Democrats angry about Cheney's views on Gitmo

Politico:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s warnings about the risks of closing Guantanamo Bay prison and changing other Bush-era policies this week angered Democrats and some top counter-terrorism experts, who said Cheney was reviving the same scare tactics voters had rejected in electing Barack Obama.

Cheney made his comments in an interview this week with Politico in which he unyieldingly defended the detention facility and coercive interrogations of terrorism suspects — and warned that changing course would invite another mass-casualty terror attack potentially worse than the ones on Sept. 11.

Many experts, even those who disagree sharply on most issues with Cheney, concur that a large-scale unconventional attack remains the most dangerous national security threat, if not necessarily the most likely. Obama himself has warned of such a catastrophic attack.

But Cheney’s comments revived a debate that will long outlast the presidential campaign — over what are the best tactics to prevent another attack, and whether the U.S. is more or less safe with Guantanamo open, by using harsh interrogation techniques and other controversial steps that Mr. Obama has taken steps to terminate.

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James Carafano, a homeland security expert at the Heritage Foundation, argued that Cheney was right to emphasize the dangers of future attacks. He argued that keeping in place many of the most controversial elements of the Bush administration’s counterterrorist tactics was vital to prevent future attacks.

“If you actually start to unravel some of these things, then you are going to create new vulnerabilities,” he said.

Obama’s argument is that such tactics make the country less safe by inciting anti-U.S. feeling among Arabs and Muslims. What is needed, administration aides say, is more attention on stabilizing Afghanistan and on eliminating Al Qaeda havens in Pakistan, which he has promised to carry out.

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Obama's position is demonstrably wrong. We were attacked repeatedly up to and including 9-11 when the tactics were not in use and we have not been attacked in the homeland since. Our defending our self is not responsible for the Islamic religious bigotry that is the driving force behind the enemy actions. That is entirely self generated. There is no codependency relationship responsible for their mass murder for Allah campaign.

Closing Gitmo is a gift to our enemies as is the dropping of enhance interrogation techniques. Both moves are real screw ups that will make us less safe and the war against last much longer.