Dick Cheney -- Keeping BDS alive

Dick Cheney did an interview with Politico and warned that Obama administration policies will make it more likely that the U.S. will be attacked. Naturally this produced immediate howls of outrage on the left. Any time Cheney so much as opens his mouth, he causes a BDS outbreak. One of the more amusing responses came from Spencer Ackerman at Attackerman, who is usually good for some laughs. Ackerman's post is called, "Someone is Lying." I wonder who he means? He writes

Barely two weeks out of office and Dick Cheney is already mongering fear.

That's right, warning about the threat of possible future terrorist attacks is "fearmongering." What about hysterically predicting economic ruin if Democratic spending bills don't pass? Well, that's just fine. Ackerman, like most on the left, is oblivious to hypocrisy unless it comes from Republicans.

Ackerman goes on to whine about Cheney saying that 11-12% of Guantanamo detainees have returned to terrorism, claiming that Cheney's figures have been "debunked." They haven't; they're highly debatable. He says the true figure is actually 4-5%. Hey, no problem then. Let's just turn them all loose. But enough with Ackerman's nonsense. What did Cheney say?

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry”

Dick Cheney may have been wrong about many things (like his extreme theory of a unitary executive), but he's right on target here. There are indeed many people more concerned with terrorist "rights" than protecting the U.S. Read almost any left-wing blog, or numerous libertarian ones. Cheney also points out that defending the country is

“a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”

He's correct again. Unfortunately the usual suspects think we can fight terrorist enemies through neat, tidy, legalistic rules.  Rather than recognizing that a struggle against scattered terrorist non-state actors requires operating in gray areas, they'd rather tie the hands of the U.S.

Cheney scores another telling point.

“The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy."

I'm not certain the Obama administration is as naive as he thinks, but I believe this point is critical. I would go farther than Cheney, and say that the U.S. needs to be not just respected but feared. We should welcome the hatred of many of those who hate the U.S. If they don't hate us we are doing something wrong.

The standard response to everything Cheney says from the left is that Bush administration policies have made us less safe. You'll hear this garbage repeated endlessly like some sort of mantra. This is typical of what passes for left-wing logical reasoning. Regardless of all the mistakes and incompetence of the Bush administration, this charge is complete nonsense. No matter what you think of the morality or legality of Bush administration actions, the fact remains that there was not another major terrorist attack on the U.S. after 9/11 -- period. Even lousy administrations do some things right.