Obama: He Had Me At “I Fundamentally Disagree With Dick Cheney.”
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STEVE KROFT: One question about Dick Cheney and Guantanamo — I’m sure you want to answer this.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Oh, absolutely.
KROFT: A week ago, Vice President Cheney said essentially that your willingness to shut down Guantanamo and change the way that prisoners are treated and 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.
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 wrong lessons 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.
You know, the fact of the matter is, after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? 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 constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against US interests all around the world.
KROFT: Some of it being organized by a few people who were released from Guantanamo.
OBAMA: Well, there’s no doubt that we haven’t done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we’ve got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks we just swept up — the whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. I fundamentally disagree with that….
I have been trying to put my finger on just what it is about Cheney’s PR bonanza-rama that makes me so irritated, and I think this from Francis Wilkinson may hit the nail on the head: it’s CYA kabuki designed to give Cheney and his cronies a "this is political payback because I’m a critic" pushback should charges ever be sought against any of them.
And isn’t that just cynical and selfish enough to be exactly what Shooter would do to cover his own ass, whatever the truth of it?
How can Obama respond on the one hand that “…the whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists….” Yet he will not turn loose the “American system of Justice” to deal with the prior Regimes shredding of the Constitution and Law. The resultant healing of our domestic and international reputation from the investigation and any subsequent trials/convictions would go a long way in reducing terrorism.
I’m sure many will say he’s got too much on his plate, or that the politics aren’t right to pursue past misdeeds, yet he’s stated recently his ability to walk and chew gum at the same time. He has a vast array of powers vested in the DoJ waiting to be unleashed to investigate and indict. Do it goddamn it!