Why Cheney Was So Wrong

About four months ago I flew to London on a red eye. In economy. I know a thing or two about stress positions. They do make you hostile to others. And combative. Definitely combative.

Joking aside, the issue of torture and detainment is a serious one. We kept people imprisoned at Guantanamo, some of them completely innocent. We did not give them access to lawyers or even contact with their families. We tortured them. And now we learn that the CIA was operating a terrorist assassination program with the program kept secret from Congress. On Dick Cheney’s orders.

Dick Cheney alone did not reduce our country to something we don’t want to be, but he did some significant damage. Oddly, since he was not the president, he seems to have wielded extraordinary power in the executive branch. Though his signature authorizes the assassination program, Bush is as silent and complacent now as he must’ve been as president, letting Cheney throw the hardballs and make the tough decisions. For those of us who thought the Bush presidency was a low point, this seems all the more a miscarriage of American government. After all, we elected George W. Bush, not Dick Cheney, to lead our country.

And the problem is where Dick Cheney seems to have led us.

Extradition and torture, and now assassination, all seem like reasonable treatment for terrorists. Terrorist organizations operate by definition outside of the bounds of sovereign nations and are therefore not protected by the same international law or general respect. The United States cannot always request extradition from the countries who host these terrorists, especially when the host country does not have an operating judicial system or is hostile to the US. But here’s the problem: the entire purpose of the court system is to ensure justice for both the guilty and the innocent. The US response to terrorism skirted the entire judicial process and sought to carry out a vigilante program of retribution. While most of us can get behind that when we’re sure the target is guilty, how many of us can support this approach when we’re not sure? Vigilante justice is illegal because you might kill the wrong guy.

Most of us want to remain Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.” We want America to represent all the good a democracy can offer: citizens ruling together in a benevolent manner with a robust justice system that protects its people and an executive branch kept always in check by the courts and Congress. I just watched a video clip of Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly joking about torturing Democrats, those leftist Marxist loonies who want to hurt America — and felt ill. This is not the America I want to be. This is not Ronald Reagan’s America.

America’s greatness comes from the balance of all its powers, the shifting and change between Liberals and Conservatives is part of that balance. Both are represented and the sum of the two is our democracy. It could be argued that Cheney took extraordinary measures after 9/11 to keep our country safe, that he cannot be faulted for this. I don’t agree for the simple reason that we have laws and balances in place to keep us safe from dictators. I believe in our country enough to know that no one needs to break the law of our land to ensure our safety. This is its own danger.

The rhetoric today is that Obama is using the economic crisis just like Cheney used 9/11: to expand government powers into areas the public would never accept if circumstances were different. In a robust economy would we accept the massive debt the Obama administration is taking on? Maybe not, but it is legal and approved by Congress. In our country the rulers are powerful, but they remain citizens. They are expected to remain within the lawful boundaries of their positions. This is what separates us from dictatorships. No matter the threat, this is a fundamental tenet of our country and can’t be sacrificed even when terrorists wreak their havoc. Especially when terrorists wreak their havoc. America will remain the shining beacon.

Possibly Related Posts:

  • Share/Bookmark
July 13, 2009 | Filed Under Perfect World 

Comments

Leave a Reply