In the modern world things are more complex. There might not be a war, initially, and there might not be a foreign country to help, but it is still possible to betray your country.

Let us take a "for instance."

Let us say that you are a high government official, say as a vice president who had previously been the head of an oil service company.

Let us say that you conduct a series of sceret meetings at which you, members of the oil industry, and your "neo-conservative" allies develop a scheem to take over the world's third largest oil supply.

Let us say that you, those "neo-conservative" idealogues, and the oil company executives devise a series of lies and false threats to bamboozle the country into invading that oil-rich counry.

Let us say that the real objective of this invasion is to secure supplies and profits for yourself and those oil company executives.

Let us say that as a result of this secret plan, more than three thousand Americans soldiers die, almost fifty thousand are wounded, plus hundreds of thousands of the citizens of that invaded country die.

Let us say that all of this death and suffering is because of your greed.

I would call that a betrayal of the country.

Dick Cheney convened a sceret meeting of oil executives in the spring of 2001. We don't know percisely who attended or exactly what was discussed because the Republican-dominated Supreme Court has shielded Cheney from public disclosure.

Dick Cheney, we know, advocated an invasion of Iraq based on the "weapons of mass destruction" lie.

Dick Cheney, we know, last year made more money from war-profiteering Halliburton than he was paid for being vice president.*

Thousands of American soldiers died as a result of the lies that brought profit to Dick Cheney.

In the days of Benedict Arnold the punishment for treason was hanging. Arnold comitted treason for philosophical reasons--he ended up preferring monarchy to democracy. Cheney comitted treason for cash.

*
2005 salary Cheney received for being vice president: $205,031
Money paid to Cheney by Hailburton in 2005: $211,465
(Plus Cheney has millions of dollars worth of Halliburton stock options.)

1/25/07