This past week, President Barack Obama and Vice President delivered
speeches on the same day and on the same theme of national security.
For the text of Obama's speech, see here. For the text of Cheney's speech, see here.
In this post, I comment on Cheney's speech on occasion. Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated. Quotations are indented.
That’s how it seemed from a law enforcement perspective, at least–but for the terrorists the case was not closed. For them, it was another offensive strike in their ongoing war against the United States. And it turned their minds to even harder strikes with higher casualties. Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat–what the Congress called “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count up the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.
"a law enforcement problem" -- For Obama, the current "war on terror" should be seen in just such a light.
So we’re left to draw one of two conclusions–and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event–coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.
"You can look... Or you can look..." -- In other words, Cheney (unlike Obama) recognizes that sincere and patriotic Americans can disagree.
"Article Two of the Constitution," "given specificity by the Congress" "authorizing 'all necessary and appropriate force'" -- quite a different interpretation from Obama's of the nature and authority of decisions with which Obama disagrees.
"prevented attacks and saved lives" "was top secret...until..." -- A very different timbre from Obama's. Here Cheney focuses on the unhappy necessity of secrecy, while, for Obama, transparency is a necessary tool to maintain America's status as beacon to the world.
"legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do" -- Obama will not concede any of these points. More than that, he will not concede that an America might even justifiably hold them.
Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security, and what it requires. I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the course ahead. All the zeal that has been directed at interrogations is utterly misplaced. And staying on that path will only lead our government further away from its duty to protect the American people.
"little curiosity in finding out what was learned" -- perhaps because some on the left would rather remain blind to the fact that we are in a state of war.
"treating political disagreements as a punishable offense" -- This is truly a grave danger, for it shows that we are eating ourselves alive, as it were. What a gift to grant our enemies! Cheney expresses the dangers very well.
"equate...Abu Ghraib with the...work of CIA personnel" -- Indeed, for some on the left (Obama among them?), ours is the shame. For, ours is the agency. Our enemies--do they even have agency? Do they have the dignity of persons that allows them to make decisions, even heinous ones, for their very own reasons? One senses in our time an American self-loathing that feeds the bloodlust of our enemies.
"euphemisms...'war'...henceforth... 'Overseas contingency operations." "'man-made disaster'... terrorist attack" -- Language is powerful. Central to language is the capacity to name. The Obama administration has sacrificed that power. Not to be able to name the enemy is not to be able to fight him.
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 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. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America’s moral standards, one way or the other. ...
As 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 nineteen recruits who boarded those planes on September 11, 2001.
"notion that American interrogation practices were a 'recruitment tool'" -- This is one of Obama's central arguments.
"terrorists hate...the values we profess" "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" -- This is self-explanatory. Obama, of course, does not recognize this.
Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11.
"having reserved...less disdainful" -- Obama is disdainful because he is arrogant.
For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings. And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims. As for those who asked them questions and got answers: they did the right thing, they made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.
"the United States has never lost its moral bearings" -- Not to say that this country is perfect, but certainly to affirm (among many other things) that its effort to preseve itself is a moral struggle.