I think it's worth asking what Obama and Cheney are really arguing about, because the exchanges have been somewhat vague. This is what Cheney said a few weeks ago:
When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what they're doing, closing Guantanamo and so forth, that they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that's required, and that concept of military threat that is essential if you're going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks.
This is, on it's face, hard to square with what the Obama administration has done so far. Whatever the Obama administration's final decisions on detainee policy, they won't be rescinding the military's authority to detain combatants in a war zone. Thus far, they've maintained a wide detention authority and upheld the Bush policy of treating the entire world as the battlefield in the war on terrorism, which means that terrorist suspects will be treated as "enemy combatants" (even if they're not referred to as such) and subject to the approach outlined in the AUMF rather than the criminal justice system. They Obama administration may eventually move to treating terror suspects captured outside the zone of active combat as criminals, but there's no evidence yet that they're doing that.
Meanwhile, Obama offered a response on 60 Minutes yesterday:
Well, I think we're going to have to figure out a mechanism to make sure that they not released and do us harm. But-- do so in a way that is consistent with both our traditions, sense of due process, international law. But this is-- this is the legacy that's been left behind. And, you know, I'm surprised that-- the Vice President is eager-- to defend-- a legacy that was unsustainable.
[...]
I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that-- Vice President Cheney has been-- at the head of a-- movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the l-- wrong lesson from history.
As I said above, there's no indication, beyond rhetoric, that the Obama administration is moving to a "law enforcement" approach to dealing with terrorism as of yet, and some evidence they're doing the opposite. So what is Obama referring to when he talks about consistency with American traditions and international law? What are Obama and Cheney really arguing about?
It seems fairly obvious to me that the former vice president and the current president are arguing about torture and interrogation procedures, simply by process of elimination. What's been unfolding before our eyes is essentially an argument about whether or not the United States can continue to torture terrorism suspects. The "concept of military threat" that Cheney is referring to is the same concept that, in his view, justified America's turn to the "dark side." The fundamental departure that Obama has made from the prior administration thus far is binding all agents of the government to interrogation procedures outlined in the Army Field Manual and closing the black sites, so it's hard to assume he can really be talking about anything else. Obama's response also seems to assume that Cheney, when he refers to abandoning the "concept of military threat" is talking about abandoning those interrogation policies "justified" by the threat of terrorism.
Obama and Cheney have been arguing over whether the United States should torture in the public eye for the past two weeks. Because of the former vice president's use of euphemism, that wasn't entirely clear at first.
UPDATE: Greg Sargent notes that Obama seems to have come "awfully close to directly accusing Cheney of torture."
-- A. Serwer
