Jones Obama Versus Cheney: Mano a Mano on National Security Strategy

Or the continuing duel between the winners who "write the history books" and the "losers" who will contest every word of still unwritten text.

Thus the virtual coincidence on May 21 of major speeches by President Obama and Vice President Cheney provided a rich opportunity to compare and contrast substantially, if not diametrically, opposed views of U.S. security policy.

Neither was short-winded; Obama with an address over 6,000 words and Cheney with one exceeding 5,500 took full opportunity to have their say. That the media debate continued for the next several days in the context of Memorial Day ceremonies only accentuated the differences.

And differences there are. Using the original of the Constitution on display at the National Archives as an incomparable backdrop, President Obama symbolically wrapped his policies in the document. The document epitomizes our “enduring values;” principles that cannot be sacrificed for “expediency sake” to which we hold not because of idealism but they “strengthen our country and keep us safe.” Although somewhat condescendingly he noted that his predecessors had a “sincere desire to protect the American people,” he leaped on them for “decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, [which] all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.”

Obama rejected torture and “enhanced interrogation techniques,” stating flatly that “I could not disagree more” regarding their effectiveness. He repeated his decision to close Guantanamo Prison and noted an ongoing review of detainees who would be divided into categories, some of whom would be released, some tried in federal courts or military commissions, but some who would be held indefinitely. Although there is an eerie familiarity to some of these approaches, Obama emphasized that it would all be done in accordance with rule of law and greater legal protections for detainees. And nobody would be released who would be a danger to the United States.

Defending the release of specific information regarding interrogation techniques, Obama said that it was not necessary to continue secrecy – and he emphasized that he would work to ensure transparency in government.

In conclusion, Obama constructed two straw men: One would “almost never put national security over transparency;” and the other for whom in protecting national security "anything goes." Unsurprisingly, he rejects both and calls for “tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals.”

To put it politely, former VP Cheney does not see national security in the same optic. In his address at the American Enterprise Institute, after perfunctorily wishing the Obama administration well in protecting the United States and touting his personal credentials as the only Defense Secretary ever to become Vice President, he roundly excoriated virtually every decision made by the new administration.

Essentially, Bush administration policy worked. Against all expectations that there would be further successful terrorist attacks on the United States following 9/11 – there were none. Such was not the consequence of luck or wishful thinking, but was achieved by relentless pressure against all of the elements of al-Qaeda terrorism. Regardless of how one re-labels or re-defines “war” on terrorism (and Cheney all but sneers at the politically correct sobriquet “overseas contingency operations"), terrorists seek to damage the United States as much as possible – and have so desired long before any ostensible rationale for terrorism, e.g., Guantanamo.

For Cheney, you either conclude that the Bush strategy worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever, or 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. Obviously, Cheney believes the former; he flatly supports the enhanced interrogation program, which he contends was vitally necessary, worked, and saved thousands of lives. Furthermore, he castigates the professions of transparency with the release of memos detailing interrogation techniques (“flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States”) while denying release of material documenting the (invaluable) material obtained from these interrogations – and he calls on Obama to release these documents.

Cheney described the entire media frenzy over interrogation as “feigned outrage based on a false narrative.” He observed that in his long Washington experience, “few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing.” Moreover, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods would be “recklessness cloaked in righteousness.” With biting irony, he noted that Obama, almost unremarked by media, reserved to himself the right to order “enhanced interrogation” and suggests that, having done so, he might be “less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11.”

And he was profoundly skeptical about moving terrorists from Guantanamo to the United States.

Perhaps the only significant point on which they agreed was the rejection of a “truth commission” of one ilk or another. Cheney thought it would be innately destructive, criminalizing the previous administration’s policy decisions; Obama simply thought it unnecessary, as existing institutions will “deliver accountability.”

Naturally Obama professes himself uninterested in “re-litigating” the decisions of the past eight years and implied that opponents were “fear mongering,” engaged in “political posturing,” and more concerned with 30-second sound bites than addressing real problems.

Cheney indicated a willingness to engage on the problems of the day as a “private citizen” with “no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.”

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June 9, 2009

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