I admit it: I liked the President’s long speechon drones and Guantanamo, plus his impromptu remarks on respect for the views of a Code Pink heckler. I particularly liked this:
For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize extremists.
That’s a lot better in my book than the nation-building at home line that he generally uses, which suggests that foreign policy really has no utility to the American taxpayer. This is perhaps his strongest statement ever on the national security role of civilian foreign policy instruments, which naturally interests me as I just completed a book manuscript on the subject.
But the speech was about far more than that. The core of his message seemed to be this: we went to war against Al Qaeda justly and struck devastating blows against our enemies, but we overdid the torture and the indefinite detentions. We need now to figure out how to end the war on terror and get back to more business as usual, ratcheting down the drone wars and even ending or limiting in due course the Congressional authorization to use military force.
Jane Mayer is right: the contrast of style and substance with the Manichean approach of George W. Bush couldn’t be starker.
Only a second-term president without fear of retribution at the polls could wonder whether the war on terror is doing more undermine our values than it is doing to harm our enemies. Senator Saxby Chambliss reacted with his usual sharp intelligence and
declared the speech a win for the terrorists. He continues to think Guantanamo houses our most dangerous enemies and wants to use drones without any accountability in public. I guess I have no doubt what Fox News is saying.
But the president in fact made a strong argument for using drones against those who are planning attacks on the United States or American citizens. He clearly intends to reduce the frequency of drone strikes (in fact, he has already done that), especially outside active war zones like Afghanistan. But he just as clearly wants to continue to hold the authority to kill people who are preparing to strike us. It is impossible to argue that he should not do what he can to prevent attacks on the United States. The question is what procedures and safeguards will be in place to ensure that he–and eventually future presidents who may not be as thoughtful–is not making serious errors.
Guantanamo should be viewed in this context. The question is whether the people there pose a serious threat to the United States. It is likely some do: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example. But
more than half of the 166 still there have been approved for release or transfer. The President regards the Guantanamo issue, which he inherited, as one he does not want to pass on. He said yesterday:
Imagine a future – 10 years from now, or 20 years from now – when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not a part of our country.
The toughest cases are likely to be those in which the detainees have been tortured or their cases otherwise compromised in ways that make prosecution in the United States difficult or impossible. Those who thought torture a good idea should take responsibility for the quandary, but they won’t. That’s also about us, not them.