Winter Break WK #2: “The Price of Their Security”
December 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — Understanding isn’t the same as forgiving. The history-be-my-judge interviews that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been giving recently help me understand why they acted with such contempt for our Constitution and our values — but also reinforce my confident belief, and my fervent hope, that history will throw the book at them.
The basic argument that they’re making deserves to be taken seriously. I don’t think either man would object to my summing it up in one sentence: We did what we did to keep America safe.
That terse formulation of the Bush-Cheney apologia leaves out important details. Cheney came into office with preconceived ideas about restoring executive branch powers and prerogatives that he believed had been lost after Vietnam and Watergate; Bush either shared Cheney’s views or was willing to go along. But the main narrative of the Bush presidency began with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists — the worst such assault on American soil.
In a not-for-attribution chat with a member of the Bush Cabinet a couple of years ago, conversation turned to 9/11. I said something like, “I can imagine what that day must have felt like for you.” The response was immediate: “No, you can’t.”
The official went on to describe the chaos and anguish — the shock of seeing the 110-story World Trade Center towers collapse into rubble, the fear that other hijacked planes might still be in the air, the gut feeling that the president and those around him were personally under attack. The official talked of how administration officials racked their memories to think of anything they might have done differently to prevent the 9/11 attacks. I doubt that anyone in the Situation Room actually quoted Malcolm X, but essentially a vow was taken to protect the country from another assault “by any means necessary.”
These were human reactions, understandable and appropriate at the time. The truth is that the administration had missed signs that an attack was brewing — most famously, the president’s daily brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” But these portents were lost amid the avalanche of information that buries every president every single day. Anyone in Bush’s position would have been filled with grief, anger and resolve.
Initial reactions are supposed to give way to reasoned analysis, however. For Bush and most of his top aides, this didn’t happen until far too late.
For Cheney, apparently it never happened at all. In an interview broadcast Sunday, he invited Fox News’ Chris Wallace to “go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again.” People have since become “complacent,” he said, but the administration’s actions have “produced a safe 7.5 years, and I think the record speaks for itself.”
That record, admirably, includes the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the dismantling of al-Qaeda’s infrastructure and the killing or capture of some of the terrorist organization’s most important operatives. Shamefully, however, it also includes the violation of international and U.S. legal norms by subjecting terrorist suspects to indefinite detention and cruel, painful interrogation; the creation of a mini-gulag of secret CIA-run prisons abroad; and unprecedented domestic surveillance without court supervision — all justified, Cheney maintains, by a state of “war” that has no foreseeable end.
The Bush-Cheney record also includes the invasion of a country — Iraq — that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. This misadventure has claimed more than 4,000 American lives, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and grievously damaged our strategic position in the Middle East. In an interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News earlier this month, Bush claimed credit for vanquishing al-Qaeda’s forces in Iraq. When Raddatz pointed out that there were no al-Qaeda forces in Iraq until after the U.S. invasion, the president answered, “Yeah, that’s right. So what?”
Here’s so what: Bush and Cheney, understandably shaken by an unprecedented act of terrorism, declared and prosecuted a “war” without specifying who the enemy is. Rather than focus on the architect and sponsor of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, they turned away to lash out at others in pre-emptive blows that dishonored our nation’s most precious ideals.
History will note that the point of the Constitution is that the ends don’t always justify the means — and that nowhere in the document can be found the phrase “so what?”
I liked this article. I do not know what the author meant by “The history-be-my-judge interviews that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been giving recently”, but I imagine that they would be interviews with the president and vice president that consisted mainly of the two men defending themselves on why they entered into the war in Iraq and trying to salvage some respect from the people before they are forced to leave office once and for all. I think that this article did a good job of stating the actions of President Bush and his cabinet and then providing a justified opinion about the actions rather than just condemning the President for everything that he did without saying why it was bad or why he didn’t agree with it, which is how a lot of the articles and news stories seem to be written when criticizing President Bush. One thing that this article made me realize was that not only did the terrorists from 9/11 succeed in killing a bunch of people and starting a war with America, but they also succeeded in creating a deep mistrust and dislike of the American government within the country’s population. I do not know if this was an intended result of the attacks, but it definitely was accomplished. If you don’t think so, just look at Bush’s approval rating towards the end of his final term.
Connection: If Obama does not quickly end the war in Iraq, will it affect his chances of being reelected in 2012? The attacks on 9/11 did not stop Bush from being reelected in 2004, but at that time the war was relatively new, and now it seems that the people are just getting sick of it.
Well, I thought this article had some really good points. However, I was confused with the sentence, “the invasion of a country — Iraq — that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.” Am I just another idiot American or am I right in asking wasn’t Osama bin Laden an Iraqi who lived in Iraq? So to get to Osama and to stop his tyranny and to make our point that he can’t mess with America, don’t we have to go through Iraq? I’m sorry to say but our intelligence and war experts aren’t as good as being able to just sniper him secretly from a hot air balloon. Of course Obama is going to hide in secret caves rallying up his al-Qaeda’s forces around him. Thus to get to Obama, of course, Iraq was sadly but truthfully involved. However, Bush’s “so what?” line was simply unfortunate. A president can’t say “so what” to we just wiped out a country and lost millions of civilians’ and our own American soldiers’ lives. I’m sure that was a little two word woopsie that he will live to regret. But as much blame as we want to throw on Bush and Cheney I think we need to remember accordingly to this line, “the administration’s actions have ‘produced a safe 7.5 years, and I think the record speaks for itself.’” Thankfully, we can ride our bikes down the road in relative safety, in terms of not having to be scared of the sky falling in a sudden bomb attack. Honestly, except for the initial attack, the war in Iraq has been completely offensive. None of us have had to move in with the folks because our house was ravaged. None of us have had to stand in bread lines wondering whether we’ll have enough to feed our families. Seriously think about it; yes, I believe that the war has now carried on far too long, but in maybe 50 years we’ll be able to look back and thank God for our safety and prosperity…and the freedom of countless Iraqis.
Connection: The fact that emotions were involved in starting this war. Just like in West Wing where the president starts a war because his personal friend was shot down in a plane, so was Bush’s own presidential pride attacked and numerous friends killed. And our own American pride was involved in it as well. If you had told somebody the day after the twin towers tumbled killing thousands of relatives and friends that we are going to stay out of Iraq because it’s not our business, I for one would have pulled out a shotgun and pointed it at your head. Emotions are going to be involved no matter what…because face it we’re humans.
Naturally I love this article, because I savor any possible chance to verbally slap the Bush presidency. I don’t even believe that the war in Afghanistan was justified. It’s an innocent country that has suffered greatly because of it. Osama Bin Laden was terribly old at the time of the attack, and I honestly believe he is now deceased. When was the last time you saw a new video from him? Yes he was a terrible man, but war should be a last resort, not an immediate action. Maybe the war in Afghanistan was semi justified, but there is no excuse for our military actions in Iraq. As the author mentioned the war is terribly costly and look at the economic condition today. The war costs hundreds of millions of dollars A DAY. More importantly over 4,000 American soldiers have died. My best friend is enlisted and I don’t want his life to be risked in an unjustified war, and we were constantly lied to about the reason we even invaded.
Connection: This article can be linked to the imperial presidency. The author mentions it through Cheney. It was started with Nixon and lost some of its ground with the Watergate scandal.