A Generational show down: President Obama vs. former VP Dick Cheney

By Innocent Chia

The raging national security debate between former Vice President Cheney and President Obama boils down to an age-old, yet timeless divide: generation. Dick Cheney is from the old school that lives on the dictum of “spare the rod and spoil the child”. Obama is from the new school of thought. They have figured out new ways of disciplining the child without unnecessary recourse to the whip. The new school, like its contemporary America in a contemporary world, charge that the disciplinary measures of the old school constitutes child abuse. This is the basic breakdown of what proponents and opponents of torture or harsh interrogation techniques are quibbling about.

I grew up in an era when my parents would probably have stood by and watched how my school teacher whipped my black butt white before an entire class or school for any transgression. Although they never assisted in any such draconian disciplinary measures, I’d be hard pressed buying the thought that they were oblivious of what was transpiring at school. My Mom, of sweet blessed memory, had been a school teacher herself and I have overheard several accounts by her former pupils recounting her toughness. My Dad, a lifelong career teacher at the College / University level, has never had to resort to the whip given the age and stature of the students. But that is far from absolving him of such knowledge of the techniques employed at the primary and secondary levels especially. He obviously employed them himself on me, as was the norm in every household back then and to great effect. While it has always been heard by my generational peers that “I don’t know what I would have become without that trashing”, I like to also deconstruct the assertion by asking the counter question: Do we know what I would have become if other disciplinary techniques had been employed?

This question of not knowing the “what if” is responsible for the fear factor that Dick Cheney and others his generation are embracing and dishing out to whoever has ears to lend. It is akin to that generation of my parents who believed unequivocally, though not necessarily astutely, that lashing was the only way to rectify my / our misconduct. The truth of the matter is that they knew of no better alternatives, and would challenge anyone daring to think otherwise. You probably would relate with this: …Ever had your parent living in the house with your own kids? They tend to question why you give timeouts over a good spanking. They glee when the child repeats the misbehavior, as if to say, “I told you…Spanking worked for you and will work for this kid if you just listened to me”. What is ironical is that when you leave the kid with grandpa and grandma, they hardly ever resort to corporal punishment. In fact, they are so endearing we fear they will spoil the child! Why?

It is possible to make the point that they weary of it because it also drains them physically. Or, another point is that the parent may have given the grandparent rigorous instruction not to hit on their child. In the United States of America, there is the absolute fear of child abuse charges and the thought of losing the child to some foster parents or the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS). This is all true. Not entirely… I would submit that after raising their own kid(s), parents eventually figure out, albeit too late, that other ways of disciplining do exist. You can only take the good intent away from them if they knew better and opted to disregard other ways of disciplining the child. How many parents or even teachers know the importance of stooping to a child’s level, for the sake of effective communication with the child, in a manner that exudes trust rather that intimidation?

 President Barack Obama is the generation of parents that know that there is another way of breaking the silence with your kids. And YES, you miss the point if you think that I am implying that kids are equal to terrorists! They are not the same at all. But this is the same President that has maintained that dialogue with friend and foe alike, not friend only, is the way to resolve the problems that besiege our times. He is the President who truly is convinced that there are more ways to disciplining the child than pulling out the belt.

The perturbing element that does not cease to surprise is not the recklessness of Cheney’s statements. I am not miffed either by his stubbornness to defend the misguided and unjust war that his administration dragged the world into. What is mind blowing is his intellectual dishonesty to accept that there is another way of raising a child without corporal punishment – Of course, we all know we are talking about alleged terrorists. The fact that the former VP so adamantly refuses to believe that useful intelligence was and can be obtained without coercion is a travesty. He either was an absentee Dad or never cared to know what was happening at home. Scold a child and the information you get is not necessarily the truth. It is what the child perceives will please you, that is if the child does not tune you out completely.

Cheney et al must know better, or the United States is probably in deeper shit than the world now knows, if he truly led the greatest country of our time for eight years. But may be his legacy is more important to him than the direction the U.S, and indeed the world, is heading. It is vexing that Cheney, whose administration was shrouded in secrecy and unconstitutionality, should be making demands for the Obama administration to declassify secret files that Bush / Cheney classified. I want to think that it is a bluff or dare tactic in which he hopes the Obama administration does not do it so as to hide the faux-pas’ of the Bush / Cheney administration. So long as the Obama administration refuses to declassify the information, Cheney can and will go about running his mouth like the grandparent who argues that only the rod can fix the child.

The World knows better. Just because the intelligence community may not know how to obtain better results without coercion does not mean that better ways of doing interrogation do not exist. It is like saying that my inability to solve a math problem means that the problem has no solution. That is a fallacy. And such fallaciousness is not new to Cheney. Just because I am driving at speed limit does not guarantee that I will not have an accident. It certainly reduces my chances of running someone over or causing an accident. But it is not any full proof guard against an accident. In the same way, Cheney must not incite Americans into thinking that the methods they employed totally eradicated another unfortunate attack on American homeland, and that doing any less or different by Obama is providing clear passage for the terrorists to rein down mayhem on American soil. It is preposterous. He must not impose it on others who know there is better.

The intermittent coughs at the VP’s no-questions-asked press show were indicative of a nervous old man haunted by his past and unsure about the future. If every war was fought to stop any future dangers, then the world would have stopped fighting any wars after the First World War and much earlier. But we will always have friends out there and those who do not care for us. Even Christ did not win all of mankind. Only an eternal Bush /Cheney Presidency would claim at resurrection that they forestalled any attack on the American homeland. Short of that, the claim that no harm has happened on the homeland under their watch is, at best, half true. Fortunately for Cheney, the other truth is determined by a term limit on the Presidency and on life, even when you are endowed with a pace maker.