Learn How to Beat Dick Cheney!

In late August 2003, the threads of hope that held together the War in Iraq were beginning to shred on a daily basis. The relationship my soldiers and I shared with the Iraqi civilians began to crumble and it was only a few short months before one of our close friends died to the growing violence. So much of this could have been avoided if there had been real leadership in Washington that understood national security.

So, like many other progressive veterans, I was shocked when the Democrats lost the 2004 election, and even more shocked to learn that most of the country still trusted the Republicans more on national security. In August 2003, Democrats lagged by 29 points in this metric.

Today, Dick Cheney and President Obama square off on just this topic.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Democracy Corps released survey earlier this week with results showing that "Obama Closes the Democrats' Historical National Security Gap"

According to the poll:

President Obama's performance on national security has been perceived as so strong that for now, it has effectively erased the deficit on national security that has shadowed the Democratic Party since the Vietnam War. For the first time in our polling, the public sees the Democratic and Republican parties as statistically tied on both "national security" (41 percent trust Democrats more, 43 percent trust Republicans more) and "the war on terrorism" (41 to 41 percent).

Obama's leadership represents a tradition of Democratic Presidents who have a proven effective approach to national security, which includes:

1. support a strong military and be willing to use force to fight our enemies
2. build strong alliances
3. actions taken internationally should uphold American values

This is how we won WWI, WWII, and this is what Obama is doing now by ending torture, engaging the international community, and executing a real strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clearly, the American public is responding.

These actions have provided progressives an opening to gain a foothold on this issue. But don't think that the Republicans are lying down without a fight...they believe this is THEIR issue!

Remember just a few weeks ago when the Republican leadership began to bang the drum on national security with this ad, asking Americans... "Do You Feel Safer?"

Resurgent Republic, the conservative response to Democracy Corps, is working to find key wedge issues that they can drive home so that regain the national security advantage. Unfortunately, they believe torture, or in their language - "harsh interrogations," is just that issue. They have released their own survey as they work to define this argument.

So while we might have put the Republicans on the ropes, they are preparing to swing back. That is why Cheney is attempting to go back on the offensive by giving his speech today.

As the COO of Truman National Security Project we are working on helping the progressive community lead on the issue of national security. We have recently released a backgrounder on The National Security Case Against Torture to help progressives stay on the offensive. This backgrounder will give you the messaging tips needed to combat the Cheney offensive.

In the darkest hours of World War II, Winston Churchill refused to torture Nazi prisoners in British custody. He rightly feared that institutionalized torture would erode a nation's moral fiber. What we must recognize today is that in the current international security context, the moral question is about more than a feeling of self satisfaction. Rather, the "morality case" against torture is part and parcel of the national security case. US policy must live up to American values because, for our enemies, "hypocrisy" is a persuasive recruitment tool. And without confidence and trust, skilled interrogators stand little chance of acquiring the reliable intelligence we need to keep United States safe.

It is incredibly important that we continue to drive home the point that the GOP's approach to national security is "reckless" and "out of touch." Progressives must stay on the offensive to recapture the issue of national security and make it our own.

Learn how to beat Dick Cheney and learn more about how progressives can lead on national security by signing up for our backgrounders and newsletters at Truman National Security Project .

Comments

[RosieLee]

Did the British torture captured enemy captives?

Imagine looking up at the sky and seeing it grow dark with the silhouettes of hundreds of bomber planes wheeling above you and about to drop thousands of bombs on your town and home. That was a nightly experience for the British, including my family, for 9 months during the most intensive period of the World War 2 bombing of British cities: the blitz.

Hitler had ordered the bombing and invasion of Britain. When we refused to surrender, and our RAF mounted a formidable defence of our island, Hitler ordered the sustained and intensive terror bombing of our major cities.

On an average night, 200 German bombers dropped c 300 tons of bombs. Among the cities heavily hit were London, Liverpool and Coventry. One night in 1940, 469 bombers destroyed most of Coventry. Hitler wrongly believed intensive torture would force our surrender. Instead, for 6 years, the sleep deprived British lived underground like sewer rats, in constant fear of bombing, rocket attacks and invasion, yet emerged from shelters every morning, spirits stiffened by the resolve never to surrender, and went to work.

Over 60,000 civilians were killed, 87,000 seriously injured and 2 million homes were destroyed in Britain during WW2.

Did we torture captives? We sometimes had no choice. It saved countless lives. That makes us inhuman and unprincipled? 60 million people who died during WW2 and millions more who would have died without such formidable allied resistance would disagree with you.

[RosieLee]

From July 1940, numbers 6, 7 and 8 Kensington Palace Gardens were home to one of Britain's most secret military establishments: the London office of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, known colloquially as the London Cage. It was run by MI19, the section of the War Office responsible for gleaning information from enemy prisoners of war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/nov/12/secondworldwar.world

The Guardian newpaper investigated documents stored at UK's National Archives and the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, and states:

"The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to systematic ill-treatment. In total 3,573 men passed through the Cage, and more than 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes."

"Beatings, sleep deprivation and starvation [were] used on SS and Gestapo men" at this " POW camp in Kensington kept secret and hidden from Red Cross" (The Guardian website)

[Dolmance]

No, we didn't torture German POW's. We didn't have to. Not with an ally like Russia, which went into Germany and proceeded to rape every woman they could get their hands on and execute every SS member that laid down their arms. And don't forget the 500,000 German soldiers who were captured at Stalingrad and marched into captivity. Ten years later 5000 returned home alive.

The real problem with Bush and Co. is that they were incompetent. And they went hysterical after 9/11 and attacked the wrong country.

Johnson gave us Vietnam and the Democrats were in the wilderness for forty years. Bush gave us Iraq and I hope the same thing happens to the Republicans. But to think the more awful aspects of war can be moderated is silly. War is the cessation of human rights and civil law. The very definition of war is atrocity.

[rbrinega]

We prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding, held the Nuremburg trials, and prosecuted US soldiers for using the waterboard during and before VietNam. It is too broad a brush that you are using to discuss this.

[DesertRat09]

rbrinega, you really need to do your homework before exposing yourself. The "waterboarding" the Japanese utilized during WWII is a far cry from that employed at Gitmo. Let's just say that with the Japanese there were few, if any, efforts to prevent the death of the prisoner. Not to mention the abominable things they did to the Chinese. You really ought to read up on it before you attempt to equate that the Japanese did in WWII to what occurred at Gitmo.