President Obama at the US Naval Academy graduation today:
"We uphold our fundamental principles and values not just because we choose to, but because we swear to -- not because they feel good, but because they help keep us safe...When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops."
This argument is wearing thin. First, we have not “strayed” from our values in any way. No law was broken during Bush’s anti-terror campaign, there was nothing unconstitutional about it. Further, our enemies don’t hate us because of a supposed “stray” from our values. If that were true, then how do we explain the multiple attacks on the US prior to the Bush administration. If Obama were correct, then closing Gitmo would suddenly remove the motivation of the terrorists to attack and kill Americans, even though such motivation was quite apparent before the prison at Gitmo was opened, before Bush became president, before Abu Ghraib, before the international wire taps.
Dick Cheney said it best: “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…But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things...
"And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them…As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States…
"List all the things that make us a force for good in the world – for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences – and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken,our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.”
4 comments:
"List all the things that make us a force for good in the world – for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences – and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America".
Former VP Cheney
John,
the terrorists don't just hate America--they hate the "West", they hate us for our high-minded idea that the least of us is deserving of respect, and that we pass laws and sign treaties to ensure fairness for all our citizens.
Terrorists are so alien from us, driven by blind faith and pschopathic blood lust, and they are psychos about respecting their bodies. It is due to that blind faith that you can't do cartoons about the Prophet, that you must respect the body, both male and female. They hate to be physically humiliated---they would rather die for Allah, even willing to blow themselves up, so waterboarding is only an insult to them, but a highly inflammatory one.
Some think that it is against our values to disrespect people's bodies, to torture slowly, no matter how benign it seems to others, that water-boarding is against the Geneva agreements, etc.
John McCain is against such treatments, since he experienced first hand that one can only be too ready to make any statements the enemy wants to hear in order to end the pain or discomfort. In such cases, those means are useless, and in the case of the current insurgents we face, they are only inflammatory since they are so paranoid about being "disrespected". That is why such "disrespect" is dangerous to our soldiers. That is what Obama wants to avoid in the future, what his generals are telling him. He is the one getting the briefs now. That is why he said "it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops." He knows his enemy very well, their intentions and behavior.
He knows the nature of our adversaries: casual brutality is the norm for them, they are quick, sneaky and deadly, over-the-top ferocious, and they care not about their own people, only about their misguided blind faith in Allah and his Prophet. We can't lower ourselves to their level. Faced with an enemy like that before, we had to make the decision to save American lives by using a weapon of mass destruction. People are fleeing their cities over where the Taliban is fighting, saying that they dcn't want to be there when the Americans start to drop the atomic bombs.
Tom Ridge, a Republican and former head of Homeland Security has stated that Cheney has it wrong about Obama. Ridge says we are as safe under Obama as we were under Bush. I have to trust that he has word of what is going on.
Other Republicans have expressed the wish that Cheney stop trying to discredit Obama. Obama for his part must wish that the radical left stop the witch-hunt of the former administration since Obama has so much on his plate and the leaders in the Muslim countries are not cooperating with him.
I think it is better to just kill the insurgents in the field, and just blow them to Allah and the 72 virgins. If waterboarding saved lives, why didn't we hear about it at the time---not the means used to thwart conspiracies, but that such terrorist plans were thwarted. Why doesn't Cheney now say what plans were thwarted? I don't think they amount to much; I think he just can't stand criticism of his administration.
I have faith that our security forces will keep us safe--didn't they just uncover a group that planned to bomb a synogogue? If we hear that, why didn't we hear about the groups that were stopped during Cheney's rule?
I think the insurgents played their best hand on 9-11. They destroyed two towers and 3,000 lives, so we took out a whole country and tens of thousands of lives. If we haven't been attacked like that again, it must be that they have second thoughts. They realize they woke up a sleeping tiger.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
"I think the insurgents played their best hand on 9-11. They destroyed two towers and 3,000 lives, so we took out a whole country and tens of thousands of lives. If we haven't been attacked like that again, it must be that they have second thoughts. They realize they woke up a sleeping tiger."
Em, I truly hope you are right, but that flies in the face of my better judgment. These people aren't fighting for a country, or an ideology, or a leader who orders them to. These people are fighting for their GOD! That means there will never be a surrender and they will never stop until one of 3 things happen: 1) they kill all of us, 2) we kill all of them or 3) we capitulate en masse and convert to Islam
And Cheney can't talk about the memos or the information obtained in interrogations then and now because the information is classified. He has a security clearance but is still bound by law - as are all of us who once served in the military and were privy to sensitive information. He can't divulge it.
Liz Cheney said that her dad would much rather be hunting and fishing right now. But he is genuinely concerned about the direction that Obama is taking. He is not motivated by politics, his political days are over and he is retired. But he is so concerned about what's going on that he feels compelled to speak up. I have no reason to doubt that, and given the things that Cheney knows but can't talk about I am inclined to believe him. He is worried about this, therefore I am too.
Em, when I hear Cheney talk about this stuff I see genuine concern. I feel he remains burdened from things that "may have happened" had they not done the things they did. I think that's why he has been so vocal lately.
Cheney knows about attacks that were thwarted and he is clearly bothered by Obama's policies that he believes opens us up to similar attacks. There's a reason why OBama won't release the memos Cheney is calling for, and I think it's because they show details of thwarted attacks that would horrify us and effectively end Obama's attempt to close Gitmo.
Very few people know the contents of those memos, Cheney and Obama are two of them. If the memos showed that the interrogations yielded nothing of benefit, don't you think Obama would declassify them to strengthen his argument?
Here we see two viewpoints...
a) Logic, careful analysis, and a clear conclusion,
versus
b) Lightly-veiled partisanship.
- Truth is the noble goal - reb
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