September 14, 2007 (LPAC)--Speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan Sept. 14, Vice President Dick Cheney undercut those Democratic leaders who continue to block his impeachment on the grounds that he will be out of office in a year and a half. He reiterated the policy of a permanent war, limitless in Iraq and spreading globally.

Claiming that the Islamic terrorist enemy's "ultimate aim is to establish a radical empire covering a region from Spain ... to Indonesia," and that they had attacked the U.S.A. without any effective response since the 1980s, Cheney declared, "after 9/11 we made a decision: We're at war with them. This is a long term commitment, not a passing phase. There will be no ... relenting, until the problem has been dealt with ... permanently.... We've gone on the offensive.... America has ... enforced a doctrine that ... Governments that support or harbor terrorists are complicit in the murder of the innocent, and they must be held to account."

He referred indirectly to his desired next phase of this global war, spreading out from Iraq: "Coalition forces have ... conducted operations against extremists supported by Iran -- a country whose paramilitary organization traffics in lethal material."

Cheney's lies and sophistries were ludicrous as usual. He boasted that in the "half a decade" of the present war, "Afghanistan's economy has doubled in size," doubtless referring to the record crop in opium. He announced what would be a shock to U.S. forces living shut up in the Green Zone: "In Baghdad,... American and Iraqi forces are patrolling and living among the people they protect, and that's helped to build confidence in the neighborhoods. As Major General Rick Lynch put it, our forces are 'not commuting to work; we're out there with the local citizens, to let them know they're going to be secure'."