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
Because we could. We should have let the Nazis fight it out with the Communists, but you're right, FDR wanted Pearl Harbor and our government policy was run by red sympathizers.
Which is why there is little reason to take you seriously. Go back to growing grapes and teaching college.
That is a tremendous book. One of the best I've read in recent years.
That era's Blue Dog conservatives in the Democratic Party did a heroic job in thwarting FDR's worst impulses. Otherwise we would have had President Henry Wallace upon Roosevelt's death.
Rumsfeld had been talking of reducing the Army to just four divisions prior to 9-11. One of the many reasons he got a no confidence vote from the uniformed military.
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
New Link! http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
Not sure which service you are serving in, but all the uniformed military I serve with and have served with had full confidence in Rumsfeld. I know the Army wasn't a big fan of his, but that is mostly because the Army's Pentagon leadership are the last folks serving to realize it is no longer 1918.
What you said.
Rumsfeld had been talking of reducing the Army to just four divisions prior to 9-11. One of the many reasons he got a no confidence vote from the uniformed military.
Source for this claim? I say it nonsense. Prove me wrong.
Which is every reason to take him seriously. Every statement is a fact. Funny how they all scream about "Rummy's mistakes" but arrogantly ever refuse to own up to their own. Rather then cling to their ideological dictated "Realist" dogma they try learning something instead of arrogantly clinging to their 09-10-01 dogmas
Wrong Jack! That's Jack Bauer, not Jack Ryan. (I've never seen a single ep of 24, but Laura Ingraham talks about it all the time.)
Oh, not the 'nonsense' attack!
I'm not your gopher. Look it up yourself. It was in military publications when he was proposing it. They are online, do your own footwork or wallow in your current ignorance. It makes no difference to me.
Fine. You and farmer Hanson can go ahead and dump on Reagan.
OBL gave interviews to western journalists before he went into hiding. He gave his reasons for his jihad against America. He didn't include farmer Hanson's reasons. But then what would Osama know compared to Victor Hanson about what motivates him?
Nuke Mecca?
Counter Insurgency is not Total War. You all tried that dogma in Vietnam. How did it work out?
Man the Freeper Arm Chair Generals are a bunch of seriously ignorant people!
HERE is what Iraq was about. Try to learn something instead of just screaming talk radio slogans and Know Nothing Dogmas.
Why Iraq"
One of the really infuriating things in modern politics is the level of disinformation, misinformation, demagoguery and out right lying going on about the mission in Iraq. Democrats have spent the last 3+ years lying about Iraq out of a political calculation. The assumption is that the natural isolationist mindset of the average American voter, linked to the inherent Anti Americanism (what is misnamed the "Anti War movement") of the more feverish Democrat activists (especially those running the US's National "News" media) would restore them to national political dominance. The truth is the Democrat Party Leadership has simply lacked the courage to speak truth to whiners. The truth is that even if Al Gore won the 2000 election and 09-11 still happened we would be doing the EXACT same things in Iraq we are doing now.
Based on the political situation in the region left over from the 1991 Gulf War plus the domestic political consensus built up in BOTH parties since 1991 as well as fundamental military strategic laws, there was NO viable strategic choice for the US but to take out Iraq after finishing the initial operations in Afghanistan.
To start with Saddam's Iraq was our most immediate threat. We could NOT commit significant military forces to another battle with Saddam hovering undefeated on our flank nor could we leave significant forces watching Saddam. The political containment of Iraq was breaking down. That what Oil for Food was all about. Oil for Food was an attempt by Iraq to break out of it's diplomatic isolation and slip the shackles the UN Sanctions put on it's military. There there was the US Strategic position to consider.
The War on Islamic Fascism is different sort of war. in facing this Asymmetrical threat, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone.
Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is mostly neutral in terms of guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
Did any of the critics of liberating Iraq ever look at a map? Iraq, for which we had the political, legal and moral justifications to attack, is the strategic high ground of the Middle East. A Geographic barrier that severs ground communication between Iran and Syria apart as well as providing another front of attack in either state or into Saudi Arabia if needed.
There were other reasons to do Iraq but here is the strategic military reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. One has to wonder if the American people have either the emotional maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" or dumbest of all "We are creating terrorists" then to actually THINK.
Westerners in general, and the US citizens in particular seem to have trouble grasping the fundamental fact of this foe. These Islamic Fascists have NO desire to co-exist with them. The extremists see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. There is simply no way to coexist with people who completely believe their "god" will reward them for killing us.
So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest of the Jihadists realize we are serious. They same way killing enough Germans, Italians and Japanese eliminated the ideologies of Nazism, Fascism and Bushido. Americans need to understand how Bin Laden and his ilk view us. In the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11-01 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it
The reforms Rumsfeld needed to be addressing were our ability to deal with fourth generation warfare.
Have you read the interviews with Osama where he describes his reasons for jihad against America? He was angry that we had defiled "sacred" Saudi Arabian soil by stationing infidel troops there in Gulf War I. He was angry that we support "corrupt" Muslim regimes that the al Qaedan purists despise. He was angry that we projected power into the Persian Gulf.
The only parallel between Hanson's grab bag of "causes" of 9-11 and Osama's is our support for the House of Saud.
Osama didn't give a rat's behind about Lebanon. Or the Iran Iraq War. He's not some sort of pan-Arabist who supports all nominal Islamics. He'd kill plenty of them because they are heretics in his eyes. Something we ought to let him try spending his time doing, it would keep him very busy. The group that bombed the Marines at the airport were marxists loosely allied with the soviets. Hardly al Qaeda material.
> one of our country's greatest generals, Douglas MacArthur,
MacArthur was an insubordinate martinet well past his prime. The man forgot that military leaders are subordinate to political leaders and tried to run his own foreign policy.
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