Back to Cheney’s interview on FNS, he specifically defended the Bush administration, including interrogations that went beyond legal strictures1 by noting that there was no other attacks on the US after 9/11. For example:
The thing I keep coming back to time and time again, Chris, is the fact that we’ve gone for eight years without another attack. Now, how do you explain that?The critics don’t have any solution for that. They can criticize our policies, our way of doing business
Along those lines, Chris Wallace ended the first half of the round table segment with the following:
WALLACE: Alirght, we have to take a break here but I just want to point out to the audience that it is purely coincidental that this country has not been attacked since 9/11.
Video can be viewed here, if you wish to see it.
Watching it live (well, via TiVo) I was struck by the sarcasm in his tone, not to mention it struck me as rather un-moderator like.
Beyond any of that, however, Cheney and Wallace both are making a radically simplistic and logically problematic argument here: that specifically the only reason there were no attacks on the US post-9/11 was because of “enhanced interrogations”. Setting aside that we had the still unsolved anthrax attacks after 9/11 (and the fact that these “enhanced interrogations” did not prevent massive attacks in Bali, Madrid and London), one cannot reduce all of post-9/11 security policy to the interrogation of detainees (which is essentially what Cheney and Wallace are trying to do).
Not only is there the very real possibility that the same intel could have been obtained without abusing prisoners, the bottom line is that there were other policy actions that are rather relevant here, not the least of which being the massive disruption of al Qaeda after 9/11 by the invasion of Afghanistan. Indeed, the very arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed itself was likely directly responsible for disrupting al Qaeda’s plans, whether he spoke or not.
The very fact that post-attack US security was going to radically increase meant that more attacks were less likely. And there is always the very real possibility that al Qaeda had invested all of its assets into 9/11 and didn’t have the capabilities for another massive attack on the US.
In other words, to reduce the lack of another 9/11-style attack on the US to interrogations techniques is a gross over-simplification engaged in to defend highly questionable decisions and policies. If anything it violates a very basic dictum of Social Science 101: correlation is not proof of causation (not by a longshot).
Sphere: Related Content- For example:
WALLACE: Do you think what they did, now that you’ve heard about it, do you think what they did was wrong?
CHENEY: Chris, my sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States, and giving us the intelligence we needed to go find Al Qaeda, to find their camps, to find out how they were being financed. Those interrogations were involved in the arrest of nearly all the Al Qaeda members that we were able to bring to justice. I think they were directly responsible for the fact that for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States.
It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.
WALLACE: So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you’re OK with it?
CHENEY: I am.
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August 30th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
[...] as Steven Taylor notes, Cheney’s argument is essentially little more than a post-hoc ergo proctor-hoc logical fallacy: Cheney and Wallace both are making a radically simplistic and logically problematic argument here: [...]
August 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Very good points. It like making the argument that you have had a Blog for a year and you have not died from brain cancer. Therefore by Cheney logic, blogging prevents brain cancer? It’s flawed logic even at the most basic level.
The other big problem here is the “argument” that water boarding is not torture or not illegal. It has been established as a fact, people have been killed for doing it and people have been imprisoned by our legal system for doing it in the past. It is an established war crime. There is no argument or debate to be had on the subject. You don’t go into a murder trial and claim that murder is not illegal. Madness.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Very good points. It like making the argument that you have had a Blog for a year and you have not died from brain cancer. Therefore by Cheney logic, blogging prevents brain cancer? It’s flawed logic even at the most basic level.
The other big problem here is the “argument” that water boarding is not torture or not illegal. It has been established as a fact, people have been killed for doing it and people have been imprisoned by our legal system for doing it in the past. It is an established war crime. There is no argument or debate to be had on the subject. You don’t go into a murder trial and claim that murder is not illegal. Madness.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:29 am
Only on Fox News, where genuine journalism is dead.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:32 am
At the end of the day this is all about not giving Bush/Cheney the CIA or FBI credit for anything. It fits your world view so you spout it. I am a republican and I had my share of agreements and disagreements with the Bush administration. But there is one thing you can’t deny they did right, an its handling the war on terror. The Bush administration, CIA and FBI were instrumental in tearing down the walls that prevented inter office communication allowing government orginizations to operate more efficiently. The wars in the middle east took the war to them concentrating Al-Quada’s efforts on middle eastern soil, not us soil. Its why he got re-elected in 2004.
And by your logic, anything a republican does is wrong and anything a democrat does is right and its what makes you a total tool. If you don’t believe in personal property rights then fine I understand you being a democrat, but people not giving credit where credit is do just makes them sound bitter and uneducated.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Essentially the democrats will be okay with a new administration going after Obama and his administration for going on a spending frenzy for four years and prosecuting those involved in voter fraud and intimation. This administration has gone to great lengths to find fault in the past administration even though from 2006 to present the democrats ran the show..What hypocrites..Obama should remember that what goes around comes around!
August 31st, 2009 at 1:23 pm
John,
You wrote:
If you read the post I give credit to 1) the invasion of Afghanistan, 2) the capture of al Qaeda leaders like KSM, and 3) general security increases post-9/11 as likely reasons as to why we were not again attacked. Last time I check, the Bush administration was in power for all of those events and so I think I am giving some credit where credit is due. What I am saying is that reducing everything to “enhanced interrogations” as Cheney and Wallace appear to be doing is nonsenses.
You statement about property rights is a non sequitur, but if it makes you feel better, I am pro private property.
It is interesting that you consider being anti-torture to be a Democratic position. I will note, however, that I am not a Democrat.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:03 am
Ryan Says stated, “If you don’t believe in personal property rights then fine I understand you being a democrat, but people not giving credit where credit is do just makes them sound bitter and uneducated.”
George W. Bush and Deadeye Dick Cheney deserve credit for letting 9/11 happen. I am a democrat and wholeheartedly agree with you about giving credit where credit is do.
I also agree with you when it comes to personal property rights. . .I feel that my private phone conversations are my personal intellectual property and George W. Bush and Deadeye Dick Cheney coerced telephone companies into allowing the FBI, CIA, and NSA to tap Americans’ phone calls without a court order. (This was because the FISA court couldn’t handle the volume of requests since they wanted to tap every phone call in the country. Circuitous logic isn’t it.)
I’m not sure what the Republican party stands for when bitter and uneducated people like you spout drivell like this. I would love to hear a cogent argument about why Republicans deserve any more time in government right now, because I am personally a very fiscally conservative person.