More on today’s Obama and Cheney speeches in due course, but first another bout: Dick Cheney vs David Petraeus. Cheney argued today that:
In the other corner, in 2007 General Petraeus wrote to US and allied troops srving in Iraq warning them that:If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right.
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