As a conservative, I have mixed feelings about Vice President Dick Cheney taking a higher profile. I am amused by liberals squealing like stuck pigs over the resurgence of Cheney, indignantly claiming it's a breach of past tradition. This is hypocritical coming from the party of "The (Post-Partisan) One" whom has broken from precedent to continue his non-stop campaign-style Bush-bashing to the present, so much so that liberal commentator Chris Matthews compared it to "that woman that drove her car back over the guy she ran over". I feel that former President Bush was too genteel, not calling the Democrats and their Angry Left allies out for their persistent unconscionable, unprovoked personal attacks and unconstructive attitudes and tones ever since former Vice President Gore attempted to steal the 2000 election in Florida by a deliberate cherrypicking strategy (trying to mine just enough votes from disqualified ballots to overturn the results of two statewide election counts in Democratic-controlled election board counties), violating the Equal Protection clause of the US Constitution (7-2 by the Supreme Court).
Barack Obama has hardly lived up to his high-sounding words; even after President Bush's unprecedented transition, something which he himself had been denied by the Clinton Administration, to a demagogue whom never missed an attempt to slam him during the campaign for 2 years running; recall that even with President Bush in the audience, Barack Obama, The (Post-Partisan) One, who wanted to filibuster Sam Alito, whom had been unanimously approved 16 years earlier to the Court of Appeals, said this in his inaugural address:
an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics...Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America...But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.Cheney plays well off Obama. Obama comes across as self-assured, unflustered, reasonably, moderately-toned and as an intelligent leader; probably one of the major reasons McCain last fall failed to close the deal last fall with undecided voters, including Colin Powell, was McCain's gamble to suspend his campaign during the financial tsunami and Obama's contrasting business-as-usual response to the situation. Obama's big symbolic test during the debates was to convey that he looked Presidential, was well-prepared, and belonged on that stage; the contrast of his youth and vigor played well against McCain. McCain, if anything, came across as impulsive and predictable, the latter working against him in the debate.
Cheney, on the other hand, despite the infamous f-bomb reaction a few years back to Senator Leahy's invasion of his personal space, comes across as in charge, down to earth, unflappable, credible, measured in tone, and willing to take on the tough issues. Whereas Obama declares a priori that enhancement interrogation techniques are ineffective and Cheney argues in response that there is evidence which he himself has reviewed and which Obama is withholding, that the techniques have yielded new intelligence that has saved lives, Cheney wins the day. When Obama essentially releases the CIA's handbook for interrogation techniques, Cheney points out that Obama has provided the foundation for terrorist training in interrogation resistance. (The Obama Administration offers sham arguments, i.e., that techniques have already been exposed in the press and are simply consistent with his transparency principles. Whereas liberals are attacking Cheney for "inconsistency" in asking to declassification for memos, Cheney's real purpose is to underscore the arbitrary release of information by the Obama Administration for political purposes.)
I believe that since Obama has opened the door by constant Bush-bashing since the get-go, given Bush's decision to take the higher ground, Cheney felt that what Obama Administration has been saying is one-sided and he is in the best position to respond on behalf of the Bush Administration:
When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward...our President's understanding of [preceding] security policies [for defense decisions] should not be based on [politics as usual], but on a truthful telling of history...The drawback of Cheney's involvement is that it perpetuates Bush-basing by Democrats, and the last two Congressional cycles have in part expressed a rejection of the Bush Administration. It's important for Cheney to limit his role in order for the GOP to regroup and make a fresh start with the American people heading into the 2010 elections.
There were two broad themes underlying these problems: (1) the trade-off between the legal rights of detained terrorists and public safety and (2) the logistics of detention. The Angry Left has essentially argues that terrorists are nothing more than criminals and should be prosecuted with American legal rights. The fundamental problem with that involves the potential exposure risks of relevant to ongoing intelligence operations and sources. A couple of things which I think need to be explicitly addressed are the consistent attempts by liberals to link foreign-born with domestic terrorists and to treat terrorists as criminals. I consider the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay qualitatively distinct, more like prisoners of war in the War on Terror, which currently appears to be open-ended. Thus, for example, we normally wouldn't discuss habeas corpus for a captured enemy soldier; we don't normally consider a POW to be a criminal, and most people would recognize why you do not release POW's in the middle of a war. In addition, some detainees were not necessarily linked to actions against American targets, so it's not clear why we should be treating them under American laws or put in the American prison system.
When discussing the enhanced interrogation techniques, we need to recall the historical context. We did not have plants in Al Qaeda, we had a limited number of high-value captured targets (i.e., the three we have discussed for the CIA-modified version of waterboarding), and other interrogation methods were not working. The Geneva and US law goes not directly address specific techniques, and in any event, Al Qaeda is not a signatory to international treaties.
The Guantanamo Bay detention center is another issue. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that an Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats spending trillions of dollars they don't have would propose millions to house detainees, despite having the US government having already spent millions to build a state of the art facility. I don't see the driving need for the closure of the existing facility; it seems to be based wholly on bad press regarding controversial handling and processing of detainees. Obama currently has full administrative control over the detainees; the closure decision seems to be based strictly on ideological differences with the Bush Administration. I do not see there was any systematic attempt to verify, for instance, there were over 200 available maximum-security facility openings before Obama made what is clearly a premature politically-motivated decision, not to mention losing economies of scale in their handling. I don't summarize Cheney's position on the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility, but basically he doesn't see a need to fix a problem that isn't broken and makes it clear that Obama's decision to announce Gitmo was premature and questionable.
Obama's National Archives Speech and Cheney's AEI Response: Selected Points
- Bush-Bashing
For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan...And we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world.we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world...in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values... we must never - ever - turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake... America must demonstrate that our values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology...faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions... our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside... we went off course... we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process...the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable...failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions; that failed to use our values...the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world ... has weakened American national security... we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering.
- Cheney Response to Obama/Dems' Criticism of the Two-Front Mideast Strategy
Autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists... And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass – a 9/11 with nuclear weapons.
We moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks. We decided, as well, to confront the regimes that sponsored terrorists, and to go after those who provide sanctuary, funding, and weapons to enemies of the United States. We turned special attention to regimes that had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, and might transfer such weapons to terrorists.
We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support put all these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations … the take-down of the A.Q. Khan network … and the dismantling of Libya’s nuclear program.
- Cheney Response to Obama's "Rule of Law" Critique of the Bush Administration
Our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn’t invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people... The interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods.The case of Boumediene v. Bush (2008), which held that Guantanamo Bay detainees have a constitutional right of habeas corpus and Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 denied that right, was decided 5-4, hardly the unambiguous judicial mandate that Obama implies with his rhetoric.
- Cheney Response to Obama's Arguments Against Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do...they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.
Those personnel were carefully chosen from within the CIA, and were specially prepared to apply techniques within the boundaries of their training and the limits of the law. Torture was never permitted, and the methods were given careful legal review before they were approved. Interrogators had authoritative guidance on the line between toughness and torture, and they knew to stay on the right side of it.
interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country." Also omitted was the Admiral's empathetic words concerning the context of the times during which they were used: "I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given."
- Cheney Response to Obama's Allegation that the Bush Administration Abandoned American Values and Thus Made the Nation Less Secure
The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11...It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so...s a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion … our belief in equal rights for women … our support for Israel … our cultural and political influence in the world – these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics.These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the 19 recruits who boarded those planes on September 11th, 2001.The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today.
Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a “recruitment tool” for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, “We brought it on ourselves.”
Final Comments
I don't think people's minds were changed by the speeches themselves. but it is interesting to note that after 4 months of the hapless Obama Administration, Cheney's CNN approval ratings have raised 8 points to 37%, and Bush's approval ratings (without a single public speech) have gone up 6 points to 41%. I think that Obama comes across as condescending, judgmental and defensive in terms of attacking his predecessor; the fact is, despite Bush's unpopularity over the handling of Iraq and Katrina, the former President is given a lot of credit for doing what it took to prevent a second attack during the remainder of his tenure; Americans have continued to rate the GOP higher on national security, and despite Obama's constant use of the bully pulpit to promote his views on enhanced interrogation techniques, I don't think a lot of Americans are concerned about their past use on three high-level Al Qaeda detainees. Obama talks about triangulating the balance of national security and the rule of law; I think Cheney is fundamentally correct: you don't wait for a mushroom cloud and millions of American lives lost to take action. You have to be proactive, and if Obama thinks that Middle Eastern youth are applying American legal principles or are joining radical organizations based on a fair, balanced version of the facts, he is dangerously naive. One of the major reasons that Al Qaeda rapidly lost popular support was when they started attacking Iraqi civilians and those images were broadcast across the world.
Although Cheney does criticize the President on a few occasions, he comes across as more balanced, even-tempered, and less strident; he even addressed some things (e.g., Afghanistan) he supports in the President's current approach. I think Obama would be well-served to address the American people, not his Angry Left base. To use terms a Democrat can understand, Obama needs to develop a more nuanced version of Bush and acknowledge the things that Bush did right. He also needs to practice what he preaches in terms of post-partisan rhetoric and to learn not to sweat the small stuff like intelligence techniques used on high-ranking Al Qaeda measures. He is far too concerned about his ratings in Europe; he needs to remember he is the American President. He needs to focus on presenting a positive image of the US instead of giving our adversaries material for propaganda purposes.
