Posted on 01/05/2011 12:10:25 PM PST by pissant
Folks, please welcome back former Congressman Duncan L. Hunter to Free Republic. It has been three years since he last joined us for a live interview. Back then, he was in the midst of vying for the GOP nomination for the presidency. The GOP instead turned to a moderate in 2008, and as easily predicted, the Marxist is now in the Oval Office .
Though he is not contemplating another run right now, at just 62 years of age, and being of a restless nature when it comes to promoting conservatism, he is not sitting quietly in retirement either. Aside from his efforts to get new, conservative blood into to the 2010 Congress, Hunter has lately been spending time taking some wounded Marines out hunting, raising money for their cause, and offering advice to the folks back in Washington on how to duplicate the successes of the Iraq War in Afghanistan.
He has also written an excellent new book on the Iraq War that both explains how America was victorious, and that places the spotlight on the warriors who did the heavy lifting. The book is seen here below, and today’s interview will focus to some degree on the book.
But Mr. Hunter is ready and willing to stay for an hour or so and answer your follow up questions. (The initial Q&A was conducted yesterday, 1/4/11, and is posted below as the thread body).
Without further adieu, the interview begins….
AJM: Hello Congressman. Happy New Years.
DH: Well Happy New Year to you and your family.
AJM: Thanks. Well, you ready to go live on FreeRepublic?
DH: Sure. How many folks see the site?
AJM: I’m not sure, but I do know it’s the largest conservative ‘forum’ in the country and one of the most popular conservative websites overall, as well. Not sure of the numbers, but I seem to recall that it is in the top 10 of websites. Drudge is number 1, I think. But Drudge is mainly an aggregator of news, that points you off to other websites. FR not only allows folks to post the headlines from around the world, but its main function is to allow folks to argue about them. It’s a rough and tumble place. As you know, Jim Robinson is the proprietor. He’s an old Vet, Navy I think, who started it up during the middle Clinton years as a place for conservatives to bitch and moan and to become active. It’s since grown to the largest conservative forum on the web.
DH: That’s great.
AJM: And the hot topic of the day (1/4) is that Sarah Palin, on her Twitter website, reposted someone else’s opinion - without commenting on it – she just reposted it on her own site, that basically has been construed to be in favor of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal.
DH: Really?
AJM: Yeah, it’s one of the hot issues of the day.
DH: What a turkey. But the question is: are you’re saying this was a mistake in putting that up, or are you saying it was purposeful?
AJM: If it’s a mistake, I’m sure we’ll get some clarification soon.
DH: This is kind of like people who put things into their speech – they don’t want to directly say I’m for the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal – so they put in “here’s what George Washington said about it”, Right? Then they quote somebody as a deflective way of asserting their own position.
AJM: What it’s called in modern internet parlance is re-tweeting. (laughs).
DH: Could it have been put up by mistake?
AJM: Well, someone has to physically go grab that and post it into your own account. The quote that she put up was from a friend, a gal named Tammy Bruce. Tammy is a talk show host and while she’s mostly conservative, she’s also an out of the closet lesbian who has always been against DADT.
DH: Yeah. On the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell debate, the strongest statements I saw came from McCain. McCain said that “it would fundamentally damage the military for a long time”, or words to that effect. That was one of the few strong statements made about it in the Senate. All these other guys talked about how it was the “wrong time”, which acquiesces to the challenge. It’s like ceding the moral ground to the other side, which is a HUGE mistake in any debate. It especially shows that you really don’t believe in your cause.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has nothing to do with timing. It has everything to do with values.
AJM: Exactly. Last year, when Palin was on Chris Wallace’s show on Fox, Fox News Sunday, he asked her about that, because there had been a little bit of bubbling up of the issue back then. The essence of her quote was ‘no, not right now, we have other more important things to take care of now’.
DH: It’s the old timing argument. The timing argument basically cedes three quarters of the battlefield to the other side. It’s implicitly agreed that you’re going to do it. The question then just becomes the date.
AJM: Exactly. Maybe that date has arrived, based on the reposting of Tammy Bruce’s position. She may get enough blowback that she’ll run away from it again, we’ll see.
DH: My question is this. We all know these websites are run by staff guys, right? So the question really is, is that Sarah Palin’s position, or did she have some activist staff person who thought that that would be a nice one to put up?
AJM: If she comes out and says that’s the case, then all is well. But her answer last year was still a ‘timing one’. Especially if she runs, she’ll be forced to address the issue.
DH: That’s right.
AJM: Let me get a question in on your book. What lessons from your book on Iraq would you like see applied to the current ‘hot war’ in Afghanistan?
DH: On a practical level, the book describes the victories, the winning strategies from a couple of our brilliant tacticians in the US Marine Corps and the US Army, strategies that were exercised in Iraq successfully. And one of the best leaders in the Marine Corps is Colonel JD Alford. He tamed what is known as the ‘wild west’ of Anbar Province. That is the large area bordering Syria where massive smuggling of terrorists and weaponry took place during 2004, 2005 and 2006.
So JD Alford is a guy, what you would call an ‘old hand’ in the Marine Corps. And a lot of the book is dedicated to old hands; that is Army and Marine Corps personnel who did 2, 3, 4 or more tours in Afghanistan or Iraq. In undertaking those multiple tours, they learned a lot of things about counterinsurgencies, especially. And JD Alford commanded the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines in Afghanistan before he came to Iraq. He learned the art of splitting the population away from the insurgency, which is the key to a successful counterinsurgency campaign.
He brought that capability to Iraq. I’ll give you just a couple of points that JD Alford made that are well laid out in my book, that I think troop leaders in Afghanistan would be well advised to heed. One was that he had a strategy of putting together a local fighting force. Part of a counterinsurgency is building a local fighting force that can act as a counterbalance to the insurgents. JD Alford had a motto which he called “lead from behind”. And that means when he was putting together a local government and a force strong enough to hold off the insurgents – a local police force, helping to put together the units for a local militia – he would pull back into the background and let local leaders rise to positions of prominence. He called that “leading from behind”. And in western Anbar Province, he would sit in the back of these meetings with the tribes, which had often been fighting each other, who would get together and decide that they’d fight the insurgents and Al Qaeda. And the only requirement that JD Alford had made, was that all the tribes be present before the meetings began. But he always sat behind the mayor, or behind the particular militia commander, or the brigade commander form the 1st Iraqi Division, and he let them rise to the fore and assert themselves.
And I think that is a problem that Americans have in Afghanistan and had in Iraq. That is, Americans like to lead. Every American infantry commander is assertive, he’s got leadership qualities; that’s why he’s in the position he is in. And they all have a natural desire to take over and command the operation. But what Alford realized, as well as some of the other counterinsurgency strategists, was that you have to leave a native force behind capable of holding off the terrorists by themselves after the Americans leave. So the book describes JD Alford’s leading from behind. He was able to stand up a native force that could hold off the insurgents long after the Marines were gone. That is what we have to do in these remote villages in Afghanistan.
So there are a lot of lessons there from guys like JD Alford, Lt. Col Bill Jurney, who tamed Ramadi, and a number of great Army leaders who did the same thing in the Diyala River Valley, up north of Baghdad. So there are certainly lessons for the folks who are going to lead troops in Afghanistan in this book about Iraq.
AJM: That’s excellent. Now you just have got to get everyone to read it.
DH: There it is.
AJM: You mentioned earlier the lame duck session and the START treaty which was passed. Unfortunately, in the Senate, about half the GOP senators went along for the ride. What is your take on Obama’s new START?
DH: I think the new START is a reflection of political expediency on the part of the Obama Administration, which from my perspective, is simply punching the ticket on having some kind of an arms control deal halfway through the administration that they’ll be able to point to in the next election period.
The fatal defect of the START draw-downs is this. There are of couple of countries which weren’t included, the most important of which is communist China, which has been left totally uninhibited with respect to its production of nuclear weapons.
China is acquiring a defense industrial base which will dwarf that of the old Soviet Union. And they are now producing high end nuclear weapons. They have a few of them right now targeted on American cities. But they have the capacity to build lots of them, very quickly. And one example of their ability to produce quickly is the fact that their production program right now for submarines is out-producing American submarines by more than 3 to 1. They have the same capability with respect to missiles. They are producing about 100 medium and short range missiles per year, but they are also fielding this new road-mobile nuclear tipped missile which will have a big reach, able to reach the United States. And it has a large degree of survivability based on its mobility.
So as the US moves into further draw-downs on its nuclear systems, the real threat on the horizon, that is the nuclear program of communist China is totally unrestricted. So this is a movement in exactly the wrong direction from my perspective.
You also have, obviously, North Korea acquiring a modest nuclear capability and at some point they will marry that capability with their ongoing missile program.
AJM: They continue to export them too.
DH: Yeah. And you’ll have Iran developing some kind of a nuclear capability in the not too distant future. And Iran also has a delivery program, a missile program, which will result ultimately in having a deliverable nuclear package which will reach a number of American allies, if not the United States itself.
So while North Korea, Iran, and most importantly, China, remain totally unrestricted by this treaty, we are continuing to unilaterally draw down, with Russia, America’s nuclear stockpiles. You know, one of the arguments made by liberals in the “old days” - in the 1980s when we were trying to modernize our nuclear weapons, the strategic TRIAD – one argument from the liberals was, “We already have enough weapons to kill every Russian soldier 10 times over”. And our answer back was that we didn’t want to have to kill any of them! And the way you kept form having to do that is by maintaining an overwhelming counterstrike capability. So the guys that threw the first rock, in this case the Soviet Union, could count on being obliterated by the return volley. As a result of having an overwhelming counterstrike capability, the United States never had to kill any of them with nuclear weapons. And that is the point: To deter would be adversaries from throwing that first rock.
The idea of whittling our systems down to the point where one of the new players in the nuclear game may feel that they can surge production and come close to the United States’ arsenal in terms of destructive capability, that’s not a scenario that will lead to a stable world for the next 10 to 20 to 30 years.
The United States needs to keep an overwhelming ability to deter an enemy strike on America or our allies. And to this date, because we don’t have the defensive capabilities that can handle a fairly substantial strike, our deterrence is manifested in our nuclear tipped systems atop our TRAID – our bombers, our ICBMs, and our submarines.
So one of the main defects of the Obama package is that it left out the real player over the next 10 to 30 years, and that is communist China.
AJM: And one more defect was what some of the conservatives, and I think you were one of them, were saying that we are at least tacitly giving up our missile defenses in exchange for this agreement with Russia. Obama came out and said “no, no, no, we aren’t doing that”. Immediately thereafter, Medvedev and Putin both said ‘that if America continues with their defensive systems, we have the right to withdraw from this treaty’. So something’s not right here.
DH: Yeah. I think you are right in the sense that Russia thinks they extracted a de facto concession on missile defense from the Obama Administration. The first concession was our agreement not to put the systems in eastern Europe that could handle strikes from Iran on the European community. Obama agreed not to do that. His first statement was, “we are still looking at that”. And that was, for practical purposes, the opening of the door, or the first step backwards on those systems. And a few months later, Gates confirmed they would not be going in.
So it’s interesting. Reagan could back down the USSR on missile defenses when he used the word “Nyet”, when Gorbachev tried to include the closure of the missile defense program in the United States as a precondition for any Soviet/US reductions. Reagan closed the door on the Soviets demanding concessions with respect to defensive system. Obama has foolishly re-opened the door and is in the process of conceding in a de facto fashion an aggressive missile defense system that is based on the premise that we have the right to stop incoming ballistic missiles which are targeted on our cities, our troops and our allies.
Is it better to be a little conservative versus none at all? I ask that in the context of the California elections, specifically Meg Whittman and Carly Fiorina.
So you would advocate taking the right to vote from ALL women because of that? Get real, man!
Let me ask you this... 90% of blacks vote democrat. Would you also prefer their right to vote be taken away?
Let me ask you this... 90% of blacks vote democrat. Would you also prefer their right to vote be taken away?
If I might be so bold as to offer advise for future runs...
I know you are a gentleman, and try to conduct yourself in a civil manner, but I did a study of political psychologies, which might indicate that is the wrong path. The basic theory was the Conservative evolved from a psychology which is driven to compete, individually, and in group warfare, as a means of bettering the species through competition. This is in contrast to the Liberal which adopted a psychology concerned with avoiding competitions, so as to simply get their genes to the next generation absent and selective culling.
Thus the Conservative might be drawn to conflict, just as guys drive to stadiums to watch other men play football. Start a fight, and we will pay attention. Once we pay attention, show you are our guy, and we will join you.
If I am correct, your next campaign might benefit from flying the black flag a little, and attacking those who least embody the Competitive Conservative psychology. In doing this, you will rally the Conservative Competitors psychologically, and they will be more prone to join you in battle. It is a psychological drive in our party to battle, even if just politically. If you used that a bit more, it might help you rally your forces. You tend to politely put forth your ideas and beliefs, and let them stand, as a gentleman. It might help if you find the Liberal RINO, and call a battle against him.
Again, I know you are a gentleman, and such would not come naturally, but from here, this country is in dire straits. It might be best for the country if you strayed from your decent and gentlmanly style, and attacked your adversaries more, and created a little Competition to stir some ardor.
Many thanks for your service to America.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hunter. Good luck with the book and all your future endeavors. God bless.
I must have landed in some alternate universe where the most pressing questions to a sitting Congressman in a live forum are about a Palin re-tweet. I’m embarrassed for FR.
There are far more urgent problems, such as this administration’s sucking the life blood of our country by executive order and embedded regulation or the emasculating of our self-defense.
+1
Childish, parochial, amateur, backwater, obscure, pointless, asinine, classless bickering doesn't begin to describe the thread to which we subjected Congressman Hunter.
It is shameful.
Congressman Hunter,
Thanks for taking time to be here. Can we expect to get the Fair Tax to the floor this year?
I was extremely disappointed it did not get to the floor the last time the Republicans held control.
Best Regards.
Congressman Hunter,
Thanks for taking time to be here. Can we expect to get the Fair Tax to the floor this year?
I was extremely disappointed it did not get to the floor the last time the Republicans held control.
Best Regards.
After reading the thread, allow me to add “neanderthal” to your list for the ‘let’s block women from voting’ posts. That’s like the progressives calling for the silencing of conservative speech.
Did you read pissant's first several questions for Rep. Hunter regarding Sarah Palin? He was fishing for soundbites. Fortunately Hunter didn't bite.
Pissant started this crap a long time ago with his trashing of Sarah Palin at any opportunity and opining that women should not be allowed to vote.
bfl
Congressman Hunter was very accommodating of us today.
I wish we did better by him. He is a good Conservative and a good man.
Thank YOU, Congressman! You honor us! It is Americas loss that you were not elected President, and sad day for our country. Thank you for your service, we will not forget.
I was unable until late, to view this thread, so I hope you stop back in to see it.
THANK you for saying that!! APPLAUSE!! Gosh, Congressman, we love you!
Thanks again Jim for allowing this. Old Hunter even got a good chuckle out of the Palin wars in the background.
I’ll get him to log on sometime soon to answer a few more of the questions he couldn’t get to.
He’s not the fastest typer out there. In fact, he may be one of the slowest.
Cheers.
Sorry. I tell the truth about Palin.
All I can say is any candidate I support for 2012 better be ready to kill off Obama’s repeal.
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