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Michael faces off with former Bush speechwriter
Marc Thiessen, who contends that President Obama
"threw the troops under the bus" by not thanking
them during the Cairo speech and by discussing
Gitmo in a negative manner. I find it absolutely
astonishing that a speechwriter doesn't comprehend
the importance of crafting a speech to its intended
audience, which in this case was a segment of the
world that does not view our military in a positive
light. To them, we are occupiers, not liberators.
Maybe someday that will change -- in fact, Obama is
working hard to start the process of changing that
view -- but the blunders by the civilian leadership
of the Bush administration has caused untold
violence and destruction in the Arab world, which
all of us will be dealing with for decades to come.
Michael also makes the point that the troops are
not going to get all ego-bruised and whiny over not
being thanked in public during every speech. Get
real. The military knows that this administration
has already done more for them than the previous
one did; including trying to find a way to get the
Arab world to stop shooting at them.
CAMPBELL
BROWN: Welcome back.
Every night at this time, the "Great Debate."
Tonight's premise: President Obama undercut the
military in his speech to the Muslim world.
And with us to argue that point, the man who came
right out and said it, Marc Thiessen, who was chief
speechwriter for President Bush. Also with us, CNN
international correspondent Michael Ware, who was in
Iraq for much of the war.
We also want your opinion. So vote by calling the
number on the bottom of your screen.
First, we're going to have an opening statement from
each of you, 30 seconds on the clock. You will hear a
bell at the end of 30 seconds.
Marc, the premise again, Obama's words undercut the
military. Make your case.
MARC THIESSEN, FORMER BUSH SPEECHWRITER: Well,
certainly, what he did was, he used throughout the
speech shameful moral equivalents.
He said that the Iranian Revolution was bad, but the
overthrow of Mossadegh was bad also. The Holocaust
was bad, but the use of -- but the -- but the
occupation of Palestine is bad also. And then he
turned to our military. And he said, let me read you
what he said. He said, "Just as America can never
tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter
our principles -- 9/11 led us to act contrary to our
principles."
That is drawing moral equivalence between the men and
women of our military and our intelligence community
who stop acts of violence and the men and women...
(BELL RINGING)
THIESSEN: ... who commit acts of violence.
BROWN: Michael?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I listened to
Marc and I have read his pieces. And, without hearing
more, it's difficult for me to shake the feeling that
-- that what's been said here is a gross disservice
to the U.S. military and to the U.S. intelligence
community.
I'm not sure that the military or intelligence
communities would feel under attack. I mean, I don't
know about the view from the Pentagon and the White
House, but having spent far too much time in the
foxholes with the American troops being shot at, I
think they need less of platitudes in a speech in
Cairo than of a strategic speech...
(BELL RINGING)
WARE: ... that tries to stop angry Muslims shooting
at them in the first place. I think that we're really
arguing a vacant point.
THIESSEN: I heard a bell.
BROWN: All right, Marc, I will let you respond to
that. Go ahead.
THIESSEN: Well, I mean, it's just clear what he said.
He stood on foreign soil in front of an Arab
audience, in a foreign land, and said that the men
and women of our intelligence community had committed
torture. He said that he was closing Guantanamo Bay,
without making any defense whatsoever of the good men
and women who run that facility, who got vital
intelligence to protect the American people, and did
not commit abuse, did not commit torture.
In fact, Eric Holder, when -- when he gave a speech
in Berlin, said that they were professional and that
they treat detainees humanely. Just a single sentence
defending them would have been sufficient. But he
threw them under the bus in order to curry favor with
a -- with a Muslim audience.
BROWN: Michael, did -- should there have been some
acknowledgement of -- of American troops and what
they have done in the speech somewhere?
WARE: Well, I think that's implicit throughout, you
know, all of this discourse.
And I would -- I would argue that President Obama in
Cairo was not giving a Republican candidate's stump
speech on the campaign trail. I mean, one needs to be
aware of one's audience.
Now, the Arab Muslim world has its own firsthand
appreciation of the U.S. military and intelligence
community. Indeed, it's its sons who are in
Guantanamo, for better or for worse. And Guantanamo
exists in its own right. I don't think we need to
defend the merits of that here.
Paying lip service to the troops who have been
serving there honorably anyway to the grunts who are
in the field, bleeding and sweating, I don't think is
going to play in a Muslim audience. I don't think
that's what they were there to hear. I don't think
the troops in the field or at Guantanamo need to be
treated like such needy children, that they need
someone to stroke their hand in every speech.
THIESSEN: This is not about treating them like needy
children.
WARE: Let's stop the Arabs attacking them in the
first place. I think that's more important, Marc.
THIESSEN: Could I say something?
BROWN: Go ahead.
THIESSEN: It's not about needy children or that kind
of condescending attitude from Michael. I think
that's a terrible thing to say about them.
He went out and affirmatively said that they had
committed torture, that Guantanamo was contrary to
our ideals. So it's not that he didn't praise them,
though he should have praised them. It's that he
attacked them. He criticized them.
WARE: Well, that's to your point and I do believe --
THIESSEN: Hold on, hold on, you said some things.
Now, let me say something in response.
WARE: Yes, sure. Go for it, mate.
THIESSEN: The United States military what he should
have said in his speech, and certainly it shouldn't
be just a Republican that would say this, Michael.
Any Republican or Democrat should both agree that
from Iraq to Afghanistan, to Kosovo to Bosnia, to the
first Gulf war, the United States military has done
more to liberate Muslims and Arabs from oppression
and tyranny and genocide than any force in human
history. And to throw them under the bus that way--
WARE: Yeah, I've seen that point in your article, but
the problem is you're not talking to a Veterans of
Foreign Wars evening dinner. You're talking to the
Arab or the Muslim world.
THIESSEN: Yes.
WARE: And to be honest, they don't feel terribly
liberated by the U.S. military. Now, you and I might
have our view of that--
THIESSEN: Well, that's why the president has a
responsibility to say something.
WARE: You and I may have our view of that. But when
there's American tanks sitting in the Arab streets,
when they see the killings in Afghanistan from our
bombings, though they're not intended, that's not how
they feel. When they see what happened in Abu Ghraib
--
THIESSEN: The vast majority of Afghans support
Americans --
WARE: You got to understand -- you got to understand,
Marc, I mean, it might feel different in the ivory
towers on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. But on the
streets -- on the streets --
THIESSEN: Excuse me, I've been to Iraq and
Afghanistan four times in each of those countries so
I know what it's like in the Arab streets. I've been
there.
WARE: Oh, I'm sorry. You spend how much time in Iraq?
THIESSEN: Oh, listen --
WARE: No, no, no, how much time, Marc? How much time,
Marc?
THIESSEN: I've traveled -- oh, I know you lived
there.
WARE: Right, I lived there for six years, right?
THIESSEN: Oh, congratulations.
WARE: I know the problem that President Obama is
trying to address.
THIESSEN: Yes.
WARE: And I can tell you, I've spent more time in the
trenches with your troops than I can guarantee you
have. And I'm speaking for your soldiers.
THIESSEN: Michael, let me tell you something.
WARE: And I'm telling you, they don't need
platitudes. They need a solution.
THIESSEN: I was under fire too. I was in the Pentagon
in September 11, 2001 with our troops, so don't tell
me about being under fire with the troops.
WARE: Yes Marc, and I respect anyone who was there
that day --
THIESSEN: And let me tell you something, the point is
-- the point is --
WARE: But your point about the Arab street --
THIESSEN: Excuse me --
WARE: Marc, come on, mate.
THIESSEN: Can I get a word in?
WARE: Come on, Marc.
BROWN: All right. Hold on, Michael.
WARE: Let's discuss something real, Marc.
BROWN: Let Marc make a point. Let Marc make his
point. Go ahead, Marc.
THIESSEN: The point is it's not that they have to be
praised because for praise's sake, it's that he
criticized them. He attacked them in a foreign land.
The president of the United States does not go to a
foreign country, particularly to an Arab audience,
where al Qaeda's propaganda is echoing the things
that you were saying just a moment ago about how we
do all these terrible things and feed into that
propaganda. That is a shameful thing for the
commander in chief of the United States --
WARE: Listen, listen.
THIESSEN: Let me finish.
WARE: I understand what you're -- I understand what
you're saying.
THIESSEN: It was a shameful thing for the commander
in chief of the United States Armed Forces to do to
the men and women under his command. He's not a
left-wing senator from Illinois anymore. He's the
president of the United States.
BROWN: All right.
THIESSEN: And he has responsibilities to men and
women under his command.
WARE: Marc, I think you protest too much. I don't
think that your boys and girls in uniform would feel
as aggrieved as you do.
THIESSEN: They're not boys and girls. They are
heroes.
WARE: And as you said -- as you said --
THIESSEN: They are heroes, Michael. They're not boys
and girls.
WARE: As you said at some point --
BROWN: All right, guys.
WARE: The president doesn't admit shortcomings on
foreign soil.
BROWN: Let me -- hold on a second. We're treading the
same ground here. Let me just ask for clarification
if I can from Marc.
THIESSEN: Sure.
BROWN: Because, Marc, is it -- isn't President Obama
attacking not the military or the troops necessarily,
but the policies of the former president and the
decisions he made, and President Bush? I don't think
it's directed at the people who were doing their jobs
in terms of carrying out those policies. Is that a
fair assessment?
THIESSEN: I don't think so, no. Because the people
who carried out those policies who could -- the
policies were not to torture and not to commit abuse.
And the people who carried them out followed the
policies and did not commit abuses. There were
numerous reports that have been done on this.
And, you know, Eric Holder -- a month ago, Eric
Holder went to Berlin and gave a speech on
Guantanamo. And in that speech, before he said they
were closing Guantanamo, he said, "I went to
Guantanamo. I reviewed the place. It is conducted --
it's run professionally. It is run ethically and the
detainees are treated humanely, but it's become a
symbol and so we're going to close it."
BROWN: Right.
THIESSEN: All the president had to do was say that
these people do the right thing before he started
talking about closing Guantanamo and throwing them
under the bus in a foreign audience.
BROWN: Michael, very quickly.
WARE: Marc, I think you're being far too precious. I
mean, the point's taken.
Under the Bush administration there was legal
authority given for what was done. Now, we can call
that extreme interrogations. You can call that
waterboarding. You can call that torture. That's
splitting a hair. I don't think at any point there
was a question about the honorable service of the
troops or not.
BROWN: All right.
WARE: And to throw this up now just seems like cheap,
you know, political point scoring.
BROWN: OK, guys, we're going to take a quick break.
But we're going to do as we do every single night. We
ask our debaters to find common ground.
I know you've got it in you. We're going to take a
break and give you the commercials to think about it.
When we come back, they're going to find common
ground. Stay with us.
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BROWN:
Welcome back to our "Great Debate." Tonight's
premise, President Obama undercut the military in his
speech to the Muslim world.
Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen thinks so. CNN
international correspondent Michael Ware weighing in
on the other side. After a vigorous debate, I'm
asking them both to find some common ground here.
Marc, where do you think you can agree with Michael?
THIESSEN: Well, I'll propose some common ground. The
Church Commission of 2005 which investigated claims
of abuse in Guantanamo Bay, their findings were, and
let me read this to you. "At Guantanamo, where there
had been 24,000 interrogation sessions since the
beginning of interrogation operations, there are only
three cases of substantiated interrogation-related
abuse all consisting of minor assault."
Michael, will you agree that the men and women in
Guantanamo Bay did not torture people, did not abuse
detainees, and that they acted in the -- upheld the
principles of the United States of America?
WARE: Yeah, Marc, that's an easy one, because you're
posing a political purview. I mean, I just wish you'd
stop playing political games and trying to score
political points, mate.
BROWN: OK. Come on -- hey, Michael, this is the
common ground part.
WARE: The bottom line is -- No, no, no, Campbell, let
me say this.
The bottom line is at no point do I cast aspersions
on anyone who served in Guantanamo Bay. I think,
Marc, the point of common ground that we have here is
that we're both trying to stand up for the American
military and intelligence community. I do so because
I've been in that mud and blood and guts with them.
Now, I disagree with you that I think they would take
slight from a president who failed to mention them or
by referencing Guantanamo policy is discrediting
them. Nonetheless, both you and I, in our different
ways, are trying to say that these people are out
there doing one of the hardest jobs imaginable, and
they need and deserve respect. Anyone who faces those
bullets in the Arab world deserves credit in my view,
Marc.
THIESSEN: I agree with that 100 percent.
BROWN: I love it. Guys, thank you so much. It was a
great debate, Marc and Michael.
WARE: Oh, I hardly use the word "great," Campbell.
BROWN: All right. Have a good weekend. Appreciate
your time tonight.
THIESSEN: Great.
WARE: Cheers, mate.
BROWN: And we're going to see right now how you voted
in tonight's "Great Debate." Thirty-seven percent
agree that President Obama undercut the military with
his Cairo speech, 63 percent disagree.
This is not a scientific poll. Just our snapshot of
our viewers who called in tonight. And thanks to
everybody who did make the call.