot. The result, of course, is a tragedy of monumental proportions that has, on last count, taken the lives of over 2,500 soldiers and maimed many more.
We worry a lot about Vice, because it now seems that he is taking aim at Iran. On the other hand, we can't let him work out his frustrations on the poor quails of America, or fellow members of the hunting fraternity. Fortunately, we can report that the fellow hunter, a 78-year-old man, was not hurt too seriously and is recovering in a Texas hospital — or at least that's what the American newspapers are telling us right now. Wish we could say the same about Iraq.