National Security: Obama v. Cheney

Whoever thinks national security is a simple, clear-cut issue is horribly mistaken.  The questions surrounding detainees and interrogation methods are anything but.  To me, this is one of the most difficult issues a liberal democracy can face in our contemporary international climate.  It cuts to the very core of our philosophical values and forces us to play a balancing game with safety on the one side and our ideals on the other.

I thought the President and former Vice President were both very convincing in their speeches yesterday.  Notwithstanding Dick Cheney’s somewhat classless mocking of the President to start his speech, the substance of his position certainly has merit.  We can’t delude ourselves into thinking an argument is categorically incorrect just because Dick Cheney is its champion.  The fact that some approach the issue in this way is plain.

Others, of course, are sincere and nonpartisan in their position on national security.  They are truly against waterboarding, military commissions, and the housing of detainees anywhere other than federal prisons.  In the face of this, the President has outlined a very moderate and pragmatic approach to dealing with detainees.  But for all of the President’s criticisms of the Bush administration’s detainee policy, the new policy doesn’t seem to differ all that much from the old.  For instance, President Obama effectively articulated a silo system that provides each detainee with unique legal treatment depending on that detainee’s classification.  Yet, both military commissions and prolonged detention without access to any court whatsoever are still explicitly on the table.  Of course, the military commissions will have to be consistent with Supreme Court opinions in recent years after the Bush military commissions were rejected as unconstitutional.  But the point is that the President recognizes that no access to the federal courts in some cases, or no access to any court in others, are appropriate options when dealing with terrorists.

The starkest difference between the two is obviously waterboarding – a technique that is “torture” to Obama and “enhanced interrogation” to Cheney.  Whatever you call it, the big issue for me is how limited its use was even under the Bush administration.  My understanding is that it wasn’t used at all after 2003, was limited to high-level al-Quaeda operatives at a time the administration knew little about al-Quaeda, and could only be used upon order from the top.  The fact that the administration didn’t use it at any other time nor on any other person demonstrates how targeted this technique was.   Nobody is saying that the military or the CIA should be given carte blanche to use waterboarding at will.  The debate is whether the President should reserve to himself the power to permit waterboarding in extraordinary circumstances.

Putting aside the question of its frequency, reasonable minds can differ on whether waterboarding should be considered torture.  I, for one, would much rather be waterboarded than have my toenails removed, my genitals electrocuted, or beaten repeatedly.  The latter three are clearly torture.  Waterboarding is a much closer call.  And the fact that reporters have been willing to sit through a waterboarding session speaks volumes – I don’t think any reporter would be up for sitting through any other torture technique mentioned above.

So, at the very least, we shouldn’t put waterboarding on par with much clearer examples of torture.  Taking the context in whole, I would feel much more secure knowing that President Obama had this option in his pocket for use in extraordinary circumstances.  The fact that he has categorically refused to allow it leaves me a little more skeptical of the government’s ability to stop attacks before they happen.  And if it’s truly and strictly limited in this way, I don’t see it as compromising our values because I cannot confidently place it under the umbrella of “torture.”

One final note.  Geno, another author on this blog, said an interesting thing to me the other day.  If these detainees were sent to a federal prison, they would be exposed to what we all know goes on inside America’s jails.  I won’t elaborate further, but that, my friends, is torture.

Maybe Guantanamo isn’t all that bad after all…