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Words of Wisdom I’m in the midst of my nightly reading and this dialogue from Donald Rumsfeld on Jim Lehrer’s News Hour caught my attention:
Now, there’s another reason it’s a bad idea. If you go to Afghanistan, the Soviet Union had 300,000 troops in Afghanistan and they couldn’t do the job. We have 10,000 in there and it’s making steady progress. Why? Because we don’t want to occupy a country. The Soviets wanted to own Afghanistan.
We don’t want to own Afghanistan. We don’t want to own Iraq. We want to help them get on their feet and then move out. We do not want to put so many forces in there that we create a dependency on us and then have to stay. We want to keep creating an environment where they can take over their security.
Maybe our way of looking at things is catching on.
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was that something positive from rumsfield?
here here! we aren’t hegemongering.
I saw that interview, and Rumsfeld made some good points while undermining his credibility through his general slipperiness.
Asked about why non-Iraqi terrorists can get across Iraq’s borders, Rumsfeld got going on a ridiculous analogy to America’s borders with Mexico and Canada, and how hard it was to keep people from crossing. It was really the reddest of red herrings — the Border Patrol cannot use deadly force to keep people from crossing the Rio Grande — and led to a discussion of how another division of international troops would take pressure off the US troops in Iraq while another division of American troops wasn’t needed. The Russians in Afghanistan analogy was a red herring too. No one is talking about owning Afghanistan; people are saying that it might be nice for the Afghan government to own something outside the Kabul city limits.
Look, I respect Rumsfeld’s ability. I just don’t trust the guy. I think he’s committed to succeeding in Iraq, and in the past his energy and drive have pushed senior generals toward accomplishments they might not have achieved otherwise. But he’s gotten the troops in Iraq in a shorthanded situation, and rather than sacrifice all to address it seems willing to sacrifice some of them if it will allow him to avoid saying that his past statements about the force levels we need there were wrong.
I’m not a military expert, so who am I to say anything bad about Rummy’s evaluation? But, I will anyway ..
I read or heard this idea someplace, can’t recall where, but I thought it had merit even though it’s not all fleshed out:
We should look for ways to relieve the troops from duties they are not best suited for. Police work, construction, and social services sort of stuff.
Bring people from the US, who are experienced in these fields and are willing to help, over to handle these things. Have these experts work with and train the Iraqis for these jobs. Free up the soldiers to hunt down and kill the Saddam supporters.
All jobs currently being done by the military should be evaluated to see how civilians could take over. Only use the military for military jobs. Free up the troops for work they are best for.
Also, we don’t need the UN for this. We should be able to handle this without resorting to the UN.
Chris,
Nice idea, but might prove difficult. Iraq is a war zone. American civilians might be easy and priority targets for the insurgents (whoever they are).
I am currently sitting in Kuwait (I can see the Towers from my bedroom). The place is rammed to the rafters with civilian American engineers waiting to go into Iraq. As Larry says, they cannot go in yet as the security just isn’t there. I have o doubt that I will be required to go in within a year or so, but there’s no way any civilian engineer would go in as things are.
On a side note, Bechtel have leased an entire hotel out here, lock stock and barrel, for an indefinite period. I’ll bet the hotel manager is happy!!
Rumsfeld isn’t slippery in so much as he refuses to be drawn into hypothesizing the unknowable. If he makes a prediction of any sort, the media will call it, scandal! You Lied! a few months hence if he isn’t 100% correct. I can afford to make wild predictions of the future. Being wrong in even my wildest prognostications doesn’t make global news.
Also, he is dead right. You can’t keep small groups of people from crossing thousands of miles of border in the midst of unpopulated desert wilderness. Even with guards on duty every quarter mile and armed to the teeth, people will get by.
And God help us if the day comes when borders of nation states can be made absolute. The Commies tried… but they only succeeded in Berlin by building a high final wall, double fences of barbed wire with killing zones in between, guard towers within sight of each other, dog runs, mine fields…
I’d say he’s the most honest man I’ve seen in government. He doesn’t give feel good answers to things that are stupid, or not current absolute fact, or secret. He just tells them he won’t tell them.
I’ve been reading these transcripts for a couple years now and my respect for journalism very quickly fell to an extremely low level and has stayed there.
These people don’t know any science, engineering, statistics; they barely know military history; they have no concept whatever of strategy and tactics; and as for logistics, I’m not sure they even know what it is.
When I read the questions from the press at Pentagon briefings, I simply wonder if they went into journalism because they were too stupid to get a pass in any of the hard subjects.
Zathras:
“people are saying that it might be nice for the Afghan government to own something outside the Kabul city limits”
Why ??
I think I, the Afghani people and the whole world can live perfectly well without the Afghani Government owning anything at all, even without it existing. I don’t care at all about the Afghani Gvnmnt, what matters is that terrorists don’t have a sanctuary there, and terrorism isn’t exported from there. This goal seems to have been acheived, albeit not on a perpetual basis – continuous vigilance and supervision of (not too many) American troops are essential.
The Afghani Gvnmnt is irrelevant, though, indeed it might be “nice to have” there a decent government.
Dale,
About journalists: absolutely and totally correct.
Heck, I’d tune in to watch Donald Rumsfeld read a shopping list. He’s more fun than a barrel of irascible, cranky, shit-flinging monkeys.
I simply wonder if they went into journalism because they were too stupid to get a pass in any of the hard subjects.
Exactly. When the going gets tough, the weenies wash out into teaching and journalism.
Dale:
I was listening to NPR awhile back, and one of the guests was arguing in favor of exactly that thesis. The world is increasingly dividing itself not into “haves” and “have-nots,” but rather into those capable of higher technical thought and those incapableor unwilling to attempt it. And journalists overwhelmingly fall into the second category.
Ever stopped to marvel at how psych majors, who should be the happiest people on the face of the planet because they know all the levers and switches of the mind, are inevitably the gloomiest and most chronically depressed, while the geeky engineers and coders who spend all their time focused on attacking some daunting technical problem are generally the happiest?
That was an interesting discovery for me.
Whatever one thinks of the policy of war, it should be admitted that Donald Rumsfeld is a Defence Secretary.
The Defence Secretary does not decide what wars will be faught, and all the major military moves have been well done (people who think that casualities among either American forces or local civilians can be avoided in war are living in a dream world).
Rumsfeld (like any Defence Secretary) has lots of different sources of advice and he has chosen to follow what have proved to be good command choices.
Whatever one may think of President Bush (with his endless wild spending on everything from farm subsidies to Medicare) at least has not followed President Johnson’s policy of micro managing war himself.
Rumsfeld and Bush compare well to R.M. and L.B.J.
The wars may still turn out badly – but the military tactics will certainly not be to blame.
Donald Rumsfeld is a bully, an egoist, and an insufferable know-it-all. Soldiers have died so that he can “prove” his theory of warfare. Rumsfeld does not, apparently, have a theory of post-warfare.
Recently, Rumsfeld’s most senior and trusted generals (Richard Myers, John Abizaid, and Peter Pace) have gone behind his back to lobby Colin Powell for a new UN resolution. This unprecedented (to my knowledge) action is reported in the Washington Post and The Economist (subscription required or pay per view).
Well you can argue that Rumsfeld’s “Theory of War” was proven, although that seems to me to have been just to spite Eric Shinseki.
Shinseki looks to me like getting his own back quietly on the post-war situation.
“Shinseki looks to me like getting his own back quietly on the post-war situation.”
Dunno where u get that, Striker Bde is plagued by problems, like it is rigth now not even a RPG-7 the veichle can sustain.
The logistics of USarmy in this war was a failure because reforms in 90’s.
And if u listen to USmilitary, they even more criticise Shinseki for his more political than military approach to military problems.
–“I’d say he’s the most honest man I’ve seen in government. He doesn’t give feel good answers to things that are stupid, or not current absolute fact, or secret. He just tells them he won’t tell them.”–
I wholeheartedly agree. I love his press conferences. I love his unPC attitude. I love that when asked how he felt about embeded reporters he answered, “I thought she was excellent.” I like that he’s a DOM with a good mind and a sense of humor. He seems to be a plaintalking throwback to a better generation of men. I like that he’s trying to change the military. His quicker more mobile plan might work well or it might be a mistake, but at least he trying to address the problems which is a lot more than can be said about most CYAucrats in the federal government.
“When going gets tough, the weenies wash out into teaching and journalism.”
Hey folks, we almost elected a journalist, (and an Investigative one at that,) president.
God. The ultimate, all-purpose defense of any government official giving dodgy answers to difficult questions — it’s the journalists, you see, they’re just so stupid…or liberal…or incapable of higher technical thought (whatever that means)… or generally hateful and awful and couldn’t cut it in the blogosphere for anything.
With all respect to this powerful line of reasoning, it entirely misses the point. Journalists are not the issue here. They are not running operations in Iraq or supervising the people who are. Gen. Abizaid, asked why Islamist fighters coming to Iraq could not be stopped at the borders, said he didn’t have the manpower to do it. Rumsfeld upon being asked about this by Jim Lehrer then started going on about the American border with Mexico and how difficult it was to keep illegal immigrants from crossing, as if aspiring Mexican maids and gardeners trying to slip past the Border Patrol and aspiring Arab terrorists trying to get around the US Army were just so many peas in a pod.
I will give Rumsfeld credit at least for not bringing up the horrors we would face if the “…borders of nation states could be made absolute” and asking if his critics want to repeat the mistake the Communists made by putting up another Berlin Wall between Iraq and Syria. Maybe he thought that argument was as dopey as I do, or maybe it just didn’t occur to him. In any event, faced with a situation where the US Army is shorthanded in Iraq, a situation where it does not have all the troops it needs to do the things it needs to do and one that was widely predicted by uniformed officers before the war Rumsfeld plainly sees dodging awkward questions arising from that situation as a more urgent priority than fixing the problem. Rubbishing the journalists who ask the questions won’t make them go away.
If Abazaid thinks those borders can be sealed, he should be removed from command for being a complete fool. I doubt that is what he meant and would have to see his statement in context.
With 500,000 troops, B-52’s, helicopter gunship patrols, F4 Phantom patrols, electronic detection gadgets… the US never came close to shutting down continuous supply on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
If we couldn’t do more than slow down full resupply then, how on Earth can you imagine it is possible to stop small groups of people who are familiar with desert survival and dressed just like everyone else there from slipping in? Yeah, do more inspections on the roads, run more choppers… you’ll get lucky now and then and catch some.
Better to create a honeypot to attract them to preselected ground where they can be killed.
The journalists I read are mostly asking assinine questions.
Zathras:
I’m so glad you asked! “Higher technical thought” by a journalist might manifest itself in the following ways:
Economics: knowing how to illustrate the impact of exogenous shocks on a given market by moving supply, demand and marginal revenue curves around a page. Understanding that price floors and ceilings cause shortages and surpluses and that your market wage is the concensus view of what your work is really worth. Understanding that windfall profits attract providers of scarce goods and services which causes the goods and services to cheapen unless the windfall profits are taxed away.
Chemistry: understanding that in a closed system, on a planet without water-laden rockets on every driveway, we aren’t actually capable of “destroying” water simply by using it irresponsibly, though we can deplete our supply of potable water and raise the cost of providing fresh drinking water unnecessarily. Understanding that many chemical reactions actually create water (or at least rearrange molecules to form water).
Game Theory: understanding the Prisoners’ Dilemma in successive plays. Understanding the philosophy behind Mutually Assured Destruction, when it can work and when it can’t. Having the understanding not to demand unilateral disarmament as a means to end a Cold War nuclear standoff when staying armed is the best deterrent option available and then immediately look back nostalgically upon the Cold War when the irrationality of radical Islam makes a MAD strategy untennable. Understanding that the central goal of government regulation, to the extent it must exist at all, should be to drive corporations into direct competition with each other to the benefit of the consumers they serve.
Military Strategy: understanding the MOOSEMUSS fundamentals, when they should be adhered to and when (e.g. Vicksburg) they can be broken. Realizing that the successful general is opportunistic and that Franks is neither incompetent for pausing, nor suddenly competent for taking Baghdad with thousands fewer casualties than anyone dared predict.
Any journalist lacking these skills should really refrain from asking questions relating to these respective topic areas, except as a means of illustrating his or her incompetence, or as entertainment for the truly informed.
I realize that you probably stopped reading this long ago, but this has been terrifically cathartic for me and I thank you for the excuse.