Posted on 11/09/2006 5:52:10 PM PST by neverdem
I don't see how removing the Secretary of Defense helps either the country or the Republicans, especially given the pre-election vote of confidence in his full tenure. He was on the right track reforming the military; the removal of the Taliban and the three-week victory over Saddam were inspired.
So we are down to his supposed responsibility for the later effort to stop the 3-year plus insurgency, whose denouement is not yet known. Rumsfeld's supposed error that drew such ire was troop levels, i.e., that he did not wish to repeat a huge presence in the manner of Vietnam, but sought to skip the 1964-1971 era morass, and go directly to the 1972-5 Vietnamization strategy of training troops, providing aid, and using air power.
I think he was right, and that most troops in Iraq today would agree. I was just talking to a Marine Lt. back from Haditha and Hit; his chief worry was not too few Americans, but rather Iraqi Security Forces insidiously expecting Americans to do their own security patrolling. Since sending in tens of thousands to do a Grozny-like smash-up is both politically impossible and antithetical to American policy, I don't see the advantage of more troops at all, especially when we will soon near 400,000 Iraqis in arms, which, together with coalition forces of ca. 150,000, would in theory provide 555,000—or more than the "peacetime" army of Saddam's. As a rule in history, it is not just the size, but the nature, rules of engagement, and mission, of armies that matter.
For the future, neither precipitous withdrawal nor a big build-up are the right solutions, the former will leave chaos, the latter will only ensure perpetual Iraqi dependency. As it is, there are too many support troops over in Iraq in compounds, who are not out with Iraqis themselves; more troops will only ensure an even bigger footprint and more USA-like enclaves. Abezaid, Casey, Petraeus, McMaster, etc. understand counter-insurgency and the need for a long-term commitment that marries political autonomy for the Iraqis with American aid, commandos, and air support. Rumsfeld supported them all.
A final note.Whatever Rumsfeld's past in the 1970s and 1980s, he wholeheartedly supported the present effort to offer the MIddle East something other than realpolitik. I don't see how the Reagan-Bush era 1980s and early 1990s policies in the Middle East—selling arms to Iran, putting troops in Lebanon and running when they were hit, cynically playing off Iran against Iraq, selling weapons to any thug in the Middle East, giving a blank check to the House of Saud, letting the Shiites and Kurds be massacred in February-March 1991—were anything other than precursors to the events of 9/11—when, of course, enhanced by the shameless Clintonian appeasement of the middle and late 1990s.
The return of the realists-Baker, Gates, and the former advisors to GB I-should prove an interesting mix with the Dean-Pelosi Democrats. The latter used to call for idealism in foreign policy, then got it with GWB's democratization, then turned on him, and now will get the realism that they currently profess to favor. Don't hold your breath.
Posted at 9:14 AM
The minute the republican's in government begin to agee with the dems, expect the dems to turn on them and take opposite positions.
They can't help themselves.
The exception, of course, is the expansion of communism within our society.
If there has been any error, it has been our deference to the realists thus far. We held back on smashing Syria and Iran, the sources of support for the insurgency. Now it is far too late to do so. And now that we've cashiered a real war leader for a political careerist detente monger, there is no hope of proper war fighting.
We have a long list of people we allied with militarily, and then dropped. That was one reason why Iraq went slowly at first, because we dropped our friends there after Gulf War I. And we dropped the Kurds earlier, too. Not to speak of our allies in Vietnam.
This is bound to make people very careful of allowing us to help them.
"Don't blame Rumsfeld"?
Well i don't.
But i DO think that anyone with an ounce of political acumen would have realized months ago, that it was time for a new Defense Secretary, as i said here.
Just another example of republican mis-management.
MISMANAGEMENT! And from republicans! the group that ought to have done management right!
"The dims wanted power and were willing to mischaracterize, sacrifice everything good and turn it into failure in order to gain their power.
When we fail in Iraq because of them they will not care as long as they are in power. Of course it won't be their fault so everything is fine.
As long as they are in power."
That hits the nail squarely on the head.
The Democrats would have found an issue to bash Bush with.
If Iraq wasn't around, they were ready to bash Bush over Katrina and over the drug program, or over 'not fully funding' no child left behind, or ... something.
Iraq was just an issue to get them power. *NOW* it's their baby too, to fix or to ruin.
Rumsfeld out solves only the issue of who to blame. He's gone and can be scapegoat of whatever perceived failures happened prior. However, since he was
I love Rummy. I hope for the best for him. I hope he writes a book to be released about say in Oct of 08. But, I wish people would take a deep breath and realize this was all planned months ago and Rummy was in on it. He isn't disgraced.
BTW, when did World War 2 end? Do we still have troops in Germany? Have any troops been harmed after Germany lost? Why are the democrats not saying that we have to end WWII????????
Excellent points!
And that list goes as far back as WWII and Yalta. Those pesky Poles, and their Battle of England, their Monte Cassino sacrifices. Yes "we can trust Uncle Joe." (Why they joined us again in Iraq is a mystery to this cat.)
Rumsfeld's mistakes:
1 - Not admitting from the start that Iraq would take 5-10 years for a plausible democracy to be established,
2 - Not beefing up the Army with manpower in 2002,
and
3 - Browbeating subordinates.
GWB's mistakes - 1 & 2, plus
Not taking responsibility for the conduct of the war ("Whatever the generals tell me" isn't an acceptable plan of action for the Commander-in-Chief), and
Not taking his case to the American people. It takes work to overcome the media, and he didn't do it.
To some, it is evident that we fought WWII at the behest of all the Communists in government and in FDR's inner circle, including his wife, and for the purpose of insuring Joe Stalin's survival. The Japanese had attacked Stalin from the east and Hitler had attacked from the west. He needed us in order to survive.
Read Thomas Fleming's The New Dealers War, the war within WWII.
Immediately after the war, we almost completely disarmed, just as we had at the end of WWI. When the North Koreans invaded the South we were very poorly prepared. Many of our troops froze at Chosin Reservoir due to inadequate clothing.
Also, many of the same Communists who counseled FDR were still in the government. To follow MacArthur's advice, and his plan, would have meant fighting China and then Russia, both Communists regimes. The U.S. did not want to do that. Was it because we couldn't win, or because we could??
I just hope that Rummy has been keeping good notes because he really does need to write a good book. Perhaps it can't be published right away, but the whole story, the REAL story, should be written and put in a vault for future release.
Bump for your answer. Most here don't want to hear it, but Rummy should have built up a larger force even before 9/11. I thought we needed a larger force dating back to before the 2000 election and my greatest disappointment with the administration is that they have resisted building up the Army. Win the war first and then do transformation-if winning the war requires a bigger Army and that puts transformation on the back burner, then transformation will have to wait.
sure.
what difference does it make now?
All your points are reasonable but arguable. The last one, "Not taking his case to the American people. It takes work to overcome the media, and he didn't do it," is certainly on the mark. Once in a while Bush has spoken up, but much too rarely. He simply has not made the case forcefully enough. And he has refused to tackle his enemies by pointing out, for example, that the press has relentlessly focused on the negative and ignored the positive.
Iraq should have about as much political autonomy as Japan did after WWII.
Japan didn't get back civilian control until 10 years after WW2
Logic and history mean nothing.
The rats simply wanted something to bash Bush with.
I think things in Iraq are going quite well. It s a war that has to be fought so even if it is difficult it must be done.
Mistakes are made in all wars.
I would alter your ranking, to include what is the biggest threat to the nation:
1. The Drive-by Media
2. The Terrorists
3. The liberal Democrats
Understand that, without the aggressive support and propagandizing the Media does for the other two enemies of America, they would already be puddles.
This is bound to make people very careful of allowing us to help them.
Don't forget Kosovo. Many non-European nations were aghast that we would lead NATO into a military intrusion into another country's internal affairs.
India, in particular, denounced the adventure.
Kosovo brought an effective end to the international order that had prevailed since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
I wonder if Clinton even thought about that...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.