Posted by
Andy Zarowny on Thursday, May 21, 2009 10:03:14 PM
God bless Dick Cheney!
The former Vice President
gave a speech today where
he challenged the Obama
Administration positions on
national security policies.
Obama also gave a speech
today on the same subject,
starting late and going long,
possibly deliberately to re-
duce any media coverage of
Cheney's speech. The con-
trasts between the two is
remarkable.
Obama spoke mainly on how
the Bush Administration mis-
handled the War on Terror.
He was critical of many of the
policies and decisions made.
Chief among them are the use
of enhanced interrogation
techniques at Guantanamo
Bay. He referred to the
methods, such as 'water-
boarding' as torture and tried
to tie it's use to increased
hostility towards America.
Cheney defended the policies
as necessary to safeguard
America and to take the fight
to the terrorists themselves.
He recounted the horror of
the 9/11 attacks, of watching
people leap from windows of
the World Trade Center to
escape being burnt to death.
He again assured that the
information gleaned from
using enhanced Interrogation
of three 'high value' prisoners
helped thwart additional plots
to attack America.
Cheney has become more
vocal since Obama had
some documents declassi-
fied concerning the interro-
gation of Guantanamo
prisoners. The former Vice
President has challenged
the Obama Administration
to release other documents
which detail the intelligence
gained from these interroga-
tions. Thus far, the White
House has refused to make
these available.
Most notably of these plots
which were revealed was a
plan to crash airliners into
the Bank Tower, also known
as the Library Tower, in Los
Angeles, California. There
is some dispute concerning
the timeline. That the plot
was foiled or abandoned be-
fore the interrogations. But
such did reveal details of the
plot, according to Cheney,
and overall, the methods
provided U.S. intelligence
personnel with valuable in-
formation and insights into
the inner workings of Al
Qaeda.
Obama countered in his
speech today that none of
the information acquired
during water-boarding and
other 'enhanced' techniques
use could not have been
gotten using 'normal' interro-
gation methods. He further
added that our use of such
techniques, as well as the
mere existence of 'Club
Gitmo' (the nickname for
the prison on Guantanamo)
actually fueled more resent-
ment and helped recruited
more members to Al Qaeda
and the Taliban. This also
has a timeline issue, since
the prison and interrogations
happened well after the
height of terror activities.
The bottom-line in all of this
is very simple. The Bush
Administration policies for
fighting terrorism have proved
to have been effective as no
attacks have occurred since
9/11 in the United States. In
addition, we now have a much
better understanding of the
workings and organization of
Al Qaeda, which was largely
ignored by the Clinton Admini-
stration despite several attacks
launched during the 1990s.
There is no doubt that we are,
or were, much safer since 9/11.
How much safer we are now or
in the future is more doubtful
as Obama takes us back to a
pre-9/11 mentality of treating
terrorism as merely a law en-
forcement matter. Self-criti-
cism and apologies only fuel
the resolve of our enemies.