Column by Richard Becker

The question of whether President Barack Obama will, and should, dismantle many of the anti-terror programs of his predecessor, George W. Bush, is arguably a difficult one. Obama’s condemnation of the Bush administration’s ordering of “enhanced interrogation techniques” as torture during the campaign was, so far as I can tell, an accurate assessment, but not everyone agrees.

As former Bush administration official Marc Thiessen asserted in a recent Washington Post article, these controversial practices may have prevented another terrorist attack against the United States from occurring.

First of all, whether Thiessen’s column is just legacy-defending pabulum or legitimate policy debate is unclear. But it should serve as food for thought for the men and women who make up the president’s national security brain trust. The Post column, entitled “2,688 Days” for the number of days former President Bush presided without a terrorist attack between Sept. 11 and the day he left office, argues that the reason for such a long stretch without terrorist violence on American soil or against American interests is in large part due to the controversial national security policies Bush pursued, including, implicitly, warrantless wiretapping and virtually unfettered torture by American forces. That this span of time is somehow a vindication of President Bush is already an old idea, yet one tirelessly pursued here anew nonetheless.

The writer suggests that, despite his campaign perorations to the contrary, the realities of the presidency might in fact force Obama to pursue a course regarding torture similar to his immediate predecessor.

Unfortunately for the hopes of Mr. Thiessen, Obama last week, speaking on the first day of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reiterated powerfully his commitment to ensure that “America will not torture,” to which he received thunderous applause from those gathered. His opposition to torture by American officials against detainees of the United States both during the campaign and as president has been full-throated, unequivocal, and without wiggle room.

Obama’s position is a wise one; it is a position that understands that as a corollary to the rule that America must lead by the force of its example, not the example of its force, America must also observe a sort of diplomatic golden rule: treat detainees of the U.S. government the way we would want our own beloved servicemen and women treated.

This is not to suggest that detained members of Al Qaeda are in any way the same in nature or mission as our own service members, but rather to point out that the world has shown time and again its willingness to respond to us showing “our better angels,” to paraphrase the president and one of his forebears.

In his understated parsing of the language — Obama calls it torture, while he calls it “enhanced interrogation” — Thiessen concedes the moral indefensibility of his position, preferring instead to revert to the traditional position of the Bush administration of dryly invoking the security of our nation in a crass attempt to rally support for a policy that is categorically out of line with our nation’s principles.

Here we have the key distinction between the Bush and Obama administrations with regards to torture: the former seeks to attain short-term security at the cost of liberty and transparency — paramount traits of a democratic republic if ever there were any — while the latter seeks to prudently attain security within the confines of the principles upon which America was founded and has prospered for over two hundred years.

At times like this, I am reminded of a famous quotation from the quixotic American statesman Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up … liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

President Obama deftly echoed Franklin and preemptively parried Thiessen in last week’s inaugural address, saying “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

America can once again be proud to have a statesman at the helm that understands this fundamental maxim. Indeed, her very survival may depend on just such wisdom and prudence in the executive mansion.