NEW YORK, United States?Let us now praise the ridiculous. Let us sing hosannas to ignorance, with malice towards all. Let us embrace the malodorous enemy?s modus operandi while fighting to exterminate him in order to uphold the principles of freedom, justice, and the rule of law.

So does the ex-vice president Dick Cheney tempt us to such lovely contradictions. The media here would have us believe that the Veep is a dangerous cannon to whom the Republicans turn out of sheer desperation, having scraped the barrel with their exalting of Rush Limbaugh, a right-wing talk-show host with no experience of or responsibility for political office. The spin is that Cheney?s ranting and raving is an exception to the tone of moderation and high ground that the United States traditionally claims, whether at home or abroad.

For this man, no middle ground exists, as he said in a speech last week, defending the use of ?enhanced interrogation techniques,? especially water-boarding (for which he seems to have developed a fondness), otherwise known to intelligence experts as torture. Speaking on the same day and shortly after President Obama had underscored the fact that there is no contradiction between security and upholding the nation?s cherished values, Cheney pointedly assailed the current administration for its decision to shut down Guantánamo, declaring that this would render the country less safe.

Intentionally or not, the man has highlighted how US foreign policy actually operates, often as though there were no middle ground. At least since the Cold War, Washington has always viewed neutrality, especially among Third World countries, as suspect, really nothing more than a front for an anti-US stance. An either/or mentality dominated Cold-War rhetoric, as could be seen in the way that the globe was divided into the so-called Free World and the so-called Iron (and Bamboo) Curtain. To protect its strategic interests, Washington not only accommodated but even encouraged governments it aided to dispense with any middle ground, i.e., looking the other way when these states opted for dictatorial rule over democratic governance and abetting such behavior through military and economic aid. In this context, then, ?middle ground? signifies a system of impartial, fair-minded laws; respect for civil liberties; and adherence to provisions of international treaties to which the US is signatory.

The post-9/11 Global War on Terror has dispensed with such niceties, and the scenarios it has spawned?extraordinary rendition, wiretapping, racial profiling, fear mongering, torture, etc.?have no better or fiercer advocate than Cheney. He remains the Cold War warrior par excellence. In his current, constant public pronouncements?wherein he keeps invoking 9/11 as a specter that will continue to haunt the body politic indefinitely?we get a better sense of just how deeply involved this man and his cohorts were in formulating Bush policies for two terms, though in the latter period, his influence declined as Bush?s poll numbers went south. It?s clear, from his zeal in defending its continued use even after Bush decided to shut it down, that he was the principal champion in the use of Guantánamo as a detention center for alleged terrorists.

The notion of a middle ground is anathema to him and other like-minded individuals. He deplores the very idea, and argues that it opens the door to possible terrorist attacks. It?s an argument that allows him to depict the Obama administration?and by extension all who have lobbied against torture and for allowing those accused of terrorist crimes due process of law?as naïve. And here the tone is more significant than its usual meaning. Implicit in Cheney?s telling is the belief that to seek the middle ground is to be wishy-washy, to be irresolute, to abdicate responsibility for making some really tough decisions. Hence, to disdain the middle ground is to be decisive, to confront directly, however unpleasant, the realities of a world afflicted by terrorism; to be, in short, a real man. To follow the middle ground on the other hand is to be feminized, to act like a woman, to be then a binabae.

The model here isn?t the dithering, to-be-or-not-to-be Hamlet (who in the end turns murderously decisive) but Lady Macbeth who asks dark spirits to ??unsex me here, / and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!? and offers ?you murd?ring ministers? the milk from her breasts as gall. She would be a man to do a man?s job; the more sensitive Macbeth, in contrast, seems prone to womanish thoughts. In this manner is Obama feminized, rendered impotent against the barbarians just outside the gate. And only Cheney and men like him can save the nation from certain ruin.

Following Cheney?s argument, since the middle ground is to be avoided, why hold these men at all? Why not just trot them out at dawn, line them up against the wall, and execute them? Wouldn?t that be more efficient and economical? Of course, the alternative?of letting them all go?could never be entertained by those who presume capture and detention equal guilt. Nor by those who would bring them to trial. Perhaps Cheney would be more persuasive if his own life offered proof that when responsibility was thrust at him as a young man, to fight in the Vietnam War, he accepted. Instead, he managed to shirk his duty, not once but five times. By no means do I argue that he should have borne arms in a war that was immoral to begin with; rather, that he, having absented himself from the battlefield not out of any sense of moral repulsion, but for more mundane matters, has no right to determine if, when, and how a war is to be fought.

Colin Powell, on the other hand, has earned the right to do so. He?s a Vietnam veteran, commanded US troops in the first Gulf War, was Chief of Staff, and served as the second president George Bush?s Secretary of State, the first African American to occupy that post. He?s come under enemy fire, more real and harmful than any political brickbats Cheney hurls his way. John McCain, too, another Vietnam vet, has earned the right to weigh in on war and torture. Both have supported the closing down of Guantánamo; both deplore the use of torture. Powell disagrees with Cheney that the decision to close Guantánamo makes the US less safe. He points out that his and Cheney?s own boss had decided to do so. As to the Veep?s dubious accusation that Obama was closing Guantánamo to make the Europeans happy, Powell responded: ?We?re doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world that we are a nation of law.? Nor is he worried about detainees being on US soil. As he and countless others have pointed out, no one has escaped from any of the maximum-security prisons (known as supermax) built in the country.

Cutting out the middle ground has been the de facto rule when it comes to US support of dictatorial regimes. It was certainly true when Saddam Hussein was a US ally; true for strongmen like Pinochet and Marcos; true, in its continuing military aid to a government like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s that, for all its lip service to human rights, allows its military dogs to continue disregarding the ?middle ground,? with ?salvagings? of journalists and human-rights activists a routine affair. (Just two weeks ago, the Philippine military included the Manila-based stringer for the New York Times, Carlos Conde, in its ?Order of Battle,? in effect designating him as a potential target to be eliminated. Fortunately, enough of an outcry caused the withdrawal of his name. But what if he had been a muck-raking but obscure small-town journalist? We probably would have heard of him only after he?d been shot at and possibly killed.)

Cheney has in fact more in common with Islamic and, for that matter, Christian fundamentalists and their Zionist allies. If he hates jihadists intensely, I suspect it?s because they have too much of what his own persona lacks: the courage of conviction. A duck shoot I suppose is the closest he will ever get to live action. I can?t think of anything more apt for a man like him to aspire to than collecting a passel of dead ducks.

Copyright L.H. FRANCIA 2009