Bush Kept us Safe?

Osama bin Laden once noted, "Americans may have the watches, but Arabs have the time." As the clock wound down on President Bush's tenure many of the administration's apologists were quick note that there were no further attacks on American soil in the 2,688 days following 9/11. This is a welcome fact. And I hope historians and future generations will find that for all his faults, President Bush did do some things right. However, it is dangerously simplistic to assume that 2,688 without an attack should count as evidence in favor of Bush's counter terrorism policies.

In his book The Black Swan authorNassim Taleb, a philosopher and statistician who studies improbable events, relates the parable of the turkey who takes each day he is fed and cared as further evidence that the farmer loves him. The turkey's inductive reasoning seems sounder and sounder every day of the year, until Thanksgiving.

Marc A. Thiessen, chief speechwriter for President Bush, is the kind of figure Taleb would likely call a turkey. Writing in the Washington Post, Thiessen cites the 2,688 day figure and then fallaciously deduces that if there is another attack it will be because an Obama Administration weakened the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" policy and other counterterrorism methods.

Thiessen's logic fails on so many levels that it's easy to see how such defective thinking contributed to one of the worst administration's in American history. To begin with, al-Qaeda and other Arab terror organizations operate according to a vastly different time-frame than we do in the West. Put simply, al-Qaeda and it like-minded affiliates are thinking in terms of generations and centuries, while much of America's political class are thinking in terms of election cycles. Insisting a relatively narrow sliver of time without an attack constitutes evidence of success (in a war that Bush himself said will be a generational affair) is not all that different from a turkey crowing "Mission Accomplished" right after feeding time.

Basically, the 2,688 days without an attack spiel is little more than a demagogic ploy, the political equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. A more accurate slogan might go like this: At least Bush kept us safe and secure, excepting for 9/11, Katrina, and the financial meltdown.

Arguing that "enhanced interrogation" methods have kept America safe is patently bogus too. To begin with, "enhanced interrogation" is nothing but a euphemism for torture. The Bush administration resorted to legal sophistry in its Alice in Wonderland interpretation of the Constitution, leading it to define torture in terms so narrow that the concept no longer had any practical meaning. President Obama has brought some much needed moral clarity to the issue by insisting that the Army Field Manual and the Geneva Conventions will govern how detainees in U.S. custody are treated.

Thiessen claims torture works. Undoubtedly, in some cases this is true. But most counterterrorism experts agree that torture frequently leads to false confessions. When torture is involved, it is exceedingly difficult to sort out good information from bad. Indeed, some of the "evidence" the Bush administration used to substantiate its case that Saddam possessed WMD was gleaned through torture. It may be true that torture has prevented attacks, but torture also helped lead to the foolish war with Iraq. Ironically, the subsequent torture and abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib will in all likelihood help breed a new generation of jihadists determined to attack the United States.

Torture also brutalizes, desensitizes, and corrupts the personnel and the institutions that resort to barbarism to extract information. The America people correctly sensed that dispensing with our values, as the Bush administration most assuredly did, would not lead to greater security over the long haul. Put simply, the Bush administration's radical departure from America's traditional ideals regarding the humane treatment of prisoners sapped American morale and expanded the ranks of our enemies.

Theissen's most outrageous fallacy is his claim that if there is a future attack during Obama's tenure, then the fault will lay with his administration. This is typical of the divisive fear mongering the American people are rightly revolted with following eight years of Bush's political demagoguery. If there is another attack, then the blame will lie with those who carried out the attack. America will need to come together to work towards the common purpose of defeating our enemies. Pointing fingers to score political points will be a recipe for self-defeat. There was a moment after 9/11 when President Bush had the goodwill and trust of the American people behind him, but he blew it.

The claim that Bush's extra-legal policies kept the polis safe are not dissimilar to an athlete using steroids who insists a great run is proof of his fitness. Over time, the extra legal techniques of torture will weaken the body politic, just as steroids will weaken the athlete's body. America is a less resilient country because of Bush's policies. The American people were right to reject the self-defeating policies of Bush/Cheney

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