Obama, Cheney and the Detainee Issue

Preisident Obama, in his speech at the National Archives regarding the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the need to bring legal resolve to the detainees being held there, has roiled the issue, particularly from his nuanced stance of what to do with those who were tortured and therefore may make them impossible to prosecute in U.S. courts.

Meanwhile, ex Vice President Cheney, who has no official standing, is making speeches to the likes of the American Enterprise Institute and their fellow travelers in scaring the American people, regurgitating the old stand by of Democrats(and now Obama) being soft on terrorism and terrorists, soft on national security and putting the country in jeopardy.

Lest we forget, it was Mr. Cheney, who along with the other Bush administration "leaders", were the initiators and perpetrators that authorized the torture of detainees that prevents many of them from being prosecuted in U.S. courts. The Bush-Cheney policy's are responsible for the new president having to "jump through hoops" to find the legal paths required to proceed while correcting the aberrations implemented by the Bush administration.

Sooner or later, President Obama has to make a decision. He is either on the side of the Constitution and the rule of law in finally adjudicating the indefinite detention of detainees held at Guantanamo(or secretly held elsewhere) or he escribes to some form of continued and illegal indefinite detention of some of these people and brings no resolve to this illegal abomination which is representative of the defunct Soviet Union's system of "gulags" and its detention and persecution of political prisoners.

Leadership demands thoughtful, reflective hard decision making that will not satisfy everyone, may be politically unpopular and will almost certainly not mollify critics, particularly when the outcomes of those decisions may remain unknown. That is the price of leadership.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future