Critics in his own party and Republican opponents are attacking Barack Obama's emerging stance on national security with equal ferocity. Many Democrats are furious that the president has broken his promise to abandon the Bush administration's war-powers approach to fighting terrorism. Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, and other conservatives attack him for doing the opposite - for keeping his promise and emasculating the US anti-terror effort.
The left's complaints make far more sense than Mr Cheney's. Mr Obama is adjusting the Bush administration's policies here and there and seeks to put them on a sounder legal footing. This recalibration is significant and wise, but it is by no means the entirely new approach that he led everybody to expect.
Mr Obama is in the right, in my view, but he owes his supporters an apology for misleading them. He also owes George W. Bush an apology for saying that the last administration's thinking was an affront to US values, whereas his own policies would be entirely consonant with them. In office he has found that the issue is more complicated. If he was surprised, he should not have been.
« Paying for health care reform | Main | An impatient America will lose Afghanistan » Obama owes Bush an apology26 May 2009 04:30 am
My new column for the FT looks at Obama's national security policies.
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the problem with the bush/cheney logic of 'our policies kept america safe' is that you cannot prove a negative. it's impossible to say what bush and cheney say with any real authority - or basis in reality. people have got to stop listening to angry guys like rush liimbaugh and mainstream media and go back to school and take a course in logic:
just thinkk about it.
earthquakes aren't common where i live
if i paint myself blue and carry around a dead fish and tell everyone it's to keep away earthquakes, and no earthquake happens, how can i logically say 'well, there have it. paint yourself blue and carry a dead fish and you'll never have an earthquake. that's my policy'
and while cheney and the right are busy shooting off their mouths about how great their policies are, take a drive down to your local train station or port and see how good the security is. i got on a train from NYC to DC and nobody - nobody - once checked my bags or made me go through a metal detector
and if you know anything about terrorism anyway, you'll know that it's just as dangerous to have a bunch of guys explode themselves in a mall as it is to have another 9/11. three guys go into three different malls with explosives strapped to themselves and blow themselves up and the whole country will go nuts and close malls.
so what did bush and cheney do about that?
there is SO much that isn't remotely considered or analyzed about the bush/cheney policy that it's just retarded to accept their word on anything. no terrorists blew anything up during nixon's presidency either - does that "prove" he had good policies?
for the love of sanity, use the brains God gave you and think or don't speak
Oh, he's just adjusting here and there is he?
Just a little tweak, hey.
Nice way to put it to make your comment seem plausible.
"This recalibration is significant"
And I'd say "to put them on a sounder legal footing" is a huge change.
Some might say an entirely new approach.
But nice try making it sound like just a little adjustment.
The comment does give me an example of a straw man argument.
I'll just copy it when someone wants a definition.
I have wondered for some time if some of this is coming from the fact that he has allowed U.S. Attorneys from the Bush II regime stay on to finish up cases they were litigating?
Of course he does.
No one has praised him for his most excellent missive on Gog and Magog yet.
That is what next presidents should do and they should never misunderinvestigate such prophetic utterances of dogma so they may be shared with all the eager of the world.
Torture is an affront to US values, and a violation of law. One president implemented a policy of torture. A second president ended that. One this issue, the first apology owed is from those who committed these crimes.
Well now that Bush and Cheney have apologized explicitly and publicly for misleading the public - it might be Obama's turn. After all - he stopped all torture, he closed all "secret" prisons. Of course "he owes George W. Bush an apology for saying that the last administration's thinking was an affront to US values, whereas his own policies would be entirely consonant with them." . Torture. Illegal secret prisons. Those are US values. Stopping torture. Stopping illegal, secret prisons. Those are not consonant with US values. Apologize Obama - just like Bush and Cheney did.
Of course, Mr Cheney has a point when he stresses, over and over, that one should not compromise with terrorists. But I think that Mr Obama's point that one should not compromise our core values (aka our legal system and individual rights) in order to not compromise with terrorists is more in line with what the public feels and rationality dictates? Keeping in mind the aim of the game needs apology? Forgetting the aim of the game does not?
How about he doesn't owe anyone an apology so long as he reverses himself and says 1) yes, Bush's thinking was an affront, which it was, and 2) yes, I mislead y'all because I was mislead, like so many others since the Country actually used sexual assault both vaginal and anal as well as waterboarding. I've seen the photos, so I know. I won't release them because I need to do what would be wisest to avoid rightious anger from becoming manifest in violence against citizens or the country or its 'national interests'.
It remains an open question as to what he really thinks/feels. I get the 'direct communication' (Bush was Decider). I get that. I don't feel the candor I need.
I guess Obama would have to have been there to really get it?
This is not a fair assessment.
First, the contexts of overall Iraq, Afghanistan, and especially Pakistan changed significantly between the campaign season and inauguration. If his plans on how to govern shifted, there is no doubt that a lot of that had to do with the unexpected and alarmingly severe deterioration of the Pakistani state within such a short amount of time of Obama taking office.
Second, Obama has a lot to apologize for, but being pragmatic and realistic isn't on that list. George W. Bush's policies were an affront to U.S. values, international law, basic human values, and etc. Bush also started both of these wars and screwed them both up long before Obama came along. Obama at least putting this stuff (torture, unjust imprisonment) within the framework of law brings it back into closer reach of justice. It sucks that we all seem to be forgetting that Obama inherited these wars -- don't parallel him to Bush. It's inaccurate and doesn't do our image any favors.
Third, see that nut-case at the top of your post? That dude that shoots his friends, the Supreme Court, innocent foreigners, and the American Constitution in the face? Thank him, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yu, and Bush (when his mind was active) for this mess. Just be happy we have someone like Obama trying to figure all this out.
That link doesn't work for me.
But I found this one that does.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/55522abc-4894-11de-8870-00144feabdc0.html