{"id":2754,"date":"2009-05-23T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2009-05-24T02:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/2009\/05\/23\/cheneys-top-10\/"},"modified":"2009-05-23T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2009-05-24T02:20:07","slug":"cheneys-top-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/2009\/05\/23\/cheneys-top-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheney’s Top 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his speech on National Security the other day. Cheney delivered sharp criticism to the current administration’s limp-wristed approach to terrorism. The recently-minted Fox Nation<\/a> website excerpted the top-10 thoughts<\/a> from Cheney’s speech:<\/p>\n

\n

cheney.jpgNo. 10: The administration has found that it\u2019s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it\u2019s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America\u2019s national security.<\/p>\n

No. 9: In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we\u2019ve captured as, quote, \u201cabducted.\u201d Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.<\/p>\n

No. 8: If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don\u2019t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for \u2013 our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.<\/p>\n

No. 7: Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9\/11. It\u2019s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.<\/p>\n

No. 6: To completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.<\/p>\n

No. 5: This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It\u2019s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, \u201cWe brought it on ourselves.\u201d It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America\u2019s moral standards, one way or the other.<\/p>\n

No. 4: Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9\/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance.<\/p>\n

No. 3: To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.<\/p>\n

No. 2: In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy.<\/p>\n

No. 1: Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Courtesy Editors of Fox Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his speech on National Security the other day. Cheney delivered sharp criticism to the current administration’s limp-wristed approach to terrorism....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-on-terror","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}