Donald Rumsfeld: Survivor
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Riddle me Donald Rumsfeld. He stands at the podium, gray-suited and grease-combed, archaic as a slide rule; he’s ancient but doesn’t look old. He looks, in fact, like Dad, a mid-century version of the guy who disappears with a starched collar every morning to do unfathomable things at the office. When you ask at day’s end what he’s been doing he smiles, uncreased and thinly patient, and explains that you can’t possibly understand what he does. It’s proper and cute that you ask him, but you’re better off letting him handle it, and there is no greater family sin than needless worry.
And he’s tired. He’s been standing all day.
Rumsfeld. Ford. Cheney. One of these guys is replaceable. [Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum]
The act would prove comforting if things were going well in Iraq, but they don’t seem to be, and a lot of what’s broken in the last five years — the way we detain and handle prisoners, the way we deploy and equip our military, the way we occupy a country after beating it — is something that Donald Rumsfeld tried to fix. He was young once, a whiz kid not quite a generation behind Robert Mcnamara, a wrestler from Princeton with an twenty-something’s itch to anger bureaucracy. Then he ran for Congress, won, internalized that itch, scratched it and and is now still scratching a half-century later. It sustains him, this itch. With it he has outlasted Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, and he doesn’t look likely to leave Washington before George Bush.
In his eternal war with and within bureaucracies Donald Rumsfeld is a tactical genius, but is his private, metaphorical war with the Pentagon good for America’s public and very literal war in Iraq? “I’m a survivor,” he told the troops last year, speaking, of course, of his unparalleled ability to hold on to appointed office. It’s an odd thing to say to an audience for whom survival means actually not getting killed.
How does he do it? How has he been doing it for so long? What does it take to lick every bureaucrat, politician and Joint Chief reckless enough to take him on?
Michael Gordon
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Chief Military Correspondent, The New York Times
Co-Author, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Midge Decter
- Author, Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait
Midge Decter
- Author, Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait
Jim Behrle
- Poet and blogger, Behrle
James Mann
- Author, The Rise of the Vulcans
April 17th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
“It sustains him, this itch. With it he has outlasted Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, and he doesn’t look likely to leave Washington before George Bush does.”
But will he outlast Fidel Castro?
April 17th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
You’re doin’ a great job Rummy.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
p.s. He can lick me any old day.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
With Thomas Friedman locked away behind that “firewall of failure” at the NTY’s I can’t link to any of his recent commentary but I did here him speak on another NPR show a few weeks ago and heard him describe Rumsfeld’s Strategy as “just enough to lose”. A very good phrase that could sum it up, if that is the fianl outcome and it is good short description.
Kristol (the Grand poo-bah of Neocons) might agree.
Kristol: “We Have Not Had A Serious Three-Year Effort To Fight A War In Iraq�
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/26/kristol-war-not-serious/
My asessment is that Rumsfeld is the the US military of this century like Jack Wlech was to GE of the 1980’s. Both leaders simultaneously fought and won the wars of thier times while transforming thier respective institutions into organizations ready to fight and win the next wars. Neither were universally loved by members of the organizations that they led but both are historic.
April 18th, 2006 at 12:10 am
And, eventhough some few Generals might not like him, it would seem that many troops are voting with their feet and lives, to say that they likw what he is doing.
Why U.S. Troops Re-Enlist in Record Numbers
April 14, 2006: In the last six months, the U.S. Army is seeing 15 percent more soldiers re-enlist than expected. This continues a trend that began in 2001. Every year since then, the rate at which existing soldiers have re-enlisted has increased. This despite the fact that 69 percent of the troops killed in Iraq have been from the army. New recruits continue to exceed join up at higher rates as well.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20060414.aspx
April 18th, 2006 at 12:15 am
The results of Rumsfeld’s transformation.
America’s New Combat Brigades March On
April 17, 2006: The reorganization of the U.S. Army is, as expected, changing direction even as it takes place. This is largely due to the feedback from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new organization is based more on combat brigades, than combat divisions. The divisions remain, but with more of the men and gear going into four combat brigades, instead of three brigades previously. That means 77 new brigades are being formed. Only a year ago, the plan was for 35 of those brigades to be “heavy” (equipped with M1 tanks and M2 infantry vehicles.) Now there will only be 31 heavy brigades. In addition, there will be four sets of heavy brigade equipment, stored overseas as “prepositioned” gear in places like Kuwait and Korea.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htworld/articles/20060417.aspx
April 18th, 2006 at 12:29 am
But Secretary Rumsfeld doesn’t lack for enthusiastic defenders in the ranks: “My assessment from extensive and continuous contact with young field grade officers…is that Secretary Rumsfeld is considered the finest Secretary of Defense in the last 40 years,” said an Army lieutenant colonel in an email to the Web log “Real Clear Politics.”
However, I can tell you that beyond the Beltway in dusty and dirty places like Ft. Benning, Ft. Stewart, Ft. Hood, Ft. Campbell and Ft. Bragg, where officers wear BDUs instead of Class Bs that there are tens of thousands of Officers, Commissioned/Warrant/Non-Commissioned, that would go to hell and back for this Secretary.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/2006/04/an_officer_responds_to_david_i.html
Record re-enlistment rates do not suggest widespread dissatisfaction among the rank and file with the secretary of defense.
Virtually all the complaining generals oppose Secretary Rumsfeld’s plans for military reform, and are angered and offended by his management style. (The secretary is often brusque with subordinates he thinks reason or perform poorly.) The generals speaking out may have reasons other than patriotism for doing so. Gen. Zinni is flogging a book.
MajGen. John Riggs was busted a grade and forced to retire because of a procurement scandal. MajGen. Eaton oversaw the rebuilding of the Iraqi army in 2003-2004, when everyone now agrees this was a disaster.
“When Swannack, for example, blames Rumsfeld for Abu Ghraib, he gives up the game,” wrote retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, now a professor at Boston University, in the Los Angeles Times. “By pointing fingers at Rumsfeld, the generals hope to deflect attention from the military’s own egregious mistakes.”
Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, whose book “Breaking the Phalanx” is a rough blueprint for the organizational reforms the Army is making now, agrees military leaders deserve at least as much blame for mistakes in Iraq as do the Pentagon’s civilian leaders.
Many generals, especially in the Army, are overly bureaucratic and risk averse, Col. Macgregor said. Excessive caution nearly denied the U.S. a quick victory in the march on Baghdad, and excessive use of force after the fall of Saddam by, among others, MajGen. Swannack, fueled the insurgency, he said.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/04/incompetence_exists_in_the_mil.html
April 18th, 2006 at 12:32 am
A Different Set of Generals
Despite criticisms, Mr. Rumsfeld is arguably one of the most effective secretaries of defense our nation has ever had. Under his watch, the U.S. military has been transforming; it brilliantly deposed Mullah Omar’s barbaric Taliban regime (Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary) and Saddam Hussein’s ruthless Baathist regime, freeing 50 million people from oppression and placing the countries on democratic paths. With these actions, terrorists have been denied secure home bases. These are a few key factors why terrorists have been unable to attack the American homeland again. The policy and forward strategy implemented by Secretary Rumsfeld has taken the fight to the enemy as did the nation in World War II and the Cold War.
Authors
Lt. Gen. Crosby (ret.) is former deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. Lt. Gen. McInerney (ret.) is former assistant vice chief of staff, U.S. Air Force. Maj. Gen. Moore (ret.), U.S. Air Force, was director of Central Command during Operation Desert Storm. Maj. Gen. Vallely (ret.) is former deputy commander of the U.S. Army, Pacific.
http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/04/16-week/index.php#a001916
April 18th, 2006 at 1:14 am
My last post, I promise. Bewteen my real job and new role as a “ghost blogger” on a major right wing blog, I don’t have much time anymore to participate but I do have an idea that might help me as well as many others. (with my RSS reader mentioned below it was easy to come up with the materials and links to them above).
Is it possible for ROS to set up an RSS feed that announces upcoming shows like this one so that, instead of having to goto the site to look for shows it would show up in our RSS feeds? In my role as a ghost blogger I have to be good at managing time and I use RSS readers to keep up with events and this would help much.
It would also keep ROS website at the “bleeding edge” of the use communication technology . For example -”I think we are going to see calendars as a place to aggregate a lot more data in the future,” says Kan. “For example, I put an RSS feed from Upcoming.org into my Kiko calendar. It displays events in Cambridge, directly in my calendar. I found an event that I think I am going to tonight — it’s not something I had looked for, and would never have known about otherwise.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16697,308,p2.html
April 18th, 2006 at 2:53 am
As is usual with the members of the Project for the New American Century cabal, more lurks beneath the surface. Salon.com has uncovered documents which show that Rumsfeld gave a green light to interrogators (read: torturers) of a Saudi Arabian detainee of Guantanamo prison to do whatever was necessary to extract information from him. While Rumsfeld did not order specific abuse, he was nevertheless aware of the kind of abuse taking place at Guantanamo, and gave no instructions that such treatment should be avoided. Rumsfeld received regular updates about this prisoner (Mohamed al-Qahtani) over a period of several weeks, and was particularly interested in what was gained during his questioning. Qahtani has since recanted information given regarding thirty other prisoners, saying the information had been obtained under torture.
Secretary Rumsfeld is not a chilly, more or less benign father figure who made a few miscalculations and is, like his fellow cabinet members, too slick to pin down, giving back criticism as good as he gets. He is a very bad individual who just might be indictable for war crimes and human rights violations — another candidate for being “frogmarched out of office in handcuffs”. Perhaps next week will bring another half-dozen discontented generals, and then another, and another, who will tell tale on Secretary Rumsfeld. Maybe then we can finally get him out of office for good.
April 18th, 2006 at 4:06 am
I can just imagine those nice father son chats.
Dad, the reason I borrowed the car was to get some milk at the 7/11.
“Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.”
Dad, the head of the department said I am doing a great job and might get a promotion.
“If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.”
Dad, I just washed the windows, sweeped the drive-way and set the table.
“If you try to please everybody, somebody’s not going to like it.”
Dad, one of my friends said we’ve already spent 6 times more on the Iraq war than you predicted.
You know me, “I’m not into this detail stuff. I’m more concepty.”
Right. By the way, here’s the $10 I borrowed.
Hey! That’s $11.49 with interest.
Dad, I already asked mom and uncle Saddam what they thought about my joining the staff of the Baghdad Correctional Facility and I thought I should get your opinion.
“The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is.”
Dad, it is so sad that uncle Bob passed away.
“Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.”
Dad, don’t get mad. Didn’t you read the teacher’s report?
“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - - the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Dad, what are you trying to tell me?
“Learn to say ‘I don’t know.’ If used when appropriate, it will be often.”
Is that how you have avoided getting into trouble?
“he he he”
April 18th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Winston Dodson, you and I were both in the military. You and I both know that no one in the enlisted ranks thinks about the Secretary of Defense when considering reenlistment. They think about their family needing a consistent paycheck, and they think about loyalty to their fellow soldiers/shipmates.
You cite statements by generals that more than approve of Mr. Rumsfeld. Winston, I believe you are being disingenuous if you are attempting to convince us that positive statements from certain generals negates the criticism from the other generals. I’m sure you realize that the real news here is that ANY general has broken ranks.
I’m assume McNamara had many generals supporting him as well, right till the end - till today even.
I ask you Winston Dodson, not as “ghost blogger on a major right wing blog�, but as a fellow veteran; what would Mr. Rumsfeld have to do or not do, for you to wish for him to step down? Indulge me in a hypothetical, if you would.
April 18th, 2006 at 4:58 am
I recall that Norman Mailer said (in interview with Chris Lydon and in the NYRB) that Rumsfeld was the only one of the Bush cabinet he respects. His reason: that Rumsfeld basically says what he thinks and does not, any more than the job absolutely requires him to, speak to us with the voice of a man whose default mode is dishonesty.
Like Mailer, I have little good to say about this administration. But I think his exception for Rumsfeld is a fair and accurate one. I do not get the sense that he is a man constantly trying to part us from truths that we serfs don’t even deserve to know. He speaks his mind when he can, and I daresay that explains his longevity and energy in the job.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:32 am
Yes gcaw, waht I dislike about Rumsfeld is his rocking back and forth impenetrable combed-back slick surface arrogance. When he first arrived, prior to 9/11, I had some confidence in him If I could feel that he knows what he is doing. I could put up with the surface.
We are not going to separate Rumsfeld from Cheney from Bush. The person who we should be focussing on firing is GW Bush, the Commander in Chief.
This is a mildly interesting diversion that seems to be taking up news space but is not going anywhere.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:10 am
Potter, that last thought of yours was exactly what went through my mind when I saw this topic. Why don’t we celebrate all the great people in the world that are out there working for the betterment of those who hunger, lack shelter, seek safetly from violence, etc. Instead, the show seems to want to probe into the mind and operations of a slick and nasty technocrat. If anything, the show should look at what “tactical genius” citizens can use against such powerful men to bring down an administation that operates beyond the law.
Or is this a remake of Daddy Knows Best:
In this episode, Donny has a spat with Joyce and decides to take it out on the nation by leading them into a war they cannot win and that will tax generations to come. But in a surpose move, six of Donny’s war buddies turn against him. Don’t change that dial. We’ll be right back after these brief messages from our sponsors, Bechtel, Gulfstream Aerospace, and the RAND Corporation.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:36 am
How does he do it? How has he been doing it for so long? What does it take to lick every bureaucrat, politician and Joint Chief reckless enough to take him on?
Uhh.. pathalogical shamelessness? A complete and utter lack of compunction?
Pardon any implied snarkiness — I’m serious here.
April 18th, 2006 at 8:52 am
As GM goes-so goes the nation! Rummie has done more damage to the Pentagon than Osama!
April 18th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Nother - Reenlistment rate 1) I was in while slick Willy was Pres and he was, most definitely, a negative on both enlistments as well as reenlistments. I had Marines that served under me that chose to leave because they were ashamed to be in service with such a Commander in Chief. But, they also got out because of the good economy at the time. Well, the unemployment rate now is as low, or lower, as it was at that time. So, it looks like there is something going on now because as all data show, both the recruuting and reenlsitment rates are at an all time high.
Then, there is nothing new about “General breaking ranks”. I will find you the corobrating data but there were dozens if not hundreds of Generals who were opposed the very air that slick Willy breathed much less oppossed to his being Pres. So what does it prove? That a few General breaking ranks doesn’t matter. Nother, I’ve got a work for you, it’s called “anecdotal”. And that is what the few Generals out of many, who are asking for Rumsfeld’s retirement are - anecdotal.
Ok, my hypothetical what would cause me to wish that Rumsfeld would step down. He would bow to the pressure of “populsits” and greatly increase the number of troops deployed to Iraq. That MIGHT increase security there, and incidently save a few lives of troops there, but it would ASSUREDLY put more pressure to increase the number of active duty troops that even the US Army is resisting. That would add numbers that we will not need in the future, increase defense costs even more in a area that is not needeed and move money / investement away from what is needed. That will slow or stall the transformation that is going on within the military and that would, in the long run, both cost more US military people their lives in the future and jeopardize the long term security of the US. - I would wan’t him to resign if he did that.
The trade-off is I beleive that the short term increase in the risk to US personnel in Iraq in order to re-engineer the old / slow / outdated US military (as typified by the carping Generals who are asking for Rumsfeld’s resignation) is worht the long term gain for the US military and the US as a whole. And that is spoken as someone who still many close freinds still in who are bearing the brunt of this change. And I can say honestly that I know of NO one who says any different.
If I had stayed in I would be at 19 years in. So my peer group that I regularly stay in touch with consists of about 14 people in ranks from Major to Col and they of course have their networks as well.
I have never heard any complaints that are mentioned in many MSM circles - like the lack of Body Armor. That is simply a stupid canard. I have never heard the subject of Rumsfeld’s resignation brought up. In fact, I just sent off a flurry of emails to all of them with links to articles discussing this I have about 50% response and all of them are bascially saying that they think the generals who are asking for his resignation are themselves, out of touch with what the average officer / troops want. Most of the responses are (paraphrasing) “If the active duty General who were there at the planning meetings didn’t like the plan, why didn’t they have the gonads to speak up there and if they weren’t listened to then resign on the spot - that is what and officer is supposed to do”.
I do hear complaints that we are wearing out equipment and facilities and that training not directly realated to combat is being neglected. For example, as you know many officers in the past were noted for thier grduate educations. Well now, everyone is so excited about getting to Iraq no one is going so they say that there will be a dirth of graduate degrees in future officer Corps. But I guess that I’d rather have officers with combat experience rather than those like me who had a Masters Degree and a WHOPPING 3 weeks (all in GW I) of combat experience.
And I love your bringing up Vietnam because it really takes a bizzare streatch of reality to compare the 2 situations. The US military is coming thru this better and stronger, excpept for the equipment issues that I raised above. And, that will be a HUGE expense at the backend of this war. Everything will be worn out.
So, bottom line - I personally beleive that Rumsfeld in now and will be considered by history, one of the greatest military thinkers of all time.
That is boggest reason why Rumsfeld will not retire until after this fall. Among other things, the selection cycle for Generals is heppening now and they go to Congress for approval in the fall and everybody wants Rumsfeld around for as many of those cycles as they can so he can get rid of “old thinking” leaders.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:08 am
And, it seems that Rumsfeld has out lasted the number one AQ terrorist in Iraq.
Zarqawi ‘not leading Iraq unrest’
Huthaifa Azzam, whose father was a mentor of Osama Bin Laden, said Zarqawi was replaced by an Iraqi two weeks ago.
Mr Azzam claimed some were unhappy about Zarqawi’s tactics and tendency to speak for the insurgency as a whole.
‘Embarrassment’
The new political leader of the coalition of insurgent groups - of which Zarqawi is part - is Abdullah al-Baghdadi, Mr Azzam said.
He said that the move was in part prompted by embarrassment at Zarqawi’s attacks on other countries, such as last year’s hotel bombings in Jordan, and his use of brutal tactics, such as videotaped beheadings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4872236.stm
April 18th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Hmmm. Welcome back Winston. I missed you. While you were away there was an imposter here trying to replace you. I noticed he’s disappeared. Thank Goodness. I’m always reassured by your precise and thoughtful analysis of things. I wish you were involved with the running of this country. We could use more people like you.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:02 am
This is, I promise once again, that this is may last post because i am leaving for a business trip now but I will listen to podcast.
I personally worked in Zinni’s staff when I was in the Marine Corps and think that he was a great leader. I just wish that he was more consistent or simply explain why he changed his mind.
“Former Clinton CENTCOM commander, Anthony Zinni — the most prominent of the retired generals attacking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — now says that, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, “What bothered me … [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.”
But in early 2000, Zinni told Congress “Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region,” adding, “Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions … Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192065,00.html
April 18th, 2006 at 11:04 am
serious lee, I will have to catch up with the story about who is impersinating me when I return next week. But thanks for the complement, I hope/ think?
April 18th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Ken: “pathalogical shamelessness”
That’s not snarky… that is policy with this administration.
April 18th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
“I recall that Norman Mailer said (in interview with Chris Lydon and in the NYRB) that Rumsfeld was the only one of the Bush cabinet he respects. His reason: that Rumsfeld basically says what he thinks and does not, any more than the job absolutely requires him to, speak to us with the voice of a man whose default mode is dishonesty.”
Does respect require so little? A scoundrel among scoundrels who suffers less from fits of mendacity? If what is reported about Mr. Mailer is accurate, then my tastes diverge with Mr. Mailer. Respect, in this case, must be based upon more than honesty. We’re talking about a public servant. And BTW, a simple reminder for setting the bar to the level of mediocrity: doing what you’re supposed to be doing in life doesn’t get you a gold star. Honesty is the expected code of conduct for public servants and should not be celebrated in the wake of its overwhelming absence in our political system, or anywhere else for that matter. Our expectations have been turned upside down. You don’t deserve praise for not breaking laws. You don’t deserve praise for speaking truth. It’s expected, required, and a necessity for strategic and tactical purposes. Ethics are not bonus points. Without them, the center will definitely not hold. Policy cannot be implemented. The system will fail.
So what about tactical deceptions? Then the area does become slightly grey. That is, if you’re putting out misinformation to confuse an adversary, then this is a tactical asset. But, to describe the behavior and rhetoric here as tactical misinformation, is to inflate it to a point of generosity that would make a Las Vegas pimp blush.
I’m not a huge fan of sports analogies, but in sports you fire the manager / coach, because you generally cannot fire the whole team. The Iraq conflict is far from over, and in spite of my beefs with this administration, I would welcome a positive outcome for the people who live there on what I personally feel is a completely misguided tactical U.S. blunder. I felt this way in 2002 when the doctrine of pre-emption was unfurled, and I feel this way now. Unfortunately, many of the U.S. tactical options have been narrowed or neutralized by both the insurgency and self-imposed resource constraints. Moreover, once it’s decided we’re not in a total war scenario, the tactical options are narrowed and public willingness will be extremely curtailed regarding policy. We’ve already had one-too-many Sherman-esque maneuvers in Fallujah in this campaign. How much more hatred is necessary for the U.S. to win this campaign? Perhaps, the U.S. needs to foment more hatred to acheive a successful outcome. Is this the metric for success?
The mission, as I understand it, is to neutralize the WMD threat first and foremost. Done. In fact, mission accomplished by the previous leadership of President Bush, Sr. and President Clinton. Total war doesn’t enter into the calculus. As Andy Card would say, the sales and marketing job was done post-labor day 2002 and it was done effectively. So why don’t we leave? Obviously, there are other factors and the situation is fluid. A problem with a policy based upon military violence is that it leads predictably to unpredictable results and uncontrollable situations that tend to degenerate. It invites those naughty unexpected consequences. Especially in the glare of planning failures. Counter insurgency success is a 50-50 proposition. The house takes all ties. A professional gambler (aka a casino) wouldn’t take this bet.
So, back to the sporting analogy: ultimately, the responsibility is with the leadership. Secretary Rumsfeld is at the top of the food chain regarding our military. He’s not alone. The commander-in-chief is the ultimate leader. Firing Secretary Rumsfeld will be seen as an admission of failure with U.S. policy, which will point directly to the leadership in the U.S. executive branch. President Bush has more leeway with any other member of his team in terms of career options. This policy in Iraq has been joined-at-the-hip with Secretary Rumsfeld for reasons I cannot fathom.
April 18th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
“If the active duty Generals who were there at the planning meetings didn’t like the plan, why didn’t they have the gonads to speak up.�
Winston, the Army Chief of staff General Shinseki had the “gonads� to speak up. But maybe that example is too “anecdotal� for you.
“The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark,” - Donald Rumsfeld.
Winston, you write that the “US military is coming thru this better and stronger.� What if we have to go to war with Iran or North Korea, you’re telling me we are in a better position to do that now.
In terms of my Vietnam comparison, I was referring to the military/civilian dynamic in the Pentagon. “McNamara was wildly unpopular among flag and general officers, who in later years wrote memoirs critical of him,” said William O’Neill, professor of history at Rutgers University. “But my recollection is that retired officers held their tongues so long as he was in office, and for a time afterward. Part of this resulted from the tradition of accepting civilian control of the military, and part was because the peace movement wanted McNamara’s head, and retired officers did not wish to seem to be abetting the cause.” Some critics have urged active-duty officers to join them in calling for Rumsfeld’s head. Such calls could have a profound impact, but they could also violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which bars officers from using “contemptuous words” against civilian leadership, including the secretary of defense.
The Times had a story which said that junior officers are leaving as soon as their commitment is up at an alarming rate. There is also a recruitment problem and the reserves are stretched thin.
Winston, Iraq is in the early stages of Civil War. Our military mission has deteriorated to plugging thumbs into continually emerging holes and pretty soon the dam will burst. If that happens Winston, if we have to leave Iraq with our tail between our legs, will you still believe that Mr. Rumsfled is “one of the greatest military thinkers of all time?� Or will it be that he is the greatest - except for that one little mistake concerning troop numbers in Iraq.
April 18th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
1. CCM: great post.
2. sarcastic bird…uh, sorry, I mean serious lee: are you gonna let Winston in on the truth of your delicious irony? (You can pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about – and that’s fine: I’ll happily pretend I’m wrong if you insist. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time!)
3. Winston, I’m probably wrong and often am, but its seems to me that Rumsfeld’s ‘genius’ is that he’s transforming the military from the behemoth born in WWII and given its last hurrah in the first Gulf war into a quick reaction force capable of ‘defending American interests’ all over the globe within days instead of after weeks of slow transport. (‘American interests’ btw, are almost invariably economic, which ought to expand this conversation toward the notion of ‘empire’. But I haven’t got the time for it today.) The rescaling from self-supporting divisions to self-supporting brigades is the battlefield manifestation of this (and a logical restructuring considering the vastly more lethal arms and tactics American soldiers now employ).
Yet that’s not the kind of force Iraq required after its conquest. For securing the conquest – including all those pesky bypassed Iraqi ammo dumps – the American effort in Iraq needed 2 to 3 times as many troops: a more 1970’s ‘Fulda Gap’ kind of force. Shinseki understood this — and got ‘retired’ for saying it publicly.
Failure to increase the force size, combined with the abolishment of the Iraqi army, has led directly to what we now witness: the incremental unraveling of the British-stitched former Ottoman entity called Iraq.
Increasing the force size would have meant a draft, and a draft would have ended W’s presidency in 2004. Which, to my admittedly plebian mind, means that Rummie was willing to sacrifice countless Iraqi lives to insurgent violence and to a ‘death of a thousand cuts’ level of civil war just to keep his smirking Christian-hypocrite boss in place for another four years of malfeasance and republic-looting.
That’s not ‘effective’ or otherwise laudable: it’s cynical and disgraceful, if not criminally negligent.
April 18th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Nikos: “Yet that’s not the kind of force Iraq required after its conquest…a more 1970’s ‘Fulda Gap’ kind of force. Shinseki understood this — and got ‘retired’ for saying it publicly.” I couldn’t agree more. I like the analogy. I guess Iraq has turned into been turned into a Fulda du jour.
I haven’t heard articulated from the DoD and/or civilian side why the Powell doctrine was scuttled, at least for the present. If it has been addressed as to why it’s the wrong kind approach, I haven’t heard it yet. Perhaps it has.
Nikos: “Increasing the force size would have meant a draft” If this administration hadn’t prematurely ended the U.N. effort, we might have been able to gather more strategic force. Since the international community seemed dead set against the incursion, at least until Dr. Blix team had completed its findings, it should have been a wake up call as to the narrowing of options: to increase force means a possible draft. Whenever options are narrowed, your adversary has gained one more step neutralizing your effectiveness. An effective insurgency will quickly grok the implications.
April 18th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I think Cheney is the head of the snake. Actually I like snakes. I don’t know why I this analogy is used. I have a nest of them right outside my front door. They should be awakening soon…. oh lovely Spring!
Nikos- your no. 3 I think is right. We need a lot of little brigades all over the globe. Everywhere. Defending our interests. Militarily. Right Winston?
How about sending a brigade or two to Darfur??
April 18th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Dismantling the Iraqi Army (lower ranks) might have been an even bigger mistake than low troop levels.
Winston, would you send you child to roam the streets of Iraq for this cause? Would Rumsfeld send his child to those streets? Would a younger Rumsfeld have the courage and conviction in this mission to take up arms and roam those ominous streets?
April 18th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
nother: “Winston, you write that the “US military is coming thru this better and stronger.â€? Most military strategists will suggest that a successful military campaign, especially in matters of counter-insurgency, is a matter of a successful political and civil infrastructural outcome. Without stable political and civil infrastructural, violent tactical force successes are hollow and ultimately defeated. Support will wane. If this geography we call ‘Iraq’ can pull these things together, and there have been small incremental successes, then there will be a decent shot at success.
To be perfectly blunt and non-partisan, I actually cannot predict how things will swing in Iraq. I try not to let my personal beefs with this administration cloud my judgement. But if I were betting the lives of my family members on this I would say this is likely to be a futile exercise in U.S. military force. That’s what the short term odds look like to my myopic mindset; myopia partially externally induced because U.S. civilian leadership doesn’t encourage discourse and exploration for common citizens. And the press should be mothballed into a recognition that it is strictly an entertainment vehicle.
Regarding the chances of success in Iraq, I sincercely hope I’m incorrect in this assessment. Politics aside, there are human resources at stake here, and it’s a serious matter which supercedes my personal feelings about the political climate. The often unstated problem with a successful outcome in Iraq is there is great fear that will only encourage further U.S. military incursions. This has created a completely lose-lose outcome in the abuse of military power.
Potter: “I think Cheney is the head of the snake. Actually I like snakes. I don’t know why I this analogy is used.” He’s a bipedal primate, that most odious creature known to itself as homo-sapien. Snakes have a far superior ethical compass.
April 18th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Thought that this quote might be helpful for tonight’s show:
Timothy Noah of Slate noted shortly thereafter that Kristol and Kagan strategically retreated from this position– not because the war suddenly made a turn for the better, because the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, and it suddenly became fashionable to call for Rumsfeld’s resignation.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Just tuned in. Who is this woman guest you have on? She wants it both ways. It’s unheard of for so many generals to be speaking out. But on the other hand, she is aghast that so much press coverage is being devoted to this.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Speaking of poetry (although it’s about Dubya not Rummie, and it’s much more effective within its excellent musical accompaniment than as free-standing verse):
Bu$hleaguer
How does he do it? How do they do it? Uncanny and immutable.
This is such a happening tailpipe of a party.
Like sugar, the guests are so refined.
A confidence man but why so beleagued?
He’s not a leader he’s a Texas leaguer.
Swinging for the fence. Got lucky with a strike.
Drilling for fear makes the job simple.
Born on third. Thinks he got a triple.
Blackout weaves its way through the cities.
Blackout weaves its way through the cities.
Blackout weaves its way.
I remember when you sang that song about today.
Now it’s tomorrow and everything has changed.
A think tank of aloof multiplication.
A nicotine wish and a columbus decanter.
Retrenchment and hoggishness.
The aristocrat choir sings, “What’s the ruckus?”
The haves have not a clue.
The immenseness of suffering.
And the odd negotiation. A rarity.
With onionskin plausibility of life.
And a keyboard reaffirmation.
Blackout weaves its way through the cities.
Blackout weaves its way through the cities.
Blackout weaves its way.
I remember when you sang that song about today.
Now it’s tomorrow and everything has changed.
Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard; 2002
Pearl Jam – Riot Act
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=5326239&style=music&cart=331181688&BAB=E
April 18th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Nikos: “Born on third. Thinks he got a triple.”
Best line I’ve heard in years! LOL.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
CCM: It’s a great album from an underappreciated band that’s as consistently humanistic as they are consistently rockin’, artful, excellent, and soulful.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Towards the end I think Chris was coming around to the “something is missing” thing that plagues me at least about Rumsfeld. He is very intelligent. It seems like he thinks alot and perhaps deeply but he stops short of taking a moral stand. This business about not knowing and knowing what you don’t know is true- but he stops with that as sort of an excuse to hide behind. That leaves him unable to listen to any inner voice ( or at least let us know about it). It might cacth up with him one day. I think he is gambling. Rumsfled seems sort of like an automaton, but a very intelligent one. This is sexy and mysterious.. as Midge Dicter admits. I Imagine Nazi Germany was filled with these kind of people at the top.
April 18th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
I have no need to defend Rumsfeld, but the Nazi comparison is cheap, tawdry, despicable, atrocious, and inaccurate. He’s a personable guy, unlike, say, the Vice President.
Brendan’s description at the top of the page is quite fitting.
April 18th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Jon,
Not to be argumentative, and realizing the severe sensitivity of evoking the German ‘N” word, I think that Potter’s point was that despicable people can hide behind “personable’ presentations. They are even more dangerous than the clearly onerous. To have a personable nature and a sharp mind and then to pursue a path with vacuousness and callousness is, to me, the most dangerous. It takes a lot longer to realize they’re not harmless, and its almost impossible to get others to see it.
April 18th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
CCM: I just dropped an aside to you in the Alley (post #194).
April 18th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Allison: right on.
I seem to recall favorable prewar accounts of the personalities of several notable Nazis, such as Goering and Speer, at least. These accounts came from diplomats of the nations that would soon fight the Nazi edifice — and eventually hang Goering and pals. Now, Rummie’s no Nazi — but he’s an arrogant intellectual in thrall to a non-humanisitc and hierarchy-worshipping ideology. Like Speer.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Jon_ Wow! I just checked in. Sorry that I got you so unnerved as to say all those awful things about me. I ask why?
I am grateful to Allison ( and Nikos) for not only allowing me benefit of the doubt but getting my meaning perfectly. I was not saying that Rumsfeld was a Nazi. Hell no. I was saying he stopped short of allowing a sense of morality to kick in. He shrugged his shoulders. This is what I imagine “personable guys” in Nazi Germany did. They suspended their morality.
Tell me Jon.. when is it proper or improper use those lessons of history? If not now when?
April 18th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
This is a quote from Brendan on Rumsfeld” above:
“I’m a survivor,â€? he told the troops last year, speaking, of course, of his unparalleled ability to hold on to appointed office. It’s an odd thing to say to an audience for whom survival means actually not getting killed.
I would say unparallelled insensitivity hiding underneath that charm. Shocking. And this is just one instance of it.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Nikos, You Greek God, I certainly do not know what you refer to. I’m just a simple country girl diggin’ through this big ol’ pile of words tryin’ to make some sense of it all. Gotta go, I’m gettin’ the vapors.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
When I listen to Rumsfeld, I recall Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument in the Dialectic of Enlightenment.
“Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity.”
This seems to describe the Iraq campaign perfectly. The three boys who fill our living spaces and with their veneer of reasonableness mask an ego driven desire to mastery. Bush at times reveals his tenous grasp of things, but Rumsfeld and Cheney can look into the camera and calmly, bureaucratically, betray the public trust with logical explanations for commanding horrendous acts against humanity.
Some regimes have these types lurking in the shadows and others, where the public has been conditioned and passified, bring them out in full view. We can well imagine examples from the past.
allison is right. They are the most dangerous because they can seem almost innocuous at times.
Here’s another one Nikos. Also better with the music.
This is Baghdad (Bruce Cockburn)
Everything’s broken in the birthplace of law
As Generation Two tries out his tragic flaw.
America’s might under desert sun
I saw her frightened eyes behind the muzzle of her gun.
Uranium dust and the smell of decay
Sewage in the streets where the kids run and play
Not enough morphine and not enough gauze
Firefight in darkness like snapping of jaws.
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
You couldn’t see the blast
The morning was bright
But some radiant energy flared up into the night
Like the skies throwing its hands up in horrified dismay
At the souls of the dead as they sped on their way
Car bombed and carjacked
And kidnapped and shot
How do you like it
This freedom we brought?
We packed all the ordinance
But the thing we forgot
Is a plan in case things didn’t turn out quite like we thought
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
April 18th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
“Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity.�
Yes, and they made comment as much about Soviet Russia as about National Socialist Germany.
By the time they wrote that book they were in exile and their mistrust extended even to the democratic West. (Who could blame them.)
However, in general Adorno and Horkheimer trusted the bourgeois west much more than the Communist East which they thought had betrayed the Enlightenment project.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Sidewalker’s use of the quote above is taken way out of context.
“This seems to describe the Iraq campaign perfectly. The three boys who fill our living spaces and with their veneer of reasonableness mask an ego driven desire to mastery. Bush at times reveals his tenous grasp of things, but Rumsfeld and Cheney can look into the camera and calmly, bureaucratically, betray the public trust with logical explanations for commanding horrendous acts against humanity.”
April 18th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Chris: thanks for the Post-Game. I recommend it to everyone — especially for the photo-page he links us to. Your tax dollars at work.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Chris - you are a moral coward. Those photos are of people who are fighting for thier country. Even after this, they still keep lining up to serve as policemen and in the Army.
And, the Americans closest to this, US Military members, see this everyday and choose to stay and help. Your smug comments simply illustrate the decadance of your detached point of view.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Nikos - the tax dollars you speak of allows these people to fight against those who perptrate these horrors and while you sit here cringing in your weekness these people are there trying to join the modern world.
Where were you when they were being butchered, in silence? Remember, Eason Jordan said that CNN was in Bahgdad and knew about the Saddam’s atrosities yet said nothing because they wanted to keep access to Iraq.
You could multiply these photos supplied by Chris by 1,000 and still not match the pre-liberation carnage.
Moral cowardess must be spreading.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Winston: HELLO? The point is that we might have gone in with enough forces to secure the conquered country — or ought to have continued working through the UN.
Instead, we did it half-assed - not the soldiers, but the planners — whose chieftain is Rumsfeld. The result? Iraqis, including those pictured children, are paying with their lives for Rumsfeld’s smug arrogance.
Now do you get it?
April 18th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Excuse me but the Project for A New American Century and the NeoComs are a BAD BAD BAD policy. The NEOCONS invoke WWII and Hitler constantly, The NEOCONS and the Capitalists need to get together. If you really believe in free markets do not engage in regressive foreign policy.
I could go on but I need to listen to the program.
Kick out the NEOCONS
April 18th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
How is the quote out of context when Adorno and Horkheimer were writing about blind domination and this is replicated by the present US regime. They also argued that when people use the progress of modern science and industry to carry out genocide (Fallujah http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/11/301382.html) and create weapons of mass destruction, reason has become irrational. Does it matter if this done by the bourgeois west or the Communist East?
April 18th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Nikos - 5 million US troops wouldn’t have acheived the post war situation that cynics like you want. You, and people who mindlessly carp like you, have no real solutions. There is no perfect war, there are only tradeoffs.
And unless you can enlighten me, I see no obvious economic advantage to the Iraq invasion. If you read the papers oil just hit > $ 70 bucks a barrel and it is from the US’s pressure on Iran.
A liberalized Middle East is in our long term benefits but that is, once again, witnessed by Europe and Japan.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Winston, Chris unpatriotic, too?
April 18th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
That should have read,
Winston, is Chris unpariotic, too?
April 18th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Contining to listen to the program. So what is so great about neocons. Bush and company policies are not good for this country.
The lady talking does not know what she is talking about. She is in the dark putting it nicely in ideas about war and strategy. My Husband is MAD listening to her. He is a former Army intelliengce officer.
Excuse misspellings my eyes are bad.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
To Winston Dodson, we could have dumped 1,000,000. laptops with sattlelite hookups, in Iraq and have achieved more with less. Information and a free internet is the most effective way to spread democracy
April 19th, 2006 at 12:41 am
I agree with Nikos. Chris put together a fine post game analysis. I love the moral energy Chris brings to the show. It shows sturdy, unwavering courage in the current media climate. Brief aside though: I personally find the parsing of Secretary Rumsfeld as a PoMo study sort of disquieting.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:18 am
Sidewalker: we dissenters are something less and worse than patriotic: we are mentally ill seditionists – at least, according to the lunatic Right now in political ascendance and improbably perceived as ‘mainstream’ (which, btw, makes your average septic tank a part of the ‘mainstream’).
CCM: what’s ‘PoMo’? (Did I miss something?)
Winston: let me work backwards through your 11:24 PM so that we can at least agree on something first:
1. “A liberalized Middle East is in our long term benefits but that is, once again, witnessed by Europe and Japan.�
Agreed – however, expecting the Muslim Middle East to love us after our Iraq misadventure might be asking a wee bit too much. I’m not questioning the good-heartedness of our troops, or their bravery, or any of their personal motives.
And it’s apparent to this ‘cynic’ that although many in the Middle East want democracy – or at least the overthrow of their inherited tyrannies – they don’t want it to cost the lives of their families or the structural soundness of their neighborhoods.
We had a chance in Afghanistan to show the Muslim world that we had the will and generosity to properly rebuild a country after ‘changing’ its regime. (And remember: I, almost alone of all the gutter-snipy bloggers who frequent this site, supported the Afghanistan intervention. I am firm in my conviction that the Taliban had to go, and for a millions of different reasons—many of those reasons being female.) Such a demonstration of our will, power, and human decency would have opened the minds and hearts and, most importantly, the credulity of millions of reasonable Muslims.
We might have focused on catching Bin Laden and eradicating all of the Taliban, but instead diverted our military to Kuwait for the Iraq invasion build-up.
We’ll never know if the Saddam regime might have eventually fallen from within. And even if it wouldn’t have, where was the need to go in so hastily? Another year of pressure from sanctions, accompanied by our building of a force structured to comply with Shinseki’s personell recommendations, would have ultimately hurt far fewer people than this fractious and agonized country-wide bleeding-to-death the Iraqis must endure as a consequence of Bush’s impatience.
Point number 2: “And unless you can enlighten me, I see no obvious economic advantage to the Iraq invasion. If you read the papers oil just hit > $ 70 bucks a barrel and it is from the US’s pressure on Iran.�
Fine. Try this little gem: http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=483
Point number 3: “Five million US troops wouldn’t have achieved the post war situation that cynics like you want.�
I beg to differ. Five million troops is what – 30 or 40 times the number we went in with? (I’m bad with math.) Hell, Shinseki said that only two or three times the number we went in with would likely have been sufficient – or at least the minimum for any realistic chance for success.
We needed extra troops – not overpaid mercenaries from KBR and Custer Battles, but troops – to secure the Iraqi ammo dumps that, after we bypassed ‘em, have supplied the insurgents with a gazillion tons of explosives. Explosives that have killed and maimed Americans and Iraqis for three years + now.
“You, and people who mindlessly carp like you, have no real solutions.�
Hmmm…because I view war as only a last resort, and not an attractive first option?
Working for peaceful solutions isn’t ‘real’, or ‘realistic’? (And why does this sound so 1940’s-Germany???)
Well, then you’re right. I’m hopelessly unrealistic, and a mindless carper.
Moreover, I’m certainly no saint, and not even a Christian, but I think you might just have inadvertently lumped me in with the famous seditionist-likes of those scummy riff-raff called Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and Jesus of Nazareth.
‘Course, I’m not worthy of their company, but they are each (arguably) famous for preaching and working for ‘mindlessly unrealistic’ non-violent solutions. ‘Mindless carpers’, each and every one of ‘em!
“There is no perfect war, there are only tradeoffs.�
‘Tradeoffs’?
Tradeoffs?
Okay pal, here’s my ‘tradeoff’: your life or limb – since you’re Mr. Patriotic American who publicly supports the war – in place of just one of those wounded and dying Iraqi children.
Feel free to put your money where your mouth is, pal.
And me? I’ll simply continue to meekly do my citizen’s duty: dissent and decry every chance I get the unconscionable and callus disregard of foreign lives your political heroes Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld use to justify their ‘protection of American interests in foreign parts of the world.’
In fact, here’s a better tradeoff (since, for some increasingly mysterious reason, I actually like you): those three misbegotten lives of our ‘leaders’ in place of any three Iraqi children’s.
Let them reap what they sow.
(And you? You can stay here alive and well, and come to your damned senses someday!)
April 19th, 2006 at 1:40 am
So Winston, Chris is a moral coward, huh. Pretty tough words - you must be a tough guy or something. I’m reluctant to dignify that childishness with any response, but I will say part of what Chris was speaking to was the “sanitized imagery” of this war we get from that “mainstream” media that you so loath. You know what I’m talking about, the imagery we’re not supposed to see, like those caskets of our dead boys coming home.
Ahh Winston, your eloquent response to Chris brings to mind nostalgic memories from school days gone by, when the class bully confronted with his own ignorance would strike back with a reasoned articulate response such as, “oh yea, well, well, you’re just a damm coward, that’s what you are.” Let me say something concerning the masters degree you have (I know you have one because you made sure to point it out earlier) this degree of yours has done wonders with the quality of your name calling. For instance, take the sentence, “Your smug comments simply illustrate the decadence of your detached point of view.” Wow Winston, that sentence does not just roll off the tongue of your average school yard bully, that sentence reeks of a refined education, a very expensive education.
I’m sure sentences like that are a big hit at that “major right wing blog” you blog at. The one you forgot to give us a link to. I’m not saying its cowardly not to give us that link, I’m just saying you probably forgot. You tell us you won’t be participating here anymore because now you will be bloging over there. You can run off to that bubble and preach to that choir if you want, but the facts on the ground are not going to change Winston. The facts on the ground are not going to change.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:45 am
Nikos, why are you obliged to make the following statement?
I’m not questioning the good-heartedness of our troops, or their bravery, or any of their personal motives.
I think you can indeed question the motivation of many, though not all, members of the military. They are professional soldiers and military personnel on an aggressor campaign. Granted, some are there, sadly, for lack of other choices. Also, some have just bought into the America as global saviour pitch. For these we people we should probably question their educators. But this is not a roving circus, bringing joy and entertainment. These people have guns in their hands and enter peoples houses. They drag innocent people out into the street. They confine and beat them. Sometimes they kill children. Is this brave?
It would be braver to stand up to their own national leaders with flowers in those same guns and demand that they follow the laws of the land. Then we would know that their motives are unquestionable and we could call the troop good-hearted. Not until that time.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:57 am
Nikos: “PoMo” is PostModern. One slice of PostModernism is deconstruction, which roughly means you dissect a person’s motivations for what they have written/done (the old reliable example is often of the sort “this white male elitist perpetuates the white male elite,” etc.)
Just tuning back to answer the mini-thread above. No, Potter, I was not saying awful things about *you* but instead about your *rhetoric.* There’s a difference here.
“when is it proper or improper use those lessons of history?”
Well, we have *enough* lessons of American history to use that apply today (McNamara, Watergate), it is a cheap to go ahead and make an indirect comparison to the Nazis. I should have written see Godwin’s Law and left it at that.
Funny, this whole exchange rings a bell. Back on the October 18th show on Theocracy in America, one listener (timkar) cried foul when he thought he heard Chris compare James Dobson to Ayatollah Al-Sistani. And this sounded strange until two people actually listened to the show afterwards– Potter and myself. We both determined that timkar didn’t hear correctly, and furthermore, I had re-learned that Al-Sistani wasn’t the bad sort of guy we generally associated with Ayatollah, so I posted that, and timkar acquiesced on that point.
April 19th, 2006 at 2:02 am
sidewalker: with all due respect, I don’t realistically expect 17-24 year olds to see through the jingo-junk our professional propagandists at Fox & on rightwing radio spew 24/7.
My expectations rise incrementally with every year of age of any given person, however. Which damns Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of their war-criminal leadership like to exactly the sort of opprobrium you allude to in your 1:45 AM. All of those slimeballs are old enough to know better. But not one of them has a compassionate bone in their bodies. No one with a whit of empathy could live with himself, let alone sleep at night, after making so many errors that have led to the deaths of so many innocents.
The only good thing about this discussion now, as I see it, is that Chris had the courage to link us sheltered Americans to the grisly photos of Bush’s Folly.
Every American should be made to view those sorts of images every day — until the criminally negligent perpetrators are defenestrated and sent to the Hague for justice.
April 19th, 2006 at 2:30 am
My question, Nikos, was why you felt obliged, in your discussion with Winston, to qualify your comment about the military (granted the point you make in your 2:02 post). The reason I ask is that I have come across such statements so often, as if it is a kind of protection againt charges of being unpatriotic. When I read what you write, I can’t help thinking of you, Chris, nother and many more of the contributors here as the kind of real patriots the US needs many more of. So I was just wondering.
April 19th, 2006 at 3:56 am
My God, man! That shrivelled c-nt, so deluded with her own beliefs, managed to tear off part of Christopher’s face, mauling him as he grinned and giggled, all the while passing up the obvious follow-up questions.
No wonder we got into this stupid war. If you can’t ask tough questions after three years, its not wonder you didn’t ask them when this idiocy began.
I guess we’re lucky, as Americans, to have a free press. We’re also damned to failure because our press isn’t very good.
I can’t wait to hear Chris’s Berlosconi retrospective. Maybe Mussolini’s daughter will tap-dance on his head and the Pope will goose-step across the studio as Chris casually licks their toes. It’d be just as informative and slightly more entertaining than the sh-t Christopher shared tonight.
Great job, kids.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:44 am
Jon Garfunkel I have read quite a number of your posts and my take is that you are deeply interested in conversations on the internet, etiquette, structure, etc. I could not get through to Wiki on Godwin’s law this AM ( the site is down) but read this:http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/
I have run into conversations here and there where the ( or improper or misuse) use of Nazi example or the word “Nazi” on gets an excited reaction as well it should. It’s the worst example we can think of and so it is used as a weapon. But I was not aware of Godwin’s Law” or that it has become such a thing that a law exists.
This is what that link says about the law:
If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
* wasn’t necessary or germane without it necessarily being an
insult, it’s probably about time for the thread to end.
* If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
was vaguely related but is basically being used as an insult,
the speaker can be considered to be flaming and not debating.
* If someone brings up Nazis in any conversation that has been
going on too long for one of the parties, it can be used as
a fair excuse to end the thread and declare victory for the
other side.
I was surprised at your response, on the other hand and took it to be a flame, an unnecessary (and unwarranted imo) escalation using very strong language. You explain now you were dissociating my “rhetoric” from me. This does not work for me with the words you chose. Also this a surprise since you are supposedly more aware of this Godwin Law than I and thus the way it proceeds.
I defend my comparison to what happened in Nazi Germany as being germane and apt as at least two others here agree. Your suggestion of using McNamara does not work for me- McNamara is now contrite. Rumsfeld MIGHT get to that place but maybe not (as someone on the show suggested). Your suggestion of Watergate dos not work for me either, lives were not at stake in Watergate. What is happening now is so much worse than Watergate ever was.
Again my point was about the suspension of morality. Obviously Rumsfeld is having an existential problem. As Michael Gordon points out at a press conference he asks and answers his his own questions. And he will not let a mistake register-stuff happens.
I fail to see what this discussion has to do with the episode about Ali-Sistani and Timkar. You and I agreed in that instance, we disagree here. My feeling is that you misapplied Godwin’s law. Or maybe part of the law is that this example is so overused that people see red now without considering. not my fault. I hardly if ever use it myself. But because the Nazi comparison is abused ( as is my own pet peeve calling someone an “anti-Semite” ) does not mean that there are moments when no other comparison quite makes the point as well.
Still I do have to take into account the facts of life here on the net that any use at all may get this reaction.
(BTW The post this one just above uses “Mussolini” and “goosestepping” rhetorically. This get’s around the law.)
April 19th, 2006 at 7:12 am
From Chris “this blundering and death in the desert ”
His contiunual editorializing and his link to negative photos that might be news to people on this site, like Nikos, that implies that somehow this is because of Rumsfeld and not despite him, is all the evidence that I need of moral cowardess.
And Nikos, I am probably the only one on this blog that has been in Iraq. It was in the first Gulf War and not this one but I have given for Iraqi children and children all over the world and you sit there and write on this blog as if you have any idea of what giving is. I feel that every Iraq soldier that I participated in killing or by killing his buddies, to not continue to fight, saved an Iraqi childs life. And every day that I spent in the military was giving some lard ass the opportunity to sit at home at home and think what he wanted to think.
Then, Sidetalkers comments that some in military have no other options. They all do, with %4.7 Unemployement they do. And the AVERAGE enlisted member is better educated than the average American - 95 % of all enlsitees have a Hisg School Diploma while only 75% of Americans graduated high school. 100 % of Officers have college degrees (with ~ 15% from Ivy League) both, much more than US at large.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:16 am
April 19, 2006
U.S. Generals Call for Resignation of Media Leaders
by Scott Ott
(2006-04-19) — A growing movement of retired and active-duty U.S. military officers, angry at the mismanagement, arrogance and even deception that have hampered U.S. efforts to secure peace and democracy in Iraq, have begun quietly calling for the resignation of top leaders they blame for the difficulties.
“I believe that it’s time for them to step down,� said one unnamed retired three-star general. “The editors of The New York Times and Washington Post and the news producers at CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC should resign effective immediately.�
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2241
NYT Times Stock Drops by 50% since 2002
Morgan Stanley Investment Management said Tuesday it withheld votes for the [New York] Times’ director nominees because it believes the company’s board and management have become unaccountable to shareholders.
Maybe if Chris and NYT spent more time presenting the news instead of infusing it with thier opinions, they would be more successful?
April 19th, 2006 at 7:19 am
The pictures linked in Chris’ “post-game analysis” are required looking here in the US. This war is being conducted on our behalf and yet we have been shielded from the suffering. It should weigh on all of us, supporters and non-supporters alike. No war should be fought so emotionless so mindlessly. The only thing we have to counteract the remoteness of it, the secrecy, the arrogance, the promise of more and more to come is these powerful images, so few of the many that there must be, and tucked away on a web site. How dare anyone complain. Turn away if you cannot take it.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Winston Dodson: In other words in childish reaction to the call for Rumsfeld to resign, let’s blame the messengers,. The MSM should print more photos ( and in color).
I’ll keep my NYTimes subscription. (The NYT has had a lot more change in leadership recently than this government).
April 19th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Winston, thanks for setting the record straight on the question of an educated military. I stand corrected.
I now can freely question the motivation of all military members, since as “educated” people, they should know that it is not ok to go into the next neighbourhood, the next county or the next country, bomb buildings and houses, burn the flesh off of people, shoot up cars, torture, and then snap photos for the folks back home. Or is this what you mean by being educated?
April 19th, 2006 at 9:03 am
“Maybe if Chris and NYT spent more time presenting the news instead of infusing it with their opinions, they would be more successful?â€?
By “successfulâ€? I assume you mean ratings? I’m not sure if thats exactly Chris’s motivation. But yea, let’s get away from that infusing opinions stuff; let’s look for models like FOX news? http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067 we wouldn’t be subjected to opinions if we look for objective journalism in places like Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, right?
“And Nikos, I am probably the only one on this blog that has been in Iraq. It was in the first Gulf War and not this one but I have given for Iraqi children and children all over the world and you sit there and write on this blog as if you have any idea of what giving is. I feel that every Iraq soldier that I participated in killing or by killing his buddies, to not continue to fight, saved an Iraqi childs life. And every day that I spent in the military was giving some lard ass the opportunity to sit at home at home and think what he wanted to think.”
Hey Mother Theresa I mean Winston, I joined the Navy during the first Gulf War and went right over there. So that means your assumption about being the only one on this blog is wrong. You were WRONG Winston Dodson! Does that shock you, that one of your many assumptions could actually have been wrong? But why let facts get in the way of hyperbole and resentful rhetoric. You have no idea who Nikos is, but that’s not a problem, you have him sized up anyway - you are Winston Dodson!
I’m sure, the fact that I was over there in the Navy and not the Marines, is not good enough for you. I’m sure the fact that I was enlisted is not good enough for you. But let me tell you something, I had a conversation with Tom Hudner the other day. He is a Medal of Honor winner from the Korean conflict who now lives in Concord MA. http://www.acepilots.com/korea_hudner.html This man has more grace, compassion, and courage in his little finger than you and I have put together. Let me relay something he told a few of us that day, I wrote it down right after he said it. “One of my objections to the Iraq war is there will be all kids coming back with war stories and our war stories won’t have the same priority.” That quote has many layers and meanings and your comments today remind me of one of them. Guys like you Winston, who run around pleading with people to view them as heroes because they spent a little time in the Gulf, are taking up space from the real heroes in our midst. You should be ashamed of yourself Winston Dodson. Reading your posts, I’m inclined to describe the lack of humility, the blatant insecurity, and mean spirited arrogance; but I think it runs even deeper than that.
“And every day that I spent in the military was giving some lard ass the opportunity to sit at home at home and think what he wanted to think.”
Why bring Dick Cheney into this?
April 19th, 2006 at 9:50 am
This show was disgraceful. Donald Rumsfeld is not funny. If he is a such a wily survivor, we better figure out why before he brings more disgrace to our country. To quote Maureen Dowd today in the Times:
“The secretary made it sound as if the generals want him to resign because he made reforms. But they really want him to resign because he made gigantic, horrible, arrogant mistakes that will be taught in history classes forever”.
Why was this something like this not said (Chris, you yourself came the closest, but there was nothing like this from any of your guests)?? Read the rest of Ms Dowd if you haven’t already. This is a critical, urgent situation.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Potter: “The pictures linked in Chris’ “post-game analysisâ€? are required looking here in the US.” I couldn’t agree more, except I’d relax the requirement by suggesting everyone regardless of citizenship should view them. Military violence and its effects should never be kept invisible. To not acknowledge the struggle these people are going through is to dishonor the lives of all protagonists involved be they military, civilian, insurgent, or non-human animal. All lives are treasures, all lives are precious, all lives are equal before their creator, and their loss under these methods are a failure of human will, thinking, and the most paradoxically, it is a failure of the courage of conviction, which is what these pictures attempt to explain.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Mornin’, ROS Nation.
“The calculations of politicians about their electoral futures should pale in comparison to the urgency of examining perhaps the most disastrous five years of decision-making of any modern American presidency.�
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0418-25.htm
April 19th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
There is somehow a deep (negative) psychological convergence here. On the one hand Rumsfeld seems to care not at all for the lives of others and on the other, the suicide bombers care not at all for their own.
While there is much historic and human precedence for Rumsfeld, the suicidal activists seem off of the graph of human behavior, in numbers, that is.
This is not to say that they are specifically cause and effect, but part of a global cultural response to something. The question is what.
April 19th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I can’t get out of my mind an interview I read in the months prior to the Iraq invasion.
The interviewee was a Brit, working with NGO’s, and a veteran of a number of wars and post war reconstructions in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. He was familiar with Iraq, and confessed to strong ambivalence about the likely invasion. He really wanted to see Saddam Hussein gone, but was fearful of the aftermath.
I can no longer find the actual interview, but I’ll paraphrase: ” If they do invade, I hope to God they do it with enough troops. There is ALWAYS an explosion of chaos following the collapse of a government. The Americans can count on being welcomed as liberators- for about a day an a half. But if they cannot secure the public order in the day or two following the invasion, then all the wrong elements will rush into the power vacuum, and you will be dealing with them for years. If the ordinary people are not reasonably secure, they will come to blame the Americans, and without the support of the ordinary people rebuilding Iraq will be immeasurably more difficult. There is no substitute for having large numbers of troops to keep the peace. This is a lesson we have seen repeated over and over again.” Indeed. It’s the lesson of thousands of years of military history.
He was far from alone in that assessment. Gen. Shinseki, of course, and General Zinni, but it was also generally shared by a war plan developed at the Navy War College and by the “Future of Iraq” report. A great deal of planning and research was done. We knew about the decayed state of the infrastructure, the likelihood of an insurgency developing and of the potential for sectarian violence if public order was not preserved. The only voices not raising these warnings seemed to be the Neocons and the “Gucci Guerillas” that were feeding them their “intelligence”.
There is a logical inconsistency to many of the posts defending the administration- they portray a false dichotomy- either you support the administration’s actions, or you are opposing the liberation of Iraq and favoring totalitarian regimes. For me, it’s a question of poor judgment. Saddam needed to go. But our timing was terrible. The unilateral way the Iraq invasion was carried out turned a large part of the world- which had been much more sympathetic to us post 9/11- against us. Above all the spectacular, mind numbing incompetence of the top civilian leadership in failing to listen to those who knew what they were getting into betrays an almost offhand casualness towards wasting lives in war.
Was it Rumsfield behind the decision to plan only for the rosiest of outcomes? I don’t know. He was certainly dishonest in his many post war protestations about things unforeseen- plenty of us saw them coming, those in positions of power who said so publicly were ridiculed, rendered irrelevant, or fired. There are two Rumsfelds to deal with- the one at least partly behind the Iraq disaster, and the one who is pushing much needed streamlining and modernizing of the military.
re. the show- the female guest got away with way too much without being challenged. It is supreme intellectual and moral dishonesty to compare tactical mistakes made with limited information in WWII- particularly events like the Battle of the Bulge- with the kind of willful ignorance that has characterized this administration’s strategic judgments. They are not remotely similar.
April 19th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Potter: I think the pertinent part of Godwin’s law is here:
“One common objection to the invocation of Godwin’s Law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is an apt way of making a point. For instance, if one is debating the relative merits of a particular leader, and someone says something like, “He’s a good leader, look at the way he’s improved the economy,” one could reply, “Just because he improved the economy doesn’t make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy.” Some would view this as a perfectly acceptable comparison, because this example uses Hitler as a well-known example of an extreme case that requires no explanation to prove that a generalization is not universally true.
Some would argue, however, that Godwin’s Law applies especially to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotion as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared, both of which are fallacious in irrelevant contexts. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a valid comparison to anything but other despotic dictators. Thus, Godwin’s Law holds even when making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be reasonable comparisons.
Godwin’s standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin’s Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate impact.”
I find this point quite valid. It is too easy to use Hitler/Nazi as some sort of definitive example. It invokes so much more than the point at hand and cannot be debated. Thus it ends a discussion rather than enriching it. Perhaps, those of us on ROS would like to commit to avoiding this example and work to find better ways to make our points.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Thanks Allison. I’d be interested to know how others feel.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Potter, since I know how fair and thoughtful you are, your reference to Nazi Germany did not strike me as overly hyperbolic or inflammatory. I think we are still living in the shadow of the death camps and under the atomic clouds of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Have those experiences taught us nothing? My reference to Adorno and Horkheimer and their discussion on science and reason was my way of drawing a connection between these (and other) militaristic societies in the modern age.
April 19th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
I just can’t believe anybody would think of Rumsfeld as a sex symbol. I never heard that before and it just totally grossed me out. He’s greasy, cold-hearted and he’s into torture. Ick!
April 19th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Potter: “This is sexy and mysterious.. as Midge Dicter admits. I Imagine Nazi Germany was filled with these kind of people at the top”.
After my above post I went back through the thread looking for the Nazi reference in question. Frankly Potter I’m more disturbed by “This is sexy”… are you talking about Rumsfeld? Are you kidding?… Sorry, don’t mean to pic