Rumsfeld: The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez

The Washington Post ^ | December 2, 2007 | Donald Rumsfeld

[Puzzleman]

Today the people of Venezuela face a constitutional referendum, which, if passed, could obliterate the few remaining vestiges of Venezuelan democracy. The world is saying little and doing less as President Hugo Chávez dismantles Venezuela's constitution, silences its independent media and confiscates private property.

--snip--

With diplomatic, economic and communications institutions designed for a different era, the free world has too few tools to help prevent Venezuela's once vibrant democracy from receding into dictatorship. But such a tragedy is not preordained. In fact, we face a moment when swift decisions by the United States and like-thinking nations could dramatically help, supporting friends and allies with the courage to oppose an aspiring dictator with regional ambitions...

[Puzzleman]

An important article by a brilliant mind.

[MNJohnnie]

At home, the entrenched bureaucracies and diffuse legislative processes of the U.S. government make it hard to creatively, swiftly and proactively handle security threats. Turf-conscious subcommittees in Congress inhibit the country's ability to mobilize government agencies to tackle new challenges. For example, U.S. efforts to build up the police and military capacity of partner nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to fight al-Qaeda and other extremists have been thwarted over the past six-plus years by compartmentalized budgets, outdated restrictions and budget cycles that force a nation at war to spend three years to develop, approve and execute a program.

Well now I know while the old Dinocons like McCain have been so hysteric about getting Rummy. Doesn't he know Administration figures are only there to be Congress's whipping boys! They aren't supposed to criticize the way the gods of the the DC Beltway do their job!

[Casaubon]

9-11, and the war has shown DC’s true weaknesses.

the gov bureaucracies inability to do the right thing for the people, instead of doing what they consider right for themselves.

[shove_it]

Chavez is doing just fine in assuring his own defeat without any help from us. Let’s pass up the temptation to interfere.

[cll]

“Meanwhile, a new generation of foes has mastered the tools of the information age — chat rooms, blogs, cellphones, social-networking Web sites — and exploits them to spread propaganda, even while the U.S. government remains poorly organized and equipped to counter with the truth in a timely manner. The nation needs a 21st-century “U.S. Agency for Global Communications” to inform, to educate and to compete in the struggle of ideas — and to keep its enemies from capitalizing on the pervasive myths that stoke anti-Americanism.”

We non-government types are doing our best to counter them out here, Bubba.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Suggested reading:

BLACKLISTED BY HISTORY
The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy
And His Fight Against America’s Enemies

It’s written around McCarthy but the book is about government incompetence, and how Communists and Communist sympathizers infiltrated our government.

[samtheman]

A question for the author, not about this article but about himself:

Now we are winning in Iraq. Before, for years, we were losing. Why do you think that is?

[DB]

If one wants to take out Chavez, simply stop buying his oil.

Even though the cost of oil would go up, it would be still cheaper than the alternative ways of taking him out.

In addition apparently the US is one of the few countries that can easily handle his low grade crude.

After all his threats to cut off the US a little test of that would expose the lie... Short of oil they produce nothing. Chavez lives paycheck to paycheck so to speak...

[Just mythoughts]

A question for the author, not about this article but about himself: Now we are winning in Iraq. Before, for years, we were losing. Why do you think that is?

LOSING? Sounds a whole lot like that liberal mooolahing coming out of WDC when the aforementioned author was in charge.

[RKV]

Others will buy his oil if we don’t. Short of a blockade, it ain’t going to work.

[JoanVarga]

Even easier...

-Joan

Thanks to Babalu for the pic!

[FatherofFive]

the attacks of 9/11 and the rise of an Islamic extremist movement that hopes to use terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to alter the course of humankind

Even faced with this threat, the libs don't get it.

Chavez is still a good guy because he is a socialist, even though he is destroying democracy. Contrast the coverage with Pakistan.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

The United Nations -- which elected Syria and Iran to a commission on disarmament, Sudan to one on human rights and Zimbabwe to one on sustainable development -- can hardly be considered a credible arbiter of international issues and dialogue. Endemic inertia and corruption threaten to render the United Nations even less effective in the 21st century.

Wow...he finally came out and publicly said that the UN is useless. Way to go!

NATO, the great bulwark against communist expansion, could be usefully reoriented toward today's threats to the nation-state system -- global problems that can be successfully dealt with only by broad coalitions of nations capable of efficiently executing collective decisions.

I'm not that optimistic about NATO though, considering its poor performance in Afghanistan, with the phone book-thick list of national caveats that has allowed the Taliban to creep back into many of the southern provinces.

[samtheman]

I don’t understand your comment. I just don’t see what your saying. What I’m saying is that when Rummy was in charge we weren’t doing so hot. After a change in leadership things changed around fairly quickly. What I’m wondering is, if Rummy was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[GOPJ]

The United States has also lost several tools that were central to winning the Cold War. Notably, U.S. institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications -- both critical to the current struggle of ideas against Islamic radicalism -- no longer exist. Some believed that after the fall of the Soviet Union such mechanisms were no longer needed and could even threaten the free flow of information. But when the U.S. Information Agency became part of the State Department in 1999, the country lost what had been a valuable institution capable of communicating America's message to international audiences powerfully and repeatedly.

Rumsfeld's right. He's right... someone's got to act on this... the war of ideas is battleground.

[DB]

“Others will buy his oil”

Apparantly they won’t.

The majority of his crude is poor quality (heavy and dirty) that few refineries can handle. Refineries that can handle it are significantly more complex and expensive. And apparently are located mostly in the US.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Unquestionably, because Rummy’s initial strategy has been discarded.

[samtheman]

Exactly. Our team was losing, we changed coaches, and now our team is winning. Would anyone really want to go back to the old coach?

I know what I’m posting is off-topic to the main article, but this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and there aren’t many Rummy threads these days so I thought I’d bring it up here.

[JoanVarga]

And Hollywood morons have never met a communist they didn’t like. Ever. Not once.

[WorkingClassFilth]

The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez:

http://research.amnh.org/pbi/graphics/description/m_stick.jpg