“I do believe waterboarding was torture, and it was a mistake,”
said President Barack Obama during the hour-long press conference
celebrating his first 100 days in office.
The president, while castigating the conduct of his predecessor,
compared his own position on interrogation to Winston Churchill’s
refusal to torture German prisoners during the Blitz.
Clearly Obama is eager to clear the American conscience of what
he has described as a “dark period” in the country’s history. So
be it.
Given the president’s historical perspective and eagerness to
apologize for our centuries of sins, for the sake of consistency,
should he not begin the atonement in full? Why not make amends
for the decisions his predecessors made to defend the country
during times of war and crisis that do not pass our elevated
moral standards?
Obama should start by condemning his hero, Abraham Lincoln. In
his crusade to preserve the Union at all costs, the 16th
president waged relentless and often ruthless war. This included
the declaration of martial law, the authorization of militarily
tribunals and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
Lincoln and his subordinates also shut down the operation of
pro-confederacy newspapers such as the Chicago Times,
the Pennsylvania based Jeffersonian (whose printing
presses and offices were destroyed and ransacked by Union
soldiers), imprisoned the editors of the New York World
and Journal of Commerce and arrested and deported war
critics such as Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham.
Half a century later, while prosecuting World War I, Woodrow
Wilson persuaded Congress to pass the Espionage Act of 1917 and
the Sedition Act of 1918. These made any form of speech or action
that aided or abetted America’s enemies a federal offense. The
Supreme Court found both pieces of legislation necessary for
national safety in a time of war. Coincidentally, among those
arrested and imprisoned for violating these acts was socialist
leader Eugene Debs, who Wilson described as a “traitor.” Obama,
who would most likely disagree with that assessment, should
denounce Wilson.
The president will also want to castigate Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. Obama, who has apparently been reading up on Roosevelt
while studying the New Deal, must be familiar with FDR’s
Executive Order 9066, which authorized the interment of Japanese,
German and Italian-Americans. Roosevelt also approved of the
establishment of martial law and the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus in Hawaii in the aftermath of the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor and created military tribunals to try prisoners
of war.
Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, has already indirectly
earned the current president’s disparagement and second guessing
for ending World War II by ordering the detonation of atomic
bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Still, Obama might want to
heap some additional scorn on Truman for creating the Federal
Employees Loyalty Program that demanded the Department of Justice
create a list of possible subversives during the Cold War and
authorized the federal government to terminate employees based on
their politics and associations.
Given this historical precedent, it is clear that George W. Bush
was hardly the first chief executive to take what Obama calls
“shortcuts” to protect the American people. Of course, if one
deems Bush’s interrogation techniques torture, his predecessor’s
policies are not necessarily analogous.
Still, there is an overarching motivation to all of these actions
which Obama would most likely believe “undermine who we are.”
During times of war and national danger, presidents are faced
with difficult decisions that often involve prioritizing saving
lives against saving face. Thankfully, most have chosen the
former. It is unclear our current chief executive, who will no
doubt be faced with this choice at some point, intends to extend
this streak.
Yet, the president himself inadvertently underlined the paradox
of his position while preening over his ethical superiority to
Bush. When asked what lengths he would go to secure the safety of
the American people, Obama responded, “That’s the responsibility
I wake up with and it’s the responsibility I go to sleep with.
And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people
safe.”
Let us pray so.
