Video: US Public Diplomacy, Elizabeth Cheney, and the Denial of Torture

Last weekend Elizabeth Cheney, former Assistant Secretary of State in the Bush Administration (and, far from incidentally, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney), held the line on MSNBC against any criticism of the Bush-Cheney "extreme interrogation" policies: "It wasn't torture....Everything that was done in this program...are tactics that our own people go through in SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape] training."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AF9rV0tw6A[/youtube]

Cheney's appearance is part of the public-relations, Bush/Cheney legacy fightback against the confirmation of torture.She repeats the disinformation that waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Abu Zubaydah provided "incredible important and useful information that saved American lives". She echoes the warning that "national security" is endangered by the revelation of "enhanced interrogation", referring viewers to other parts of the propaganda effort, such as the opinion piece by former Director of the CIA Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey in The Wall Street Journal.

(As for Cheney's explanation of "it's not torture": SERE training was developed for US troops in preparation for the torture that they might undergo if captured. The techniques and punishments they endured were adapated by Bush officials for use upon detainees.)

So why focus on this particular interview? Well, in 2002 Elizabeth Cheney was put forth as the State Department's official to lead public diplomacy's engagement with the Middle East. Press and web releases heralded her leadership of the Middle East Partnership Institute to "strengthen civil society and the rule of law": "We all – every one of us-- want to live in freedom. Not because we are American or Iraqi or Afghan or Egyptian or Saudi or Kuwaiti or Iranian."

Thus, when MSNBC interviewer Norah O'Donnell quotes the comment of current Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image in the world," it speaks directly to Cheney's supposed mission in the Bush White House.

Cheney's response? She merely recycles talking points about "the effectiveness of these programs". There is not a single word responding to the wider (and perhaps more important) challenge about how "the programs" affected the view that the rest of the world has of the US Government and its policies.

How was American partnership with other countries and peoples advanced by the breaking of international law and the exposure of US values as disposable, if not hypocritical? And how are current US efforts in and beyond the Middle East advanced by the wilful denial that there was any improper, let alone illegal, activity in the Bush War on Terror? How do Cheney's words dispel the suspicion that torture has not been put outside the boundaries of American politics and society but merely hidden away?

No doubt Elizabeth Cheney got a Thank You card from her father for her personal diplomacy on his behalf. I'm not so sure that the present State Department, putting in a great deal of effort to raise its public diplomacy profile with social media to complement high-profile initiatives by Hillary Clinton and other officials, pubt one in the mail.

Flashback: The Bush Administration Knew It was Torture

Just compiling notes for the book and came across this account from Alberto Mora, who was General Counsel for the United States Navy in the Bush Administration, of a conversation with John Yoo of the White House Office of Legal Counsel:

On February 6th [2003], Mora invited Yoo to his office, in the Pentagon, to discuss the opinion. Mora asked him, “Are you saying the President has the authority to order torture?”

“Yes,” Yoo replied.

“I don’t think so,” Mora said.

“I’m not talking policy,” Yoo said. “I’m just talking about the law.”

“Well, where are we going to have the policy discussion, then?” Mora asked.

...Yoo replied that he didn’t know; maybe, he suggested, it would take place inside the Pentagon, where the defense-policy experts were.

The draft [Pentagon] working-group report noted that the Uniform Code of Military Justice barred “maltreatment” but said, “Legal doctrine could render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful.” In an echo of the Torture Memo, it also declared that interrogators could be found guilty of torture only if their “specific intent” was to inflict “severe physical pain or suffering” as evidenced by “prolonged mental harm.” Even then, it said, echoing Yoo, the Commander-in-Chief could order torture if it was a military necessity: “Congress may no more regulate the President’s ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield.”

Petraeus v. Obama (Part 158): Israel and Iran

There was a bit of a media rumble this week over an interview that the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. Netanyahu made it quite clear that he held open the option of an airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilties.

This is not dramatic news. Tel Aviv has been shaking an aerial fist at Tehran for years, but a unilateral Israeli operation, even if technically possible, risks an Iranian political and military response --- and reaction from other countries and groups --- throughout and beyond the Middle East.

So, at the least, Israel needs the US to cover its back. And the Bush Administration, despite all its pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian sympathies, refused such support in summer 2008.

This is where America's other President, General David Petraeus, enters the scene. Even as the Obama Administration has been pursuing engagement with Iran, Petraeus --- both directly and through acolytes --- has been loudly talking about Iranian support for insurgent operations against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, the General went a step further. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “The Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it.”

This may not be an outright endorsement of a Tel Aviv strike, but it is comfortably close to acceptance of an operation. Petraeus didn't risk the usual (unsupported) pretext that Iran is close to a Bomb; instead, he stretched justification to “Iranian officials have consistently failed to provide the assurances and transparency necessary for international acceptance and verification”.

You could try out the explanation that the Obama Administration is playing "good cop, bad cop" with Tehran; on Tuesday, envoy Richard Holbrooke signals co-operation at The Hague conference on Afghanistan, 24 hours later Petraeus warns of consequences if Iran doesn't accept the extended hand.

That, however, is a fool's approach. The most casual observer could tell you that Iran does not react kindly to blatant pressure. And the consequences of Tehran walking away from talks in the face of Petraeus' threats, given the American position in Afghanistan, are far greater than they were in 2003 when the Bush Administration pulled a similar stunt.

No, the latest Petraeus intervention is as much a response to his President as it is to Tehran.

The General has a previous record on this issue. In 2007, he was serving under the then head of Central Command, William Fallon. The two men didn't see eye-to-eye: a year later, Fallon was gone with Petraeus on his way to succeeding him.

The standard narrative, for those who noted the battle, was that Petraeus had to get his Iraq "surge" past a resistant Fallon. That is certainly true, but more broadly, to deal with regional issues, Fallon advocated a strategy of engaging Iran rather than isolating it. That was also opposed by Petraeus.

Move forward two years. After the muddle in US policy, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clumsily trying to press Iran via the spectre of conflict with Arab states, Washington settles on the possibilities of a step-by-step engagement.

Who doesn't like that?

Israel. And President Obama's most prominent military commander.