Is this the best we can do?

Much is being made of the Dick Cheney vs. Barack Obama "debate" now going on in the media over national security. The Wall Street Journal has it on the front page today, after Cheney and Obama gave dueling speeches yesterday -- Obama from the rotunda of the National Archives and Cheney from the American Enterprise Institute. As has been his consistent message, Obama again reiterated his view that the Bush administration had "gone off course" in using enhanced interrogation techniques and off-shore prisons, saying that he is seeking to restore "the power of our most fundamental values". The former Vice President, meanwhile is having none of it. Calling the Bush policies "legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do", he again took on the administration's critics by pointing out that "After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked or scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed."

This is an exceedingly vital debate. President Obama has made decisions on the basis of politics that I believe are putting our nation at risk. He caved to the left in precipitously deciding to close Guantanamo without any alternative plan; now it turns out that many of the most hated Bush policies -- using military tribunals and indefinite detention -- will continue. Why? Because more than half of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are too dangerous to try in court or to release back into the civilized world. But where will they go once Guantanamo is closed? No one has a clue, because nobody in Congress wants these lethal prisoners in their backyard. In the halls of Congress, NIMBY is the rule -- unless, of course, it's pork.

The problem for those who think that Obama is on a dangerous path, however, is that it is Dick Cheney leading the charge. Where is the spokesperson for the opposition to this president who isn't past his prime and considered a cross between an "angry white man" and Darth Vader?

We know, of course, that John McCain -- the Republican candidate for president just a short 6 months ago who got more than 44 million votes in the election -- is of little help on this issue, having campaigned himself against enhanced interrogation and for the closing of Guantanamo. So he's been -- by necessity and by temperament -- silent in this debate. But where are the others? Are there any conservatives who have a future (as opposed to a past) in politics willing and able to stand up and say to the nation what it already suspects? That Obama's inexperience and desire to "make everyone happy" is putting us at risk? That his world view -- and thus his emerging foreign policy -- is dangerously naive?

You have to give Obama credit -- he certainly likes to talk as if he is reasoned and balanced in his approach, that he has command of the vital issues that face us as a nation. He is nothing if not outwardly confident. But this president doesn't deal well with specifics and facts. He's long relied on soaring rhetoric that sounds great but says nothing. Like many liberals, he makes statements of opinion as if they are fact, saying it in such a way that it seems beyond dispute -- but offering no evidence to back it up. As the WSJ recounts in its lead editorial today: The President went out of his way to insist that its existence "likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained," albeit without offering any evidence, and that it "has weakened American security," again based only on assertion. What is a plain fact is that in the seven-plus years that Gitmo has been in operation the American homeland has not been attacked.

It is also a plain fact -- and one the President acknowledged -- that many of the detainees previously released, often under intense pressure from Mr. Obama's anti-antiterror allies, have returned to careers as Taliban commanders and al Qaeda "emirs." The New York Times reported yesterday on an undisclosed Pentagon report that no fewer than one in seven detainees released from Gitmo have returned to jihad.

Mr. Obama called all of this a "mess" that he had inherited, but in truth the mess is of his own haphazard design. He's the one who announced the end of Guantanamo without any plan for what to do with, or where to put, KSM and other killers. Now he's found that his erstwhile allies in Congress and Europe want nothing to do with them. Tell us again why Gitmo should be closed?

President Obama is making things up out of whole cloth and peddling them as fact; he is tremendously vulnerable on these issues, because what he says doesn't pass the simple smell test. Why is it Dick Cheney -- a man whose career is over -- shooting the arrows at the president and his party over this?

Is this really the best we can do?

Immigration: The next wave

Much has been written lately on global demographic trends. The disparity in birthrates between traditional Europeans and Muslim immigrants will alter the culture of Europe, unless these immigrants choose to shed their Muslim traditions and become European. That seems rather unlikely, since fundamentalism is more common among European Muslims than among Muslims in most Middle Eastern countries. Within thirty years Europe will have a Muslim majority, and it is likely that European constitutionalism will give way to the imposition of Islamic law. As Europe becomes Islamic, traditional Europeans will find it uncomfortable staying in an increasingly oppressive environment. They will soon be clamoring to leave their homelands, which will become more restrictive of the freedoms to which they have become accustomed.

Immigration to the US from Latin America is starting to level off, as our neighbors to the south move from the second stage of population growth (high birth/low death rates) to the third stage (low birth/low death rates). There will be less incentive to leave Latin America, as fertility rate decline and globalization increases living standards.

So the next wave of immigration to this country will not be impoverished people looking for employment opportunities, but more prosperous people seeking refuge from Islamic Law and hoping to maintain the freedom they had before Sharia came to dictate life in Europe.

This should be a boon to traditional American values, as the new immigrants will be those who have learned to appreciate the liberties they find here. It will also be a boon to property values, as these new immigrants will bring wealth with them and purchase homes upon their arrival.

Too cute by half

George W. Bush had his share of flaws as president, but one of his abiding strengths was his clarity on the most important issues of the day. He was never a good communicator, but you always knew where he stood. He was resolute on protecting America and was willing to put his popularity in the cross hairs of his opponents to do so. He opposed stem-cell research because he is pro-life, and was adamant against the use of tax-payer monies to fund abortions. The Bush clarity was maddening to the left, but was a source of comfort for many in the country who knew that they didn't have to guess on a daily basis where the president stood. Contrast that with Barack Obama, and you are struck by the difference. As during the campaign, Obama still seeks to be all things to all people, trying to split the middle in lawyer-like fashion in order to make everyone happy. His statements on many issues have been muddled and confused, because he is apparently interested in being able to argue both sides with equal conviction. It makes for a fine lawyer. But does it make for a good president?

Daniel Henninger has an interesting take on it today in an opinion piece entitled "Harry, I have a gift". Here's an excerpt:

Early in the campaign, in January 2007, a New York Times reporter wrote a story about Mr. Obama's time as president of the Harvard Law Review. It was there, the reporter noted, "he first became a political sensation."

Here's why: "Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once." Also: "People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama's words."

Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: "Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me."

The reason I have never forgotten this article is its last sentence, in which Al Gore's former chief of staff Ron Klain, also of Harvard Law, reflects on the Obama sensation: "The interesting caveat is that is a style of leadership more effective running a law review than running a country."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a book out next week, tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, "Harry, I have a gift."

He does. We know from tradition, though, that when the gods bestow magic on mortals, the gift can also imperil its possessor. The first hint of potential peril in Mr. Obama's gift arrived last week with the confusion over where the president stood on the terrorist interrogation memos and prosecution of former Bush officials. Here, as 19 years ago, many on both sides of a contentious issue who heard him speak thought Mr. Obama agreed with them.

Henninger goes on to discuss the confusion over the interrogation memos and the potential prosecutions of the memo-writers, when Rahm Emanuel said decisively "no" to prosecutions and the President said "well, maybe". The President was, as is his want, trying to give grist to the left in his public statement, while his staff later took great pains to clarify that he "wants to move on" from this chapter and isn't really interested in a prolonged "witch hunt", etc. It was splitting the difference in a way that Obama likes -- saying enough to appease his base but not so much that he can be pinned down to any clear position. It's Obama's way to use his "gift" to obfuscate and confuse, to distract people from his real intentions. He did it brilliantly during his campaign, where he appeared to be a moderate post-partisan politician who wanted to "change" Washington. The reality as we now know is quite different: a highly partisan pol who doesn't seem strong enough to stand up to the most partisan groups in the Democratic Party.

There is a very real danger when the gift for gab become a substitute for clear thought and concise communication. Perhaps the president's teleprompter has too much sway in this administration, taking the president on verbal forays that are too cute by half. It is bad enough when it confuses the American public. It is worse when it confuses our enemies into believing that we are weak and willing to compromise on even the most vital of national security issues.

I'd take clarity over the gift, any day.

'Suicide of West' imminent?

National Review listed James Burnham's "Suicide of the West" as one of the top 10 books that nudged America toward political conservatism in recent decades. (See rankings in their 50th anniversary edition.) Burnham was a young Trotskyite who turned against Communism and in his later years wrote for National Review. He wrote this book in 1964.

Burnham's thesis was that liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.

For a young person unschooled in political thought, such as I was, this thesis was difficult to believe. Both JFK and LBJ were aggressive in their Cold War liberalism, which in those days included a strong pro-American component. Even the true believers on the Left assured us that they were pro-American, despite appearances to the contrary. Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and I.F. Stone were all leftist idealists, they never actually betrayed their country. Or so we were endlessly and emphatically told in the mass media and in our classrooms.

Well, it turned out that Burnham and his fellow conservatives were correct, and we had been lied to on virtually all fronts. We now know that Hiss, the Rosenbergs, Stone and many others on the American Left spied for the Soviet Union for years.

The leftists were not only for collectivism, they were against America and most of what it stood for. Their virulent assaults against the free market, against a strong military and against traditional American values were all of a piece. They regarded liberal journalists and liberal officials in all three branches of government as "useful idiots" and as loose allies in the steady drip of daily propaganda and assaults against America.

By now we are much further along in this process. Some of the most prominent liberal journalists and liberal Democratic leaders in government are no longer acting as merely useful idiots. Some of them are at last revealing themselves to be more malevolent than that.

This is most clearly seen in their move to prosecute those in the Bush admininistration who authorized the enhanced interrogation techniques (which they falsely call "torture") against a few of our top terrorist enemies.

We should recall at this point that the laws of war and the Geneva Convention clearly distinguish between (1) conventional soldiers and (2) nonuniformed terrorists who hide among civilians and attack from schools, mosques and civilian residences. Conventional soldiers, when captured, must be treated humanely. Nonuniformed terrorists, when captured, may be summarily shot.

Unfortunately, instead of shooting these vicious predators on the spot, our government unwisely treated most of them better than we have ever treated prisoners of war. They get better food in prison than our schoolchildren get in school cafeterias. There have been strict limits even on the interrogation techniques.

In three highly supervised cases waterboarding was employed to get vital information that saved many innocent lives. (Many of our own soldiers and sailors undergo waterboarding as part of their training, hence it is absurd to deem it "torture".)

But now many voices are telling us that this was unacceptable, that America's leaders must be punished, rather than thanked and honored, for this great so-called evil. They quote the Constitution much as Satan quotes Scripture, and they pretend to defend both America and the Constitution. However, this new thrust is clearly intended to demoralize those who are defending the country and to reduce or destroy America's future effectiveness in fighting our enemies.

Here at last the Left is taking a position that is so clearly anti-American that there is very little room at the margin for "useful idiots". Some Democrats on my "lunatic" list claim that foreign terrorists captured on the battlefield should be treated as if they were American citizens with Constitutional protections, but even for them that level of imbecility is not credible. Political maneuvering aside, their position can be seriously maintained for long only by the actual enemies of the United States.

For benefit of the lawyers and other confused citizens, let us apply the Left's argument in mirror image so that everyone can see just how bonkers it really is.

The FDR administration put more than one hundred thousand Japanese American citizens in concentration camps during World War II. This was clearly a much more heinous crime against humanity than waterboarding three Al-Qaeda terrorists. We should therefore prosecute all those Democrats still alive who had anything to do with perpetrating that great injustice. Correct?

The LBJ administration entered the Viet Nam conflict on the false and exaggerated claim of being attacked near the Gulf of Tonkin. This resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers and sailors and of millions of Asians. We should therefore prosecute all those Democrats who had anything to do with perpetrating and acting on that falsehood. Correct?

The Reagan administration's retributive attack across Libya's "line of death" in 1986 happened to kill Gaddafi's innocent young daughter. We should therefore prosecute all the Republicans who had anything to do with that attack. Correct?

The Obama administration's attacks on Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists using Predator drones and other means also produce collateral damage, killing innocent children and others, without benefit of legal hearing or trial by jury. Also the suspects are not even given their Miranda warnings. We should therefore (as Ted Olson has recommended in a recent thought experiment) prosecute everyone in the Obama administration who has anything to do with these attacks whenever they occur. Correct?

No, of course these assertions are clearly not correct. The concept is intended to be used only against the "evil" Bush administration, which in fact was trying with the best of intentions to protect America in a legally acceptable manner.

However, war is not police work, never has been, and never can be. The concept of prosecuting actions like this, if taken seriously, would degrade or destroy our ability to defend ourselves. But that is the whole idea. Our domestic enemies will now have another powerful new tool to weaken us, if we have become so confused and lacking in will as to allow it.

In summary, James Burnham was both correct and extremely prescient. Liberalism is indeed the ideology of Western suicide. We will see this in spades during the next four years.

Against all enemies

Slated on Backbone Radio, Apr. 26 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

The oath so many Americans have sworn, "to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," has a quaint and outmoded ring to it in this new age of Obama the Apologist, Obama the Meek. Who believes in enemies any more? We do, here at Backbone Radio. Sorry, all you dreamy pacifists out there. It's still a dangerous world, with plenty of nations and groups who wish us ill. Enemies is the only name for them, and strength is the only language they understand. Wishful thinking in the White House won't change that.

** This Sunday's show will take a global focus and a national security theme. I'll talk about how to protect our country with Richard V. Allen, former Reagan and Nixon adviser... Michael Tanji of the Center for Threat Awareness... and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

** Plus Joseph C. Phillips, our man in Hollywood... and Rob "Sunny" Roseman, veteran of TV news in Denver.

Less than 100 days into the new administration, and we're told the terrorists can't be called that any more, but the patriots who advised on stopping them belong in jail. It's like a bad dream, only worse because this is real. If America is to be defended, you and I must stand strong as never before. In a word, the need is backbone. Here goes.

Yours for America the Good, JOHN ANDREWS