Cheney – The Stormtrooper Tour

What a cheery welcome Dick Cheney’s been getting on his vice-imperial progress around the antipodes.

WSW has a report about Cheny’s visit you won’t see in the US media – how Sydney, a city in a friendly sovereign nation and the US’ military ally, was overwhelmed and locked down by US security operatives and .au government goons in full-on, strap-on, gung-ho, military paraphernalia :

[…]

Several blocks around Cheney’s hotel are being been shut for the four days, and city streets are being closed whenever Cheney’s convoy passes through, causing traffic chaos. Police and traffic authorities have urged motorists to stay out of the Sydney CBD, warning that “significant delays” will be caused by Cheney’s itinerary, which is being kept a tight secret.

For three days and nights before Cheney arrived, army Black Hawk helicopters buzzed the Sydney CBD, ostensibly for counter-terrorism training. Several residents contacted newspapers to complain of unbearable noise. One reader told the Sydney Morning Herald: “We are … being buzzed by huge noisy helicopters flying probably only about 20 storeys up. [Five] times in an hour—we can’t hear TV, we can’t talk on the phone.”

Last night, the airspace over Sydney was closed for US Air Force Two to land, and sections of the airport were virtually “locked down”. No members of the public were permitted to enter the vicinity. Dozens of police, security officers and snipers were on the tarmac, as well as inside and outside the airport. A grey Air Force plane arrived first, carrying Cheney’s cavalcade of bulletproof black limousines and an armoured van, while at least three state police helicopters hovered above.

Cue the Palpatine theme…. dum dum DUM, dum-da-dum, dum-DA-dum…

After perfunctory greetings by a handful of politicians, Cheney was swiftly taken away in his armour-plated limousine. As his 32-vehicle convoy—1.5 kilometres long—swept through the city to the Shangri-la Hotel on Sydney Harbour, traffic lights were turned red for all other vehicles, causing major disruptions.

This is the largest security operation in Australia since parts of Canberra, the capital, were shut down for US President George Bush’s one-day visit in October 2003. On that occasion, military planes and helicopters hovered overhead, the army’s elite SAS units were on standby and Bush’s secret service personnel were given unprecedented permission to carry weapons in the parliamentary precinct.

On the eve of Cheney’s arrival, the media reported that his security detachment had also been secretly granted special permission to carry guns. According to one Murdoch media report, there had been a threat to cancel the stay unless the NSW Labor government acceded to the federal government’s request to change the state’s Firearms Regulations to permit the security detail to carry sidearms.

NSW Police Minister John Watkins agreed to amend the regulations to allow possession and use of firearms “for personal protection or for the protection of another person” if the NSW Police Commissioner were satisfied that the circumstances warranted it. Defending the decision, Watkins said the federal government had “made very clear that this was critically important to the visit by the Vice President”.

[..]
[My emphasis]

How nice, they changed the law just for him too. Cheney was so touched by this warm welcome down under that he gave his hosts the ultimate gift – the refusal to refuse to rule out any options, even nuclear strikes, against those icky nasty Iranians. Really, the ultimate houseguest.