Obama vs. Cheney: Human Rights First weighs in

That was quite a show on Thursday.

First, President Obama delivered a speech on national security, in which he defended his decision to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay and righteously pointed out how we can effectively fight terrorism without compromising our values.

Obama's speech was quite good, but not perfect. He made good arguments against torture, against the politics of fear, and in favor of congressional involvement and oversight. The speech's greatest imperfection, in my opinion, was that he described an unnecessary category of detainee whom he believes cannot be prosecuted and who will therefore remain in custody indefinitely, possibly without any apparent legal recourse.

Of course, the stage was set for that category by the Bush administration, which used torture to obtain unreliable testimony that cannot therefore be used in prosecuting possible terrorists. So Obama finds himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. But he is a constitutional attorney. So if anyone can find a more just alternative, I would hope that he can. And I hope that he will.

In the meantime, Human Rights First -- a group of mostly human rights lawyers -- also reacted to Obama's speech with some good points.

From Human Rights First's CEO Elisa Massimino:

"[T]he President rightly recognized that our values are our best national security asset; however, his specific proposals undermine the vision he presented. If the President really wants to 'enlist the power of our fundamental values' he will turn to our federal courts and away from the flawed military commissions system, and he will abandon the misguided plans for indefinite detention of individuals without trial. By continuing to treat these prisoners as warriors, President Obama misses the opportunity to delegitimize them and shift the focus from our flawed procedures to their own heinous conduct.

"The decision yesterday to send a Guantanamo detainee to the United States to stand trial was a step toward rebuilding trust in our institutions. If repeated, this demonstration of confidence in our federal courts will make our country more secure."

Amen.

But then former VP Dick Cheney stepped back onto his own weird and creepy soapbox and continued to preach about how great it is to torture human beings.

Massimino weighed in on that as well:

"Former Vice President Cheney continued his pro-torture public relations push at the American Enterprise Institute today where we heard more of the same: unproven assertions that torture has kept America safe. In contrast, national security experts – interrogators from all branches of the government and military leaders who have served on the front lines -- know that torture produces unreliable information and puts our men and women in uniform at risk. President Obama, the man responsible for setting national security policy and upholding the Constitution, was right to reject these stale arguments of the past eight years in his speech this morning."

All that should go without saying.

Unfortunately, however, it does not. Cheney continues to insist that we must break the law and compromise our values in order to "protect ourselves" even though his preferred methods have been proven ineffective and even counter-effective.

And so his persistence continues to astound me.

After all, 9/11 happened on Bush/Cheney's watch.

On a more comprehensive level, Human Rights First has published a good point-by-point debunking of Cheney's talking points.

>> Check it out: FACT SHEET: Vice President Cheney Debunked

It's been said that Cheney lives on the dark side. We need to keep shining a light on it.