Another Political Blog, I’m afraid. These may subside after awhile. But right now the dynamics of American Politics are awfully interesting, and I do think that this piece has some connection with problem solving and KM.
Once again, Dick Cheney has disturbed the peace. In a transparent attempt to “salt the mine,” he has delivered a dire warning that abandoning the practices of the Bush Administration with respect to Guantanamo and torture will leave us in grave danger of another terrorist attack on US soil, this one one during the Obama Administration. Cheney claims he knows this because he has had access to secret information that the rest of us don’t have. Along with those in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Administrations, who claimed to know things the rest of us could not know about Vietnam because we had no access to the classified information they had, he relishes using this sort of “reinforced dogmatism,” because he fancies that there is no way to argue successfully against him, because the “factual” grounding “justifying” his conclusion is available only to him and not to us.
Of course, he is quite mistaken in this. There are some very good arguments against his views. They’re ad hominem, of course, and don’t really confront the substance of his argument. But since he’s using a reinforced dogmatism anyway, there really is no substance to confront, and that’s his choice, not ours. In any event here are two such replies.
First, there’s the conjecture that when US Government officials offer a conclusion and claim to know that something is certainly true based on their special access to classified information, that conclusion turns out to be generally false. We have had much experience with this in relation to facts about the Vietnam War, the Domino Theory, the supposed intentions of the USSR and China, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the WMD in Iraq argument, the prior presence of al qaeda in Iraq and countless others. It is, in fact, hard to think of even one counter-example where a public conclusion based on classified information which the US Government could not reveal turned out to be true. Perhaps this is too harsh and I’m certainly open to counter-examples. But the track record of the Government in asserting conclusions of this kind, has been very poor since at least the Eisenhower Administration, and the track record of “Cassandra” Cheney himself has been highly questionable on matters ranging from WMD to Al Qaeda in Iraq to “yellow cake” sales to Iraq.
So, given the track record of the US Government in such matters, and Cheney’s own track record of knowledge claims based on secrecy, what likelihood of being true should we give this latest assertion, particularly the part of it suggesting that we can avert an attack by continuing to imprison people in Guantanamo and torture them? I think that likelihood is quite low, not so much in relation to the part of his assertion predicting another attack, which, unfortunately may be quite likely, but, rather in relation to his claim that it can be prevented by maintaining Bush Administration practices.
Second, of course, the hysterical Press has fallen all over itself to cover this “news story” of Cheney’s latest “grave” warning, as if it were really news. But, consider, here we have a man whose reputation is ruined in most circles, and whose current standing in polls is currently lower than the standing of either Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers. Now, he has basically three choices in reacting to the changes Obama is making in Bush Administration policy on Guantanamo and torture. He can be silent. He can express approval of what Obama is doing. Or he can strongly disapprove, while issuing a dire warning.
If he’s silent, that does nothing for his reputation. If he approves of what Obama is doing, his remaining very small base will crucify him. If he does what he just did and he’s wrong; well, things can’t really get any worse, because he’s at bottom now. On the other hand, if there is an attack on American soil again, he is once again a wise man in at least some circles. In short, giving a dire warning, is the one thing one would expect him to say, because it’s the only way to gain something from this issue for himself and his legacy.
Since the failure of the Bush Administration to do anything substantial about protecting the US’s ports and borders, while it conducted a Foreign Policy that by all accounts is a wonderful recruiting tool for the terrorist movement, has greatly increased the likelihood that there will be an attack on the United States, it would not actually be surprising if there were another in the next few years. In fact, such an attack is probably what we should expect. However, a successful attack is unlikely to have very much to do with President Obama’s abandonment of Bush’s policies and everything instead to do with the failure of Bush and Cheney’s incompetent and mindless response to September 11th — a response and a legacy that, unfortunately, both President Obama and the rest of us will have to suffer.
To Be Continued