Thomas Schweich responds to Dick Cheney

Thomas Schweich has issued the following statement about the black eye that is Guantanamo Bay:

We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk...

While serving the State Department in several senior capacities over the past four years, I witnessed firsthand the quiet, de facto military takeover of much of the U.S. government. The first assault on civilian government occurred in faraway places -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- and was, in theory, justified by the exigencies of war.

And, of course, I need not even elaborate on the most notorious effect of the military's growing reach: the damage that the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and such military prisons as Abu Ghraib have done to U.S. credibility around the world...

[President Obama] should retake the government before it devours him and us -- and return civilian-led government to the people of the United States.

Actually, this is more of a preemptive response, from an op-ed published in December. (If anyone can appreciate a preemptive strike, it's Dick Cheney.)