12/14/09

The Obama administration has made it clear that in order to successfully advance American security and interests in the world, U.S. foreign policy must be grounded in America’s best principles.  This is a positive break from the previous Bush administration, which too often defined American principles as values to be put to the side in the pursuit of a narrowly defined set of ambitions that often undermined American security.   

Yet while the decisions being made by the Obama administration clearly reject the false choice being promulgated by extreme conservatives “between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values,” these voices continue to aggressively attack the principled and pragmatic positions that Americans voted for last year.  For example, the neoconservative Liz Cheney appeared on Fox News this weekend, calling the president’s speech in Oslo “shameful” and “slanderous".  Yet, military and national security experts advocate pursuing policies that are in line with our principles in order to keep America safe and advance America’s interests in the world.  While Cheney attacked such a view, it is essential that the President continue to practice such a foreign policy, one that is based on America’s strongest values, traditions, and principles.

Obama uses Oslo speech to put American principles at core of his foreign policy doctrine.  For years, the Bush administration preached about American principles, but didn't practice them through their foreign policy.  In a recent speech for the American Enterprise Institute, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney epitomized this view by saying that “in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half-exposed.”  President Obama’s speech in Oslo was a strong rebuttal to this view.  Instead of seeing our principles as an alternative to his administration’s foreign policy, the President identified them as the bedrock of his administration’s foreign policy doctrine: “In some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists -- a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values. I reject this choice.”

The President went on, explaining that whenever America is faced with the use of force, it has an obligation to conduct itself justly: “Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.” [Dick Cheney, speech at AEI, 05/21/09. President Obama, 12/10/09]

Extreme conservatives continue to undermine a principled American foreign policy despite advice from national security professionals. Rather than heed the President’s admonition to hold dear to American principles, extreme conservatives chose to continue the pattern of using national security as an excuse for trampling on our principles and values.  Liz Cheney appeared on Fox News this weekend to blast the President, saying: “But we still had in this speech, you know, it is almost like it has become reflexive, this notion that America abandoned its ideals after 9/11. And I think that as we see this president repeatedly go on foreign soil, and accuse America of having tortured people, talk about Guantanamo Bay as an abandonment of our ideals, you know, that part of the speech to me really is nothing short of shameful. And it is not just an attack on political opponents. It really is casting dispersions and, I would say, slandering the men and women in the CIA who carried out key programs to keep us safe and the people frankly right now at Guantanamo Bay who are guarding some of the worst terrorists. So I think that part of the speech represents something I hope the president will stop soon.”

Sadly, Cheney was not alone.  Appearing on a Sean Hannity special explicitly identified as intended to attack the administration’s plans to bring the 9/11 planners to justice in New York City, Rudy Giuliani accused the Obama administration of “going back to a pre-9/11 mentality.”  [Liz Cheney, via Huffington Post, 12/13/09. Rudy Giuliani on Sean Hannity Fox News special report, 12/11/09]

These conservative attacks have been consistently rebutted by the testimony of prominent national security figures who support the President’s view that our values and our security must go hand in hand:

• Five Former Secretaries of State: U.S. must close Guantanamo to restore America’s image. Former Secretaries of State Kissinger, Albright, Powell, Baker, and Christopher all agreed that closing Guantanamo Bay is vital for repairing the damage it has caused to America’s image. As James Baker, Secretary of State for George H.W. Bush, said forcefully: “Close Guantanamo. We were on a panel together several months ago, and we all agreed, one of the best things that could happen would be to close Guantanamo, which is a very serious blot upon our reputation.” [CNN, 9/20/08]
• Open, federal trials for 9/11 plotters – in accordance with our best traditions - will lay bare their horrific crimes for the whole world to see. Council on Foreign Relations Middle East and counterterrorism expert StevenSimon argued that trying the 9/11 plotters in civilian courts represented a “chance to show the world, you know, the evil, for lack of a better word, of the people who visited this terrible, terrible thing on New York City and the people in those buildings on 9/11, and I think that's really important.” [Steven Simon, CFR Interview, 11/18/09]
• Petraeus: Moral High Ground gives our troops the advantage on the battlefield. General David Petraeus said in a 2007 letter to his troops: “This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that, we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground.”  [General Petraeus, 5/11/07]
• Failure to maintain principles likely resulted in the loss of ‘hundreds’ of American lives:  Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified before Congress that the stain on America’s image caused by Guantanamo Bay led directly to American deaths: “Serving U.S. flag-rank officers... maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” [Alberto Mora, 6/17/08]

President Obama must uphold his promise to keep America safe while adhering to our principles, values, and traditions.  Last month President Obama acknowledged “that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president,” according to the New York Times.  In addition, there have been unsettling reports about prisoner treatment in Bagram.  While it is important to close Guantanamo Bay responsibly, and the president was handed a legally, ethically, and diplomatically precarious situation by his predecessor, it remains vitally important that the president continues to show the leadership to follow through on his promises to keep American policy in line with its values.  As Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress writes, “The Obama administration has made vital changes to U.S. policies to improve America’s respect for human rights and the rule of law. It was important to make these changes not only for our moral responsibilities and the legacy of American leadership, but because the stain of the Bush administration had become a strategic problem for the United States. It remains a national security imperative that the Obama administration close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, unequivocally renounce torture and abusive interrogation, and shut down CIA-run secret prisons... A sustained retreat from these goals will undermine early accomplishments, erode the credibility of President Obama, and weaken the United States and our security.” [Ken Gude, 12/10/09. NY Times, 11/18/09]

What We’re Reading

President Obama expects demonstrable results from his new Afghanistan policy within a year. But concerns grow over the Afghan government’s ability to support reconciliation and reintegration programs for former Taliban fighters.

U.S. officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into the major city of Quetta in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders believed to based there.

At Iraqi auctions of rights to develop major oil fields, Chinese, Russian and European companies win rights while U.S. firms make a paltry showing.

A British government inquiry into the origins of their decision to join the US invasion of Iraq has revealed fresh insights into why then-Prime Minister Tony Blair ignored the skepticism of his advisers in order to build a relationship with then-President George W. Bush, despite being left out of the majority of Bush’s planning processes.

Western officials say the Iranian foreign minister's weekend comments that Tehran would be willing to make a uranium trade in small batches, and on Iranian soil, fell well short of their original proposal to export Iranian nuclear material. As the political opposition in Iran grows more radical, the recent phenomena of defiling pictures of Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, has created even more division amongst Iranians.

The recent episode of five Northern Virginian men arrested in Pakistan under the suspicion of being terrorist recruits point to the dangers posed by an extensive and sophisticated network of online terrorist recruiters, but also the limitations.

FBI agents made an urgent trip to India and Pakistan last week after they learned of plotting of Mumbai-style terrorism attacks while investigating a Chicago man's case, according to current and former U.S., Indian and European counterterrorism officials.

Refugees flee Eritrea as sanctions loom for Eritrea’s policy of sending money and weapons to al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels in nearby Somalia while enforcing massive political repression at home.

More than 1,400 civilians were deliberately killed this year in eastern Congo during two successive military operations, and the United Nations urgently needs “a new approach to protect civilians,” according to a Human Rights Watch report.

Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico's pipelines in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding Mexico’s national treasury.

The Cuban government arrested an American citizen working on a contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was distributing cell phones and laptop computers to Cuban activists.

Thai authorities intercept a shipment of arms and apparently sophisticated missiles from North Korea as officials determine whether the cargo was headed to South Asia or the Middle East.

Commentary of the Day

The New York Times thanks NATO allies for sending extra troops to Afghanistan, but still urges more NATO countries to help shoulder the burden and reap the security benefits of a more stable Afghanistan.

John Broder explains why President Obama’s trip to the Copenhagen climate change summit will be seriously handicapped by Senate inaction on curbing carbon emissions.

The Los Angeles Times believes the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals should rule against the Obama administration’s invocation of the ‘state secrets privilege’ and allow an alleged torture victim his day in court.