Obama, the Afghanistan War and Cheney's "movement"

The President gave an interview to 60 Minutes last night. So the beings who make up our "press corps" focused on what was important and significant in it: Following Politico's lead, media fixate on Obama's "awkward laughter" in 60 Minutes interview Media Matters 03/23/09. The transcript is available here.

But there were a couple of things Obama said that caught my attention in particular. One was when he was talking about the Afghanistan War he said, "And there's gotta be an exit strategy. There - there's gotta be a sense that this is not perpetual drift."

That was the story from the interview as reported by the Vienna paper Der Standard Online, Obama will Exit-Strategie 23.03.2009 and in Spain's El País, Obama propondrá una estrategia de salida para la guerra afgana de Yolanda Monge 24.03.2009.

We'll see what the strategy is that he settles on soon. I expect him to continue a policy of escalation, which I think is a major mistake. But I'm still hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

The other thing that particularly caught my attention was this:

STEVE KROFT:A week ago Vice President Cheney-- said essentially that your willingness to shut down Guantanamo and to change the way prisoners are treated and interrogator-- interrogated-- was making America weaker and more vulnerable to another attack. And that-- the interrogation techniques that were used at Guantanamo were essential in preventing another attack against the United States.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that-- Vice President Cheney has been-- at the head of a-- movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the l-- wrong lesson from history.

The facts don't bear him out. I think he is-- that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage-- to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many-- how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment. Which means that there is constant effective recruitment of-- Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world. [my emphasis]

Obama was ambiguous on the status of "terrorist" suspects, for which dday rightly criticizes him in ... Hullabaloo blog 03/23/09. On the one hand, I hope Obama's formulation on that is part of a continuing move away from the Bush approach. But seeing is believing. The Geneva Convention distinctions between prisoners of war and criminal suspects should be enough.

But Obama made a definite case against the Cheney torture policy:

Well, I think we're going to have to figure out a mechanism to make sure that they not released and do us harm. But-- do so in a way that is consistent with both our traditions, sense of due process, international law. But this is-- this is the legacy that's been left behind. And, you know, I'm surprised that-- the Vice President is eager-- to defend-- a legacy that was unsustainable[.]

[L]et's assume that we didn't change these practices. How-- how long are we going to go? Are we going to just keep on going until-- you know, the entire Muslim world and Arab world-- despises us? Do we think that's really going to make us safer? I-- I don't know-- a lot of thoughtful thinkers, liberal or conservative-- who think that that was the right approach.

I was particularly struck by Obama's comment that "Cheney has been - at the head of a - movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests."

I think there's some real significance to Obama's formulation. For one, he's saying that Dick Cheney, not Shrub Bush, was the head of this "movement". And he not only calls it a "movement", but a movement that opposes core American values and the Constitution itself.

I don't want to minimize Bush's responsibility for what happened, because after all he was the Decider. But it certainly seems to be the case that Cheney, not Bush, was the driving ideological and organizing force behind the authoritarian Unilateral Executive policies and foreign policy in general.

There's nothing extraordinary about the factual description that Obama gave there. It's a statement of the plain truth. But the fact that the President and the head of the Democratic Party is willing to formulate it this way does strike me as significant.

Tags: afghanistan+war, cheney, obama administration, torture