tme,
One constant critic down. Nothing to offer.
Anyone else?
JeffR
P.S. tme making animal noises was never funny nor especially clever. Thanks!!
I like how some of these bozo’s cry for alternatives, but no matter what you say, they will always claim it isn’t viable, like they actually have the crystal ball to know.
Or, if you don’t actually bother to rise to the “challenge” they will decry you for not having any alternatives.
Instead of such tactics, perhaps you could actually attempt to discuss the issues instead of cheerleading your heart out.
Gimme a B, Gimme a U, Gimme an S, Gimme an H, who’s our man? Bush! If anyone can do it my man Bush can. Give it a break already. He’s human too y’know – even if he did win.
TME is right…
[… lmao, edited to fix mispelling of Bush’s name…]
[quote]Jeffy wrote:
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
[/quote]
[quote]hedo wrote:
Perhaps one day you will see the world differently. Perhaps experience, wisdom and orality will influence your thought. Maybe one day.
[/quote]
Ok. Again, the kind of stuff that brings the average level of discourse down…
What are you talking about? My issue is that we have NOT TAKEN A STAND against oppressive regimes in the middle east, to my satisfaction at least. Remember? I’ve said that repeatedly. You don’t even understand the discourse going on around you. If you hadn’t noticed, I think that going into Iraq was the right thing to do. Also, how the hell do you know whether I am a liberal or not? Because I pointed out how ridiculous you sounded?
[quote]
Seriously I answered your question. Tey offering your solution. Let’s see if it actually makes sense. Might be more entertaining then a vain attempt tpo speak for me.[/quote]
You haven’t answered my question. My question is: Since you are a right and wrong kind of person, and we’re “right” for going into Iraq for spreading democracy and freedom, isn’t supporting a dictator that forcefully overthrew a democracy in the middle east “wrong”? Isn’t supporting the most oppressive tyranny in the middle east “wrong”? You still refuse to answer those questions.
Try offering my solution to what? To the hypocracy? I have, a harder line against Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, among others. I’ve offered that many times. To the quell the insurgency? I did and have. It was my opinion that we should’ve crushed the insurgency at it’s infancy instead of hesitating with regard to Fallujah and Al Sadr. I voiced those opinions then and I still do now. Why are you asking me to repeat my solutions? What is your solution by the way? “Stay the course,” I presume.
Seriously, does anyone here really know what Hedo is talking about? We may have finally found the right-wing “Lumpy”.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
Let me ask my liberal friends (aldurr, tme, moriarty, elk) a direct question.
If you think the Iraq War was a mistake, provide an alternative.
[/quote]
I don’t have any problem with the decision to go to war with Iraq, in and of itself. I have problems with the implementation. Here’s my list:
Pre-war:
We should’ve allowed the inspections to finish.
We should’ve waited until the military was properly prepared (or in other words waited until we had “the army we wanted to go in with”).
What happened to Afghanistan? They had an election so everything must be ok? Last I checked the President couldn’t walk down the block to the local 7-11 and the entire country is a no fly zone because pilots gets high off of opium fumes and crash when passing over.
We should have made it clear that the reason we were going in was to free the people of Iraq, promoting the kind of lasting change in the middle east that is the only long-term viable solution to extremism. We should have coupled that with a condemnation of the oppressive Suadi regime and a hard line towards Pakistan. Let the world know that democracy was on its way to the middle east.
War:
We should not have been so quick to declare victory.
Post-war:
We should have had more troops on the ground during the occupation, period.
We should have immediately acted as a police force to control rioting and looting of crucial infrastructure.
We should have crushed the insurgency mercilessly in its infancy. That should have included devastating attacks on Al Sadr’s brigade and swift reprisals for the uprisings in Mosul and Fallujah. We really have no excuse, we knew what the trouble spots were going to be.
In any case, why do you and Hedo keep asking me to repeat these things?
I do, however, agree with you to an extent on that point. I really don’t see any long-term viable solution to islamic extremism than to modernize and evolve the middle east through nation building and promotion of democracy. My dream is that in my lifetime the middle east will be loosely comparable to the EU and that I will be able to travel to Iraq and Saudi Arabia the same way I can travel to Spain and Germany today. I don’t think we’re pursuing the goal effciently enough is all.
Some of those in the forum have bought that “clear line between right and wrong” campaign slogan, which is itself completely bullshit. We sanctioned Pakistan for overthrowing a democratic government. Then we overturned the sanctions and gave them money when we needed to use their border. Proof that even Bush can be “nuanced”! Moral Authority means nothing when your affection can be bought like a cheap whore. The jury is still out, but Bush better back up this democracy in the middle east stuff with more than just talk. Let’s not even get started on Isreal…
I also want to point out that, although I agree with you on this point, I honestly tend to disapprove of the manner with which you engage others on this forum. Not that that should matter to you in any way, just making that clear so as not to seemingly condone your methods.
Moriarity,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.
"I don’t have any problem with the decision to go to war with Iraq, in and of itself. I have problems with the implementation. Here’s my list:
Pre-war:
We should’ve allowed the inspections to finish."
Please give this some more thought. They were inspectors not detectives. Without Hussein complying with the inspections (aka…moving things ahead of the inspectors/denying access to sites/delaying access so he could move things) the inspectors were going to get exactly NOWHERE.
Hans Blix, as leader of the inspections, undermined the whole effort.
“We should’ve waited until the military was properly prepared (or in other words waited until we had “the army we wanted to go in with”).”
Couldn’t have won the major conflict any more effectively or quickly, pal.
Adjusting to the insurgency, prior to it occurring, seems a little fanciful to me. There are no crystal balls.
“What happened to Afghanistan? They had an election so everything must be ok? Last I checked the President couldn’t walk down the block to the local 7-11 and the entire country is a no fly zone because pilots gets high off of opium fumes and crash when passing over.”
Please read the history of Afghanistan. Your liberal pals were actually justified in doubting whether an election could be held at all.
When EIGHTY-PERCENT of the eligible voters (including women) voted for the first time in 5,000 years, this is a MONUMENTAL VICTORY. By denying this fact, you undermine the rest of your criticisms and come off as the quinessential sour grapes ABBer.
“We should have made it clear that the reason we were going in was to free the people of Iraq, promoting the kind of lasting change in the middle east that is the only long-term viable solution to extremism.”
I can pull about three hundred quotes from W. expressing this very concept. If you really believed what you typed, you should have voted for him. What your pals are fixated on are the fact that there were about seventy-five reasons to invade. For some reason, it makes you nervous. It seems there has to be ONE REASON only or everything is suspect. It seems so nonsensical to those of us who have supported this effort. You’d think the fact that there were so many stated aims/reasons/goals would have added strength not weakness to the original argument to invade.
“We should have coupled that with a condemnation of the oppressive Suadi regime and a hard line towards Pakistan. Let the world know that democracy was on its way to the middle east.”
I doubt you understand what you are saying. Pakistan and now Saudi Arabia are two very visible diplomatic success stories. Our resolve in Afghanistan and Iraq led directly to these two countries cracking down on their own insurgencies. See all of the Al Qaeda cells that have been eliminated THIS YEAR in Saudi. See the early 2004 major offensive launched in Pakistan. Imagine what you don’t see on CBS and CNN.
“War:
We should not have been so quick to declare victory.”
Major combat operations.
“Post-war:
We should have had more troops on the ground during the occupation, period.”
More troops could easily have led to more resentment and more targets of opportunity. Again, crystal ball time.
“We should have immediately acted as a police force to control rioting and looting of crucial infrastructure.”
Did that. However, you are right, there were some high profile failures in that regard. See Baghdad museums.
“We should have crushed the insurgency mercilessly in its infancy. That should have included devastating attacks on Al Sadr’s brigade and swift reprisals for the uprisings in Mosul and Fallujah.”
You may have a point. However, the reason was to allow the interim Iraqi Government to being the process of taking over their own country. Legitimacy is crucial.
“We really have no excuse, we knew what the trouble spots were going to be.”
Maybe. Again, crystal ball time.
“In any case, why do you and Hedo keep asking me to repeat these things?”
Forgive me. I didn’t realize you had every expressed these things.
The problem with the ABB crowd (among many things) is that they have offered EXACTLY ZERO in the way of a viable alternative.
“I do, however, agree with you to an extent on that point. I really don’t see any long-term viable solution to islamic extremism than to modernize and evolve the middle east through nation building and promotion of democracy. My dream is that in my lifetime the middle east will be loosely comparable to the EU and that I will be able to travel to Iraq and Saudi Arabia the same way I can travel to Spain and Germany today. I don’t think we’re pursuing the goal effciently enough is all.”
Well put. I can respect sincerity. I don’t respect regurgitation of DNC slogans and unfocused ABB rage.
“Some of those in the forum have bought that “clear line between right and wrong” campaign slogan, which is itself completely bullshit.”
Remember, if you spend your time talking and not acting, you end up being the U.N.
“We sanctioned Pakistan for overthrowing a democratic government. Then we overturned the sanctions and gave them money when we needed to use their border. Proof that even Bush can be “nuanced”! Moral Authority means nothing when your affection can be bought like a cheap whore. The jury is still out, but Bush better back up this democracy in the middle east stuff with more than just talk. Let’s not even get started on Isreal…”
As long as there are governments, there will be shifting alliances. Again, we are guilty of supporting dubious regimes. However, if we have supported these regimes in the past (Hussein) doesn’t that make us more responsbile for cleaning up the mess?
“I also want to point out that, although I agree with you on this point, I honestly tend to disapprove of the manner with which you engage others on this forum. Not that that should matter to you in any way, just making that clear so as not to seemingly condone your methods.”
Your opinion is noted.
I want you to understand that I don’t want a single veteran to look at these forums and see what I consider to be unfocused liberal partisan garbage floating around without retort. I want them to know that there are a majority of us out here who support their efforts and believe in their goals. I want them to know we are proud of the resolve they have shown. The spread of freedom, and the removal of repression and torture must be RIGHT.
JeffR
Moriarity-
Sorry I didn’t answer to your satisfaction. Let’s face it no matter what I write you will disagree with anyway.
My and your political leanings aside, you may not get it but you will surely benefit from the actions being taken on behalf of all Americans, by the present administration.
As to your Lumpy comment it seems to be you may be he under an alias based on what you have written so far.
Politcal discourse lost on me…yeah man ever you say.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
Moriarity,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.
[/quote]
No Problem.
I agree that what you call the “major conflict” was executed swiftly, however you make the same mistake I feel the administration made. You seem to have believed that the defeating the national army was going to be the “major conflict.” You make it seem now that forseeing an insurgency would have taken a crystal ball. Almost everyone I know forsaw this. How is it fanciful to have forseen an insurgency when so many people were sure it would happen?
I wasn’t very clear on this one. I agree that elections in Afghanistan were a monumental victory. My point was that we don’t do enough to showcase that victory around the world, and I have concerns that we may not be doing enough to support that emerging democracy.
Again, I’m pretty sure that you have no idea who I voted for. Second, stating 75 reasons for doing something does not add strength to the argument, it makes it seem like we were reaching, especially when some of them turned out to be false. We placed way too much emphasis on WMD. It’s revisionist history to try and pretend that this administration did not push WMD to the fore-front. I understand why this was done, because we needed the spector of imminent danger to build support for the war, but we set ourselves up for criticism by putting our eggs in that basket.
[quote]
“We should have coupled that with a condemnation of the oppressive Suadi regime and a hard line towards Pakistan. Let the world know that democracy was on its way to the middle east.”
I doubt you understand what you are saying. Pakistan and now Saudi Arabia are two very visible diplomatic success stories. Our resolve in Afghanistan and Iraq led directly to these two countries cracking down on their own insurgencies. See all of the Al Qaeda cells that have been eliminated THIS YEAR in Saudi. See the early 2004 major offensive launched in Pakistan. Imagine what you don’t see on CBS and CNN.[/quote]
Again, I thought the point was that we were doing what was “right”, remember? Spreading freedom and democracy, remember? But now you defining success as getting two oppressive regimes to help us fight our enemies.
Again, most people I know knew going in that the “major combat” was going to be fought against an insurgency. It’s amazing to me that you and this administration now act like the insurgency was a surprise. Too many people predicted it to have been unforeseeable.
There will always be resentment towards an occupation. It’s better for an occupying force to perform unpopular actions in the beginning to get the population to submit than to string the population along under the delusion that we’ll “make them resent us less.” Swiftly destroying the insurgency, even if it meant going into mosques to fight, would have been better than sporadic fighting over 2 years and having to perform operations like leveling Fallujah and Mosul later on. Just my opinion, although I stole it from Machiavelli, and he’s a pretty smart guy.
So we agree on that point.
See above. It is almost always better do something extremely unpopular all at once and ensure the peace than to string the people along with slightly less unpopular actions. This desire to “not upset the people too much” is a mistake for an occupying force when trying to secure submission of the people and peace. Our recent operations in Fallujah show me that this administration is finally coming to grips with that fact.
Again, many people predicted the conditions in the “sunni triangle.”
Fair enough.
[quote]
“Some of those in the forum have bought that “clear line between right and wrong” campaign slogan, which is itself completely bullshit.”
Remember, if you spend your time talking and not acting, you end up being the U.N.[/quote]
I agree, so where are our actions against Pakistan? I’m not talking about getting them to help us, I’m talking about punishment for a military coup that overthrew a democratic goverment. Wouldn’t you say that it would take balls to stand up for democracy in Pakistan even if it meant they wouldn’t be so willing to let us use their border? Isn’t that what you love about this administration, having the balls to stand up for democracy?
[quote]
“We sanctioned Pakistan for overthrowing a democratic government. Then we overturned the sanctions and gave them money when we needed to use their border. Proof that even Bush can be “nuanced”! Moral Authority means nothing when your affection can be bought like a cheap whore. The jury is still out, but Bush better back up this democracy in the middle east stuff with more than just talk. Let’s not even get started on Isreal…”
As long as there are governments, there will be shifting alliances. Again, we are guilty of supporting dubious regimes. However, if we have supported these regimes in the past (Hussein) doesn’t that make us more responsbile for cleaning up the mess?[/quote]
See this is what I don’t get. I thought we were removing Hussein because it was “right.” Because we are a force for freedom and democracy in the world. But then when I ask about our support (CURRENT, not in the past) for other tyrannies, I get the same old “well sometimes you need to support the lesser of two evils.”
[quote]
I want you to understand that I don’t want a single veteran to look at these forums and see what I consider to be unfocused liberal partisan garbage floating around without retort. I want them to know that there are a majority of us out here who support their efforts and believe in their goals. I want them to know we are proud of the resolve they have shown. The spread of freedom, and the removal of repression and torture must be RIGHT.[/quote]
Again, if you believe what you just wrote, I ask you to have the balls to stand up against the removal of sanctions on a military dictatorship that overthrew a democratic government. I also ask you to condemn the support this country provides to the most oppressive regime in the middle east. Enough with the lesser of two evils, isn’t it time we had a leader that stood for clear right and wrong?
Good post by the way.
Professor Victor Davis Hanson offers a powerful defense of Secretary Rumsfeld:
Leave Rumsfeld Be
He is not to blame for our difficulties.
by Victor Davis Hanson
December 23, 2004
The Washington Post recently warned that doctors are urging interested parties of all types to get their flu shots before the “scarce” vaccine is thrown out. But how is such a surfeit possible when our national media scared us to death just a few months ago with the specter of a national flu epidemic, corporate malfeasance, and Bush laxity? That perfect storm of incompetence and skullduggery purportedly combined to leave us vulnerable to mass viral attack. So how can the Post now characterize something as “scarce” that is soon to be discarded for a want of takers? Was there too much or too little vaccine?
The answer, of course, is the usual media-inspired flight from reason that overwhelms this country at various times ? hype playing on our fears and groupthink to create a sudden story when there really is none. And now with the renewed attack on Donald Rumsfeld we are back to more of the flu-shot hysteria that has been so common in this war. Remember the pseudo-crises of the past four years ? the quagmire in week three in Afghanistan or the sandstorm bog-down in Iraq?
Let us not forget either all the Orwellian logic: Clinton’s past deleterious military slashes that nevertheless explained the present win in Afghanistan, or his former appeasement of bin Laden that now accounts for the successful doctrine of fighting terror. Or recall the harebrained schemes we should have adopted ? the uninvited automatic airlifting of an entire division into the high peaks of Islamic, nuclear Pakistan to cut off the tribal fugitives from Tora Bora? Or have we put out of our memories the brilliant trial balloons of a Taliban coalition government and the all Islamic post-Taliban occupation forces?
So it is with the latest feeding-frenzy over Donald Rumsfeld. His recent spur-of-the-moment ? but historically plausible ? remarks to the effect that one goes to war with the army one has rather than the army one wishes for angered even conservatives. The demands for his head are to be laughed off from an unserious Maureen Dowd ? ranting on spec about the shadowy neocon triad of Wolfowitz, Feith, and Perle ? but taken seriously from a livid Bill Kristol or Trent Lott. Rumsfeld is, of course, a blunt and proud man, and thus can say things off the cuff that in studied retrospect seem strikingly callous rather than forthright. No doubt he has chewed out officers who deserved better. And perhaps his quip to the scripted, not-so-impromptu question was not his best moment. But his resignation would be a grave mistake for this country at war, for a variety of reasons.
First, according to reports, the unit in question had 784 of its 804 vehicles up-armored. Humvees are transportation and support assets that traditionally have never been so protected. That the fluid lines in Iraq are different not just from those in World War II or Korea, but even Vietnam, Gulf War I, Mogadishu, and Afghanistan became clear only over months. Yet it also in fact explains why we are seeing 80 to 90 percent of these neo-Jeeps already retrofitted. In an army replete with Bradleys and Abramses, no one could have known before Iraq that Hummers would need to become armored vehicles as well. Nevertheless all of them will be in a fleet of many thousands in less than 18 months. Would that World War II Sherman tanks after three years in the field had enough armor to stop a single Panzerfaust: At war’s end German teenagers with cheap proto-RPGs were still incinerating Americans in their “Ronson Lighters.”
Second, being unprepared in war is, tragically, nothing new. It now seems near criminal that Americans fought in North Africa with medium Stuart tanks, whose 37-millimeter cannons (“pea-shooters” or “squirrel guns”) and thin skins ensured the deaths of hundreds of GIs. Climbing into Devastator torpedo bombers was tantamount to a death sentence in 1942; when fully armed and flown into a headwind, these airborne relics were lucky to make 100 knots ? not quite as bad as sending fabric Brewster Buffaloes up against Zeros. Yet FDR and George Marshall, both responsible for U.S. military preparedness, had plenty of time to see what Japan and Germany were doing in the late 1930s. Under the present logic of retrospective perfection, both had years to ensure our boys adequate planes and tanks ? and thus should have resigned when the death toll of tankers and pilots soared.
Even by 1945 both the Germans and the Russians still had better armor than the Americans. In the first months of Korea, our early squadrons of F-80s were no match for superior Mig-15s. Early-model M-16 rifles jammed with tragic frequency in Vietnam. The point is not to excuse the military naivet? and ill-preparedness that unnecessarily take lives, but to accept that the onslaught of war is sometimes unforeseen and its unfolding course persistently unpredictable. Ask the Israelis about the opening days of the Yom Kippur War, when their armor was devastated by hand-held Soviet-made anti-tank guns and their vaunted American-supplied air force almost neutralized by SAMs ? laxity on the part of then perhaps the world’s best military a mere six years after a previous run-in with Soviet-armed Arab enemies.
Third, the demand for Rumsfeld’s scalp is also predicated on supposedly too few troops in the theater. But here too the picture is far more complicated. Vietnam was no more secure with 530,000 American soldiers in 1968 than it was with 24,000 in 1972. How troops are used, rather than their sheer numbers, is the key to the proper force deployment ? explaining why Alexander the Great could take a Persian empire of 2 million square miles with an army less than 50,000, while earlier Xerxes with 500,000 on land and sea could not subdue tiny Greece, one-fortieth of Persia’s size.
Offensive action, not troop numbers alone, creates deterrence; mere patrolling and garrison duty will always create an insatiable demand for ever more men and an enormously visible American military bureaucracy ? and a perennial Iraqi dependency on someone else to protect the nascent democracy. Thus if the argument can be made that Rumsfeld was responsible for either disbanding the Iraqi army or the April stand-down from Fallujah ? the latter being the worst American military decision since Mogadishu ? then he deserves our blame. But so far, from what we know, the near-fatal decision to pull-back from Fallujah was made from either above Rumsfeld (e.g., the election-eve White House) or below him (Paul Bremmer and the Iraqi provisional government).
In truth, the real troop problem transcends Iraq. Our shortages are caused by a military that was slashed after the Cold War and still hasn’t properly recouped to meet the global demands of the war against Islamic fascism ? resulting in rotation nightmares, National Guard emergencies, and stop-order controversies. The amazing victories in Afghanistan and Iraq not only set up unrealistic expectations about the ease of implementing post-bellum democracy among tribal Islamic societies, but also allowed the public, the Congress, and the president not to mobilize to confront the strategic challenges facing the United States that now pose a more serious threat than did the 1980s Soviet Union.
We are left with an unhinged nuclear dictatorship in North Korea threatening an increasingly appeasing and pacifistic South. Taiwan could be swallowed up in days or destroyed in hours by a bullying, resource-hungry China staking out a new co-prosperity sphere in the Pacific, one every bit as ambitious as imperial Japan’s. Iran’s nukes will soon be able to hit a triangulating Europe, and Islamists seek our destruction at home while we implement liberal governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All this peril came on us suddenly and without warning ? at a time of recession and following the vast arms cuts of the 1990s, a trillion in lost commerce and outright damage from 9/11, oil spikes, huge trade deficits, increased entitlements, and tax cuts. If Mr. Rumsfeld is responsible for all that, perhaps then we can ask him to step aside as culpable for our present absence of enough soldiers in the U.S. military.
In reality, he has carefully allotted troops in Iraq because he has few to spare elsewhere ? and all for reasons beyond his control. If Senator Lott or kindred pundits first show us exactly where the money is to come from to enlarge the military (tax hikes, cuts in new Medicare entitlements, or budgetary freezes?), and, second, that Mr. Rumsfeld opposes expanding our defense budget ? “No, President Bush, I don’t need any more money, since the Clinton formula was about right for our present responsibilities” ? then he should be held responsible. So far that has not happened.
Fourth, we hear of purportedly misplaced allocations of resources. Thus inadequate Humvees are now the focus of our slurs ? our boys die while we are wasting money on pie-in-the-sky ABMs. But next month the writs may be about our current obsession with tactical minutiae ? if Iran shoots off a test missile with a simultaneous announcement of nuclear acquisition. So then expect, “Why did Rumsfeld rush to spend billions on Humvee armor, when millions of Americans were left vulnerable to Iran’s nukes without a viable ABM system come to full completion?”
Fifth, have we forgotten what Mr. Rumsfeld did right? Not just plenty, but plenty of things that almost anyone else would not have done. Does anyone think the now-defunct Crusader artillery platform would have saved lives in Iraq or helped to lower our profile in the streets of Baghdad? How did it happen that our forces in Iraq are the first army in our history to wear practicable body armor? And why are over 95 percent of our wounded suddenly surviving ? at miraculous rates that far exceeded even those in the first Gulf War? If the secretary of Defense is to be blamed for renegade roguery at Abu Ghraib or delays in up-arming Humvees, is he to be praised for the system of getting a mangled Marine to Walter Reed in 36 hours?
And who pushed to re-deploy thousands of troops out of Europe, and to re-station others in Korea? Or were we to keep ossified bases in perpetuity in the logic of the Cold War while triangulating allies grew ever-more appeasing to our enemies and more gnarly to us, their complacent protectors?
The blame with this war falls not with Donald Rumsfeld. We are more often the problem ? our mercurial mood swings and demands for instant perfection devoid of historical perspective about the tragic nature of god-awful war. Our military has waged two brilliant campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. There has been an even more inspired postwar success in Afghanistan where elections were held in a country deemed a hopeless Dark-Age relic. A thousand brave Americans gave their lives in combat to ensure that the most wicked nation in the Middle East might soon be the best, and the odds are that those remarkable dead, not the columnists in New York, will be proven right ? no thanks to post-facto harping from thousands of American academics and insiders in chorus with that continent of appeasement Europe.
Out of the ashes of September 11, a workable war exegesis emerged because of students of war like Don Rumsfeld: Terrorists do not operate alone, but only through the aid of rogue states; Islamicists hate us for who we are, not the alleged grievances outlined in successive and always-metamorphosing loony fatwas; the temper of bin Laden’s infomercials hinges only on how bad he is doing; and multilateralism is not necessarily moral, but often an amoral excuse either to do nothing or to do bad ? ask the U.N. that watched Rwanda and the Balkans die or the dozens of profiteering nations who in concert robbed Iraq and enriched Saddam.
Donald Rumsfeld is no Les Aspin or William Cohen, but a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall. I wish he were more media-savvy and could ape Bill Clinton’s lip-biting and furrowed brow. He should, but, alas, cannot. Nevertheless, we will regret it immediately if we drive this proud and honest-speaking visionary out of office, even as his hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory.
? Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.
Another good defense of Rumsfeld, from someone at the State Department who wishes to remain anonymous, on the anonymous “Diplomad” blog:
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/2004/12/three-cheers-for-rumsfeld.html
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Three Cheers for Rumsfeld
From the Vice Chief Diplomad for Defense Affairs:
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is everyone’s favorite bogeyman for the Bush Administration. Even some Republican Senators have joined the “usual suspects” critics from the left in the United States and America’s critics around the world. But President Bush backed the SecDef and reconfirmed that he’s staying on indefinitely in the Administration.
This is good news. Diplomads are big fans of Donald Rumsfeld, and in this respect are probably a minority in the State Department bureaucracy. Reading the NY Times or Washington Post you would get the sense that Rumsfeld was Secretary Powell’s arch-enemy, and that foreign policy was not working properly if the two of them were arguing or if, God help us, the President was listening to Rumsfeld and not to Powell. Here’s what’s wrong with that kind of analysis:
– The President makes the final call if SecDef and SecState disagree or even they agree. If you don’t like the outcome, blame the President. But whoops, it turns out there are not enough voting-age blamers to go around and President Bush just got re-elected, decisively.
– Secretaries of State and Defense SHOULD disagree. It goes with the territory and is a healthy part of making good decisions. The military view of the world sees areas of responsibility, unified commands and missions; the diplomatic view sees geographic regions and use of force as an element of overall foreign policy. Each has a different constituency of troops or employees and interests both at home and overseas. Diplomads who work a lot with our military counterparts find that we have healthy disagreements all the time. It’s not a problem.
– Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld each worked in the other’s bureaucracy (the former in a distinguished military career that took him to the Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs, the latter as Ambassador to NATO); it’s not hard to envision them having been named to the other one’s position.
– If they come across to foreign audiences as a good cop/bad cop pair, that doesn’t mean they’re not working towards the same objectives.
Conclusion: It doesn’t bother us at all that our boss, whom we respect, had disagreements with the Secretary of Defense, whom we also respect. But that is only debunking a negative argument. On the purely positive side, we believe Donald Rumsfeld has been one of the most successful Secretaries of Defense in modern times, and under some of the most challenging circumstances. During his tenure the US military has modernized and begun the long transformation into a leaner, meaner fighting machine. We are repositioning our forces away from the Cold-War-era front lines and making them more mobile. Gone is the Clinton-Gore Administration view that we had reached an end-of-ideology period where the military is only to be deployed for peacekeeping or strining elecrical wires in Haiti – in other words, the US Army as the Salvation Army. Under Rumsfeld’s leadership our military is fighting successfully the wars of the 21st century and preparing for future ones.
The war in Afghanistan was, by anyone’s estimate, a tremendous success. Nobody believed it possible, and to this day you rarely see credit given Rumsfeld for his part in it. You rarely even see much credit to the overall outcome as an example of implanting a democracy (by force), with local characteristics, in a part of the world that supposedly is incapable of handling democracy.
The conventional part of the war in Iraq was also a tremendous success. Again, nobody predicted that Saddam’s army could be defeated and Baghdad occupied as fast as it was and with a relatively small number of casualties. Leaving aside one’s views on the war itself (note: Diplomads are still for it), the military campaign was brilliant. And the fact that a few works of art got looted from museums later didn’t really detract from the brilliance.
Presently we are faced with an insurgency in Iraq that is nastier than we thought it would be. In this context, and because of the Abu Ghraib business, people want to get rid of Secretary Rumsfeld. Maybe Rumsfeld, like a lot of others, underestimated the insurgency last year. He certainly doesn’t underestimate it now. Ask the people of Fallujah if you’re not clear on this last point. To the extent that the insurgency is still tough to defeat, there are a lot of productive ways to deal with it that have nothing to do with blaming Secretary Rumsfeld: Train Iraq troops, work with neighboring countries, go forward with the elections. These are all part of a strategy that makes sense and requires strong political will. Prosecuting the soldiers who abused the Iraq prisoners also requires strong political will. But let’s not forget that the insurgents and most of the prisoners are the bad guys; Rumsfeld is a good guy.
Other criticisms of the SecDef are really small potatoes: he didn’t use pen and ink to sign letters to fallen soldiers’ families, and he’s blamed for there not being enough armored vehicles in Iraq (blamed by the same people who vote against increases in our defense budget, mind you), and he pissed off some French and Germans by saying they were “old Europe.” (Note: they are.)
We have to get to a bottom line before we lose too many readers. So here it is: SecDef is a great American. He’s come back to government as Secretary of Defense a full generation after he last held that position (1975-77) not because he’s ambitious, but because he wanted to accomplish what was necessary to defend America in the 21st Century. Think of your own career, and how from one job to the next you might feel slighted if you get a lateral transfer and don’t move up a notch in the pecking order. Could you imagine yourself returning to the same assignment 25 years later wanting to do a better job? And taking a whopping pay cut in the process?