Sunday, December 30, 2007
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Declarations - Peggy Noonan
Declarations - WSJ.com: "Bill Buckley once said he'd rather be governed by the first thousand names in the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty. I'd rather be governed by Donny and Marie than the Washington establishment."
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Iraq War Lexicon
IDP - Internally Displaced Person
IED - Improvised Explosive Device
Iraqi government - A joke.
Green Zone - Another joke.
IED - Improvised Explosive Device
Iraqi government - A joke.
Green Zone - Another joke.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
General Petraeus Testifies Before Congress
Here's a question or exchange you won't hear from the committee as General Petraeus testifies before Congress:
Congressman: Some time ago Bush and Cheney sent a well known general to the United Nations to testify on their behalf. They used him to make their case. They knew that with his integrity and the respect he commanded all across the country, people would believe him.
General Petraeus: Mmhmmm.
Congressman: You know who I'm talking about, don't you?
General Petraeus: Tell me.
Congressman: That would be Secretary of State Colin Powell.
General Petraeus: Yes, I knew Colin back when I was a colonel and he was --
Congressman: How do we know Bush and Cheney haven't done the same thing with you?
General Petraeus: I can tell you right now that I wrote my own testimony. No one at the White House wrote a word of it.
Congressman: Colin Powell wrote his own testimony, too.
General Petraeus: Colin Powell talked about our intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons. This argument about war strategy and deployment decisions is different.
Congressman: Not so. The question of whether you're a trustworthy source is what matters here.
General Petraeus: Are you suggesting I'm not trustworthy? I'm here to tell you the truth.
Congressman: Colin Powell thought he was telling the truth. He was a loyal soldier and secretary. He couldn't see that the president and vice-president depended on his reputation for integrity. Now look at his reputation. Bush and Cheney didn't even thank him when he resigned. He left in ignominy while Bush celebrated his second inauguration.
General Petraeus: I've thought about my reputation going into this.
Congressman: Think some more. William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams both had good reputations before they accepted command of our forces in South Vietnam. Because they served a president who didn't square with the American people, their names are forever associated with failure.
General Petraeus: But that's why I'm here. To point the only way to eventual success. No one in the army wants failure.
Congressman: We've already failed. The only question we have in front of us now is, how can we minimize the cost of our failure? What can we do to regroup and recover?
General Petraeus: My reputation stands with how our soldiers perform in Iraq. If they perform the mission their country gives them, I'm proud of them. I know I'll have their respect.
Congressman: I'm sorry general, but historians aren't going to give a damn about how your soldiers feel, or what they think. We're all proud of our soldiers, you know, and we all respect the hard work you've done over there. But you're going to be judged by the company you keep.
General Petraeus: As I said, the company I keep in Baghdad is the best, because the U. S. Army is the best.
Congressman: You're still having trouble extracting yourself from your military environment. I mean the company you keep here in Washington. Nobody trusts President Bush anymore, so nobody trusts you. That is, no one trusts you unless you prove you're independent of him.
General Petraeus: How do you recommend I do that, congressman?
Congressman: Show that you're willing to be fired. Prove that you're not speaking for the president.
General Petraeus: That's pretty hard. Everyone knows that's just what I'm doing.
Congressman: Well no. You have a chance here to speak your mind entirely. You have a chance here to criticize Bush and Cheney. Can't you see the situation you're in here? You haven't been in Baghdad that long.
General Petraeus: You tell me my situation, congressman.
Congressman: You have a full range of opinion about the war in this room. People have made up their minds about the question of whether the war is a failure or not. People still aren't so sure about the best thing to do, given where we are now.
General Petraeus: Go on.
Congressman: Another thing people are sure about, though most won't say it, is that we need new leadership. Everyone is looking for a new direction from someone who is trustworthy.
General Petraeus: And you've suggested already that our president isn't trustworthy, that we won't receive good leadership from him or his advisors.
Congressman: That's right.
General Petraeus: You think I can give the leadership people need?
Congressman: You're just about the only one at this point, general.
General Petraeus: I serve at the president's pleasure, congressman - I'm not going to deny him in public.
Congressman: That's the problem, isn't it?
General Petraeus: Look, don't you think I should just give my report?
Congressman: People won't listen to you if they think you're presenting the party line.
General Petraeus: That's a Stalinist phrase, you know, "presenting the party line."
Congressman: That's shows you how far we've come since 9/11, general. People see the folks in the White House as nothing more than a pack of propagandists.
General Petraeus: And I can represent the pack, or speak my own mind.
Congressman: That's it, general. You can't just tell us you wrote your own testimony. If you need to tell us that, you have a credibility problem right at the start. You have to show us why we should believe you.
General Petraeus: Alright, I'm willing to lose my job. I'm willing to receive orders to return home.
Congressman: You know what else you can do?
General Petraeus: What?
Congressman: Appear before this committee tomorrow without your uniform.
General Petraeus: You think that's going to make me more trustworthy?
Congressman: That's how far we've come, six years after 9/11. That's how far we've come.
Congressman: Some time ago Bush and Cheney sent a well known general to the United Nations to testify on their behalf. They used him to make their case. They knew that with his integrity and the respect he commanded all across the country, people would believe him.
General Petraeus: Mmhmmm.
Congressman: You know who I'm talking about, don't you?
General Petraeus: Tell me.
Congressman: That would be Secretary of State Colin Powell.
General Petraeus: Yes, I knew Colin back when I was a colonel and he was --
Congressman: How do we know Bush and Cheney haven't done the same thing with you?
General Petraeus: I can tell you right now that I wrote my own testimony. No one at the White House wrote a word of it.
Congressman: Colin Powell wrote his own testimony, too.
General Petraeus: Colin Powell talked about our intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons. This argument about war strategy and deployment decisions is different.
Congressman: Not so. The question of whether you're a trustworthy source is what matters here.
General Petraeus: Are you suggesting I'm not trustworthy? I'm here to tell you the truth.
Congressman: Colin Powell thought he was telling the truth. He was a loyal soldier and secretary. He couldn't see that the president and vice-president depended on his reputation for integrity. Now look at his reputation. Bush and Cheney didn't even thank him when he resigned. He left in ignominy while Bush celebrated his second inauguration.
General Petraeus: I've thought about my reputation going into this.
Congressman: Think some more. William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams both had good reputations before they accepted command of our forces in South Vietnam. Because they served a president who didn't square with the American people, their names are forever associated with failure.
General Petraeus: But that's why I'm here. To point the only way to eventual success. No one in the army wants failure.
Congressman: We've already failed. The only question we have in front of us now is, how can we minimize the cost of our failure? What can we do to regroup and recover?
General Petraeus: My reputation stands with how our soldiers perform in Iraq. If they perform the mission their country gives them, I'm proud of them. I know I'll have their respect.
Congressman: I'm sorry general, but historians aren't going to give a damn about how your soldiers feel, or what they think. We're all proud of our soldiers, you know, and we all respect the hard work you've done over there. But you're going to be judged by the company you keep.
General Petraeus: As I said, the company I keep in Baghdad is the best, because the U. S. Army is the best.
Congressman: You're still having trouble extracting yourself from your military environment. I mean the company you keep here in Washington. Nobody trusts President Bush anymore, so nobody trusts you. That is, no one trusts you unless you prove you're independent of him.
General Petraeus: How do you recommend I do that, congressman?
Congressman: Show that you're willing to be fired. Prove that you're not speaking for the president.
General Petraeus: That's pretty hard. Everyone knows that's just what I'm doing.
Congressman: Well no. You have a chance here to speak your mind entirely. You have a chance here to criticize Bush and Cheney. Can't you see the situation you're in here? You haven't been in Baghdad that long.
General Petraeus: You tell me my situation, congressman.
Congressman: You have a full range of opinion about the war in this room. People have made up their minds about the question of whether the war is a failure or not. People still aren't so sure about the best thing to do, given where we are now.
General Petraeus: Go on.
Congressman: Another thing people are sure about, though most won't say it, is that we need new leadership. Everyone is looking for a new direction from someone who is trustworthy.
General Petraeus: And you've suggested already that our president isn't trustworthy, that we won't receive good leadership from him or his advisors.
Congressman: That's right.
General Petraeus: You think I can give the leadership people need?
Congressman: You're just about the only one at this point, general.
General Petraeus: I serve at the president's pleasure, congressman - I'm not going to deny him in public.
Congressman: That's the problem, isn't it?
General Petraeus: Look, don't you think I should just give my report?
Congressman: People won't listen to you if they think you're presenting the party line.
General Petraeus: That's a Stalinist phrase, you know, "presenting the party line."
Congressman: That's shows you how far we've come since 9/11, general. People see the folks in the White House as nothing more than a pack of propagandists.
General Petraeus: And I can represent the pack, or speak my own mind.
Congressman: That's it, general. You can't just tell us you wrote your own testimony. If you need to tell us that, you have a credibility problem right at the start. You have to show us why we should believe you.
General Petraeus: Alright, I'm willing to lose my job. I'm willing to receive orders to return home.
Congressman: You know what else you can do?
General Petraeus: What?
Congressman: Appear before this committee tomorrow without your uniform.
General Petraeus: You think that's going to make me more trustworthy?
Congressman: That's how far we've come, six years after 9/11. That's how far we've come.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
From Whittaker Chambers to George W. Bush
Excerpt from Sam Tanenhaus in The New RepublicNR, "The End of the Journey," July 2, 2007:
World War II, Chambers wrote, "simplified the balance of forces in the world by reducing them to two." This was more or less what most Americans, including American intellectuals, believed in 1952. But Chambers typically went further, embracing a Manichaean dualism, though even this had its Marxist angle. As a practiced revolutionary, he knew - as did Lenin and Trotsky, for all their fealty to "historical materialism" - that political movements rise to power not on the wings of theory but through the politics of irreducible choice.
This was the lesson absorbed by American conservatives their prolonged moment of ascendancy, which looks now to be ending. The movement's first national experiment with the politics of polarizing choice came in the presidential election of 1964, and the results were disastrous. But four years later Richard Nixon, who until Chambers's his death remained his friend and in some sense his disciple, succeeded in shattering the post-war consensus by rallying a "silent majority" of God fearing, law-abiding citizens to seize the whip from the unbelieving elite - the people who (in Nixon's view, not entirely wrong) had never forgiven him for exposing Hiss. Another master of divisiveness, Ronald Reagan, posthumously awarded Chambers the Medal of Freedom, and more than once startled aides by reciting passages of Witness from memory. The book's tonalities are likewise audible in the scripts that Reagan wrote for his popular radio addresses in the 1970s, when he was mounting his run at the presidency, and also in his notorious formulation "the evil empire," derived from Chambers's description of communism as "the focus of the concentrated evil of our time."
The epithet "evil empire" distressed many in the civilized world when Reagan first uttered it in 1983. But he was speaking in terms the Soviet themselves understood; he gave voice to the binary theology that joined the two great powers in their death struggle. In the 1980s, and Chambersian absolutism was very much in vogue, the official view of the Reagan White House was that the Soviet Union was not only "permanently evil" but indestructible, growing in reach and in charismatic might even as the evidence oppositely pointed to a dysfunctional economy, a political spoils system rotten with corruption, republics seeing with ethnic patriots, satellite countries in rebellion. But when the collapse came, the Manichaean belief that America had singly "won" the cold war seemed vindicated. Our theology had triumphed. Even a conservative such Fukuyama, updating the dialect along Hegelian rather than Marxian lines, credited the triumph to "the realm of consciousness or ideas, since consciousness will ultimately remake the material world in its image." Since then Fukuyama has acknowledged that he and other neoconservatives were wrong.
World War II, Chambers wrote, "simplified the balance of forces in the world by reducing them to two." This was more or less what most Americans, including American intellectuals, believed in 1952. But Chambers typically went further, embracing a Manichaean dualism, though even this had its Marxist angle. As a practiced revolutionary, he knew - as did Lenin and Trotsky, for all their fealty to "historical materialism" - that political movements rise to power not on the wings of theory but through the politics of irreducible choice.
This was the lesson absorbed by American conservatives their prolonged moment of ascendancy, which looks now to be ending. The movement's first national experiment with the politics of polarizing choice came in the presidential election of 1964, and the results were disastrous. But four years later Richard Nixon, who until Chambers's his death remained his friend and in some sense his disciple, succeeded in shattering the post-war consensus by rallying a "silent majority" of God fearing, law-abiding citizens to seize the whip from the unbelieving elite - the people who (in Nixon's view, not entirely wrong) had never forgiven him for exposing Hiss. Another master of divisiveness, Ronald Reagan, posthumously awarded Chambers the Medal of Freedom, and more than once startled aides by reciting passages of Witness from memory. The book's tonalities are likewise audible in the scripts that Reagan wrote for his popular radio addresses in the 1970s, when he was mounting his run at the presidency, and also in his notorious formulation "the evil empire," derived from Chambers's description of communism as "the focus of the concentrated evil of our time."
The epithet "evil empire" distressed many in the civilized world when Reagan first uttered it in 1983. But he was speaking in terms the Soviet themselves understood; he gave voice to the binary theology that joined the two great powers in their death struggle. In the 1980s, and Chambersian absolutism was very much in vogue, the official view of the Reagan White House was that the Soviet Union was not only "permanently evil" but indestructible, growing in reach and in charismatic might even as the evidence oppositely pointed to a dysfunctional economy, a political spoils system rotten with corruption, republics seeing with ethnic patriots, satellite countries in rebellion. But when the collapse came, the Manichaean belief that America had singly "won" the cold war seemed vindicated. Our theology had triumphed. Even a conservative such Fukuyama, updating the dialect along Hegelian rather than Marxian lines, credited the triumph to "the realm of consciousness or ideas, since consciousness will ultimately remake the material world in its image." Since then Fukuyama has acknowledged that he and other neoconservatives were wrong.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Failure of Generalship
LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING / ARMED FORCES JOURNAL, MAY 2007
"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."
- Frederick the Great
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.
These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
The Responsibilities of Generalship
Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.
The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prosecute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required. When the ends of policy are small, the statesman can prosecute a conflict without asking the public for great sacrifice. Global conflicts such as World War II require the full mobilization of entire societies to provide the men and materiel necessary for the successful prosecution of war. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.
Popular passions are necessary for the successful prosecution of war, but cannot be sufficient. To prevail, generals must provide policymakers and the public with a correct estimation of strategic probabilities. The general is responsible for estimating the likelihood of success in applying force to achieve the aims of policy. The general describes both the means necessary for the successful prosecution of war and the ways in which the nation will employ those means. If the policymaker desires ends for which the means he provides are insufficient, the general is responsible for advising the statesman of this incongruence. The statesman must then scale back the ends of policy or mobilize popular passions to provide greater means. If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results.
However much it is influenced by passion and probability, war is ultimately an instrument of policy and its conduct is the responsibility of policymakers. War is a social activity undertaken on behalf of the nation; Augustine counsels us that the only purpose of war is to achieve a better peace. The choice of making war to achieve a better peace is inherently a value judgment in which the statesman must decide those interests and beliefs worth killing and dying for. The military man is no better qualified than the common citizen to make such judgments. He must therefore confine his input to his area of expertise — the estimation of strategic probabilities.
The correct estimation of strategic possibilities can be further subdivided into the preparation for war and the conduct of war. Preparation for war consists in the raising, arming, equipping and training of forces. The conduct of war consists of both planning for the use of those forces and directing those forces in operations.
To prepare forces for war, the general must visualize the conditions of future combat. To raise military forces properly, the general must visualize the quality and quantity of forces needed in the next war. To arm and equip military forces properly, the general must visualize the materiel requirements of future engagements. To train military forces properly, the general must visualize the human demands on future battlefields, and replicate those conditions in peacetime exercises. Of course, not even the most skilled general can visualize precisely how future wars will be fought. According to British military historian and soldier Sir Michael Howard, "In structuring and preparing an army for war, you can be clear that you will not get it precisely right, but the important thing is not to be too far wrong, so that you can put it right quickly."
The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past. Following World War I, French generals committed this error, assuming that the next war would involve static battles dominated by firepower and fixed fortifications. Throughout the interwar years, French generals raised, equipped, armed and trained the French military to fight the last war. In stark contrast, German generals spent the interwar years attempting to break the stalemate created by firepower and fortifications. They developed a new form of war — the blitzkrieg — that integrated mobility, firepower and decentralized tactics. The German Army did not get this new form of warfare precisely right. After the 1939 conquest of Poland, the German Army undertook a critical self-examination of its operations. However, German generals did not get it too far wrong either, and in less than a year had adapted their tactics for the invasion of France.
After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands. Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future. Policymakers, especially elected representatives, face powerful incentives to focus on near-term challenges that are of immediate concern to the public. Generating military capability is the labor of decades. If the general waits until the public and its elected representatives are immediately concerned with national security threats before finding his voice, he has waited too long. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.
Failing to visualize future battlefields represents a lapse in professional competence, but seeing those fields clearly and saying nothing is an even more serious lapse in professional character. Moral courage is often inversely proportional to popularity and this observation in nowhere more true than in the profession of arms. The history of military innovation is littered with the truncated careers of reformers who saw gathering threats clearly and advocated change boldly. A military professional must possess both the physical courage to face the hazards of battle and the moral courage to withstand the barbs of public scorn. On and off the battlefield, courage is the first characteristic of generalship.
Failures of Generalship in Vietnam
America's defeat in Vietnam is the most egregious failure in the history of American arms. America's general officer corps refused to prepare the Army to fight unconventional wars, despite ample indications that such preparations were in order. Having failed to prepare for such wars, America's generals sent our forces into battle without a coherent plan for victory. Unprepared for war and lacking a coherent strategy, America lost the war and the lives of more than 58,000 service members.
Following World War II, there were ample indicators that America's enemies would turn to insurgency to negate our advantages in firepower and mobility. The French experiences in Indochina and Algeria offered object lessons to Western armies facing unconventional foes. These lessons were not lost on the more astute members of America's political class. In 1961, President Kennedy warned of "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin — war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by evading and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him." In response to these threats, Kennedy undertook a comprehensive program to prepare America's armed forces for counterinsurgency.
Despite the experience of their allies and the urging of their president, America's generals failed to prepare their forces for counterinsurgency. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Decker assured his young president, "Any good soldier can handle guerrillas." Despite Kennedy's guidance to the contrary, the Army viewed the conflict in Vietnam in conventional terms. As late as 1964, Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated flatly that "the essence of the problem in Vietnam is military." While the Army made minor organizational adjustments at the urging of the president, the generals clung to what Andrew Krepinevich has called "the Army concept," a vision of warfare focused on the destruction of the enemy's forces.
Having failed to visualize accurately the conditions of combat in Vietnam, America's generals prosecuted the war in conventional terms. The U.S. military embarked on a graduated attrition strategy intended to compel North Vietnam to accept a negotiated peace. The U.S. undertook modest efforts at innovation in Vietnam. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), spearheaded by the State Department's "Blowtorch" Bob Kromer, was a serious effort to address the political and economic causes of the insurgency. The Marine Corps' Combined Action Program (CAP) was an innovative approach to population security. However, these efforts are best described as too little, too late. Innovations such as CORDS and CAP never received the resources necessary to make a large-scale difference. The U.S. military grudgingly accepted these innovations late in the war, after the American public's commitment to the conflict began to wane.
America's generals not only failed to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat. As H.R. McMaster noted in "Dereliction of Duty," the Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided by service parochialism and failed to develop a unified and coherent recommendation to the president for prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson estimated in 1965 that victory would require as many as 700,000 troops for up to five years. Commandant of the Marine Corps Wallace Greene made a similar estimate on troop levels. As President Johnson incrementally escalated the war, neither man made his views known to the president or Congress. President Johnson made a concerted effort to conceal the costs and consequences of Vietnam from the public, but such duplicity required the passive consent of America's generals.
Having participated in the deception of the American people during the war, the Army chose after the war to deceive itself. In "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife," John Nagl argued that instead of learning from defeat, the Army after Vietnam focused its energies on the kind of wars it knew how to win — high-technology conventional wars. An essential contribution to this strategy of denial was the publication of "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War," by Col. Harry Summers. Summers, a faculty member of the U.S. Army War College, argued that the Army had erred by not focusing enough on conventional warfare in Vietnam, a lesson the Army was happy to hear. Despite having been recently defeated by an insurgency, the Army slashed training and resources devoted to counterinsurgency.
By the early 1990s, the Army's focus on conventional war-fighting appeared to have been vindicated. During the 1980s, the U.S. military benefited from the largest peacetime military buildup in the nation's history. High-technology equipment dramatically increased the mobility and lethality of our ground forces. The Army's National Training Center honed the Army's conventional war-fighting skills to a razor's edge. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signaled the demise of the Soviet Union and the futility of direct confrontation with the U.S. Despite the fact the U.S. supported insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola to hasten the Soviet Union's demise, the U.S. military gave little thought to counterinsurgency throughout the 1990s. America's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past — state-on-state conflicts against conventional forces. America's swift defeat of the Iraqi Army, the world's fourth-largest, in 1991 seemed to confirm the wisdom of the U.S. military's post-Vietnam reforms. But the military learned the wrong lessons from Operation Desert Storm. It continued to prepare for the last war, while its future enemies prepared for a new kind of war.
Failures of Generalship in Iraq
America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. First, throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly. Second, America's generals failed to estimate correctly both the means and the ways necessary to achieve the aims of policy prior to beginning the war in Iraq. Finally, America's generals did not provide Congress and the public with an accurate assessment of the conflict in Iraq.
Despite paying lip service to "transformation" throughout the 1990s, America's armed forces failed to change in significant ways after the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In "The Sling and the Stone," T.X. Hammes argues that the Defense Department's transformation strategy focuses almost exclusively on high-technology conventional wars. The doctrine, organizations, equipment and training of the U.S. military confirm this observation. The armed forces fought the global war on terrorism for the first five years with a counterinsurgency doctrine last revised in the Reagan administration. Despite engaging in numerous stability operations throughout the 1990s, the armed forces did little to bolster their capabilities for civic reconstruction and security force development. Procurement priorities during the 1990s followed the Cold War model, with significant funding devoted to new fighter aircraft and artillery systems. The most commonly used tactical scenarios in both schools and training centers replicated high-intensity interstate conflict. At the dawn of the 21st century, the U.S. is fighting brutal, adaptive insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, while our armed forces have spent the preceding decade having done little to prepare for such conflicts.
Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America's generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.
Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.
After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.
After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. The Iraq Study Group concluded that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq." The ISG noted that "on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." Population security is the most important measure of effectiveness in counterinsurgency. For more than three years, America's generals continued to insist that the U.S. was making progress in Iraq. However, for Iraqi civilians, each year from 2003 onward was more deadly than the one preceding it. For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq. Moreover, America's generals have not explained clearly the larger strategic risks of committing so large a portion of the nation's deployable land power to a single theater of operations.
The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. To understand how the U.S. could face defeat at the hands of a weaker insurgent enemy for the second time in a generation, we must look at the structural influences that produce our general officer corps.
The Generals We Need
The most insightful examination of failed generalship comes from J.F.C. Fuller's "Generalship: Its Diseases and Their Cure." Fuller was a British major general who saw action in the first attempts at armored warfare in World War I. He found three common characteristics in great generals — courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness.
The need for intelligent, creative and courageous general officers is self-evident. An understanding of the larger aspects of war is essential to great generalship. However, a survey of Army three- and four-star generals shows that only 25 percent hold advanced degrees from civilian institutions in the social sciences or humanities. Counterinsurgency theory holds that proficiency in foreign languages is essential to success, yet only one in four of the Army's senior generals speaks another language. While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.
Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.
If America desires creative intelligence and moral courage in its general officer corps, it must create a system that rewards these qualities. Congress can create such incentives by exercising its proper oversight function in three areas. First, Congress must change the system for selecting general officers. Second, oversight committees must apply increased scrutiny over generating the necessary means and pursuing appropriate ways for applying America's military power. Third, the Senate must hold accountable through its confirmation powers those officers who fail to achieve the aims of policy at an acceptable cost in blood and treasure.
To improve the creative intelligence of our generals, Congress must change the officer promotion system in ways that reward adaptation and intellectual achievement. Congress should require the armed services to implement 360-degree evaluations for field-grade and flag officers. Junior officers and noncommissioned officers are often the first to adapt because they bear the brunt of failed tactics most directly. They are also less wed to organizational norms and less influenced by organizational taboos. Junior leaders have valuable insights regarding the effectiveness of their leaders, but the current promotion system excludes these judgments. Incorporating subordinate and peer reviews into promotion decisions for senior leaders would produce officers more willing to adapt to changing circumstances, and less likely to conform to outmoded practices.
Congress should also modify the officer promotion system in ways that reward intellectual achievement. The Senate should examine the education and professional writing of nominees for three- and four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate would never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had neither been to law school nor written legal opinions. However, it routinely confirms four-star generals who possess neither graduate education in the social sciences or humanities nor the capability to speak a foreign language. Senior general officers must have a vision of what future conflicts will look like and what capabilities the U.S. requires to prevail in those conflicts. They must possess the capability to understand and interact with foreign cultures. A solid record of intellectual achievement and fluency in foreign languages are effective indicators of an officer's potential for senior leadership.
To reward moral courage in our general officers, Congress must ask hard questions about the means and ways for war as part of its oversight responsibility. Some of the answers will be shocking, which is perhaps why Congress has not asked and the generals have not told. Congress must ask for a candid assessment of the money and manpower required over the next generation to prevail in the Long War. The money required to prevail may place fiscal constraints on popular domestic priorities. The quantity and quality of manpower required may call into question the viability of the all-volunteer military. Congress must re-examine the allocation of existing resources, and demand that procurement priorities reflect the most likely threats we will face. Congress must be equally rigorous in ensuring that the ways of war contribute to conflict termination consistent with the aims of national policy. If our operations produce more enemies than they defeat, no amount of force is sufficient to prevail. Current oversight efforts have proved inadequate, allowing the executive branch, the services and lobbyists to present information that is sometimes incomplete, inaccurate or self-serving. Exercising adequate oversight will require members of Congress to develop the expertise necessary to ask the right questions and display the courage to follow the truth wherever it leads them.
Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising its little-used authority to confirm the retired rank of general officers. By law, Congress must confirm an officer who retires at three- or four-star rank. In the past this requirement has been pro forma in all but a few cases. A general who presides over a massive human rights scandal or a substantial deterioration in security ought to be retired at a lower rank than one who serves with distinction. A general who fails to provide Congress with an accurate and candid assessment of strategic probabilities ought to suffer the same penalty. As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm the retired ranks of general officers, Congress can restore accountability among senior military leaders.
Mortal Danger
This article began with Frederick the Great's admonition to his officers to focus their energies on the larger aspects of war. The Prussian monarch's innovations had made his army the terror of Europe, but he knew that his adversaries were learning and adapting. Frederick feared that his generals would master his system of war without thinking deeply about the ever-changing nature of war, and in doing so would place Prussia's security at risk. These fears would prove prophetic. At the Battle of Valmy in 1792, Frederick's successors were checked by France's ragtag citizen army. In the fourteen years that followed, Prussia's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like those of the past. In 1806, the Prussian Army marched lockstep into defeat and disaster at the hands of Napoleon at Jena. Frederick's prophecy had come to pass; Prussia became a French vassal.
Iraq is America's Valmy. America's generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security. The power and the responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress. If Congress does not act, our Jena awaits us.
Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago. The views expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army or the Defense Department.
"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."
- Frederick the Great
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.
These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
The Responsibilities of Generalship
Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.
The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prosecute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required. When the ends of policy are small, the statesman can prosecute a conflict without asking the public for great sacrifice. Global conflicts such as World War II require the full mobilization of entire societies to provide the men and materiel necessary for the successful prosecution of war. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.
Popular passions are necessary for the successful prosecution of war, but cannot be sufficient. To prevail, generals must provide policymakers and the public with a correct estimation of strategic probabilities. The general is responsible for estimating the likelihood of success in applying force to achieve the aims of policy. The general describes both the means necessary for the successful prosecution of war and the ways in which the nation will employ those means. If the policymaker desires ends for which the means he provides are insufficient, the general is responsible for advising the statesman of this incongruence. The statesman must then scale back the ends of policy or mobilize popular passions to provide greater means. If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results.
However much it is influenced by passion and probability, war is ultimately an instrument of policy and its conduct is the responsibility of policymakers. War is a social activity undertaken on behalf of the nation; Augustine counsels us that the only purpose of war is to achieve a better peace. The choice of making war to achieve a better peace is inherently a value judgment in which the statesman must decide those interests and beliefs worth killing and dying for. The military man is no better qualified than the common citizen to make such judgments. He must therefore confine his input to his area of expertise — the estimation of strategic probabilities.
The correct estimation of strategic possibilities can be further subdivided into the preparation for war and the conduct of war. Preparation for war consists in the raising, arming, equipping and training of forces. The conduct of war consists of both planning for the use of those forces and directing those forces in operations.
To prepare forces for war, the general must visualize the conditions of future combat. To raise military forces properly, the general must visualize the quality and quantity of forces needed in the next war. To arm and equip military forces properly, the general must visualize the materiel requirements of future engagements. To train military forces properly, the general must visualize the human demands on future battlefields, and replicate those conditions in peacetime exercises. Of course, not even the most skilled general can visualize precisely how future wars will be fought. According to British military historian and soldier Sir Michael Howard, "In structuring and preparing an army for war, you can be clear that you will not get it precisely right, but the important thing is not to be too far wrong, so that you can put it right quickly."
The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past. Following World War I, French generals committed this error, assuming that the next war would involve static battles dominated by firepower and fixed fortifications. Throughout the interwar years, French generals raised, equipped, armed and trained the French military to fight the last war. In stark contrast, German generals spent the interwar years attempting to break the stalemate created by firepower and fortifications. They developed a new form of war — the blitzkrieg — that integrated mobility, firepower and decentralized tactics. The German Army did not get this new form of warfare precisely right. After the 1939 conquest of Poland, the German Army undertook a critical self-examination of its operations. However, German generals did not get it too far wrong either, and in less than a year had adapted their tactics for the invasion of France.
After visualizing the conditions of future combat, the general is responsible for explaining to civilian policymakers the demands of future combat and the risks entailed in failing to meet those demands. Civilian policymakers have neither the expertise nor the inclination to think deeply about strategic probabilities in the distant future. Policymakers, especially elected representatives, face powerful incentives to focus on near-term challenges that are of immediate concern to the public. Generating military capability is the labor of decades. If the general waits until the public and its elected representatives are immediately concerned with national security threats before finding his voice, he has waited too long. The general who speaks too loudly of preparing for war while the nation is at peace places at risk his position and status. However, the general who speaks too softly places at risk the security of his country.
Failing to visualize future battlefields represents a lapse in professional competence, but seeing those fields clearly and saying nothing is an even more serious lapse in professional character. Moral courage is often inversely proportional to popularity and this observation in nowhere more true than in the profession of arms. The history of military innovation is littered with the truncated careers of reformers who saw gathering threats clearly and advocated change boldly. A military professional must possess both the physical courage to face the hazards of battle and the moral courage to withstand the barbs of public scorn. On and off the battlefield, courage is the first characteristic of generalship.
Failures of Generalship in Vietnam
America's defeat in Vietnam is the most egregious failure in the history of American arms. America's general officer corps refused to prepare the Army to fight unconventional wars, despite ample indications that such preparations were in order. Having failed to prepare for such wars, America's generals sent our forces into battle without a coherent plan for victory. Unprepared for war and lacking a coherent strategy, America lost the war and the lives of more than 58,000 service members.
Following World War II, there were ample indicators that America's enemies would turn to insurgency to negate our advantages in firepower and mobility. The French experiences in Indochina and Algeria offered object lessons to Western armies facing unconventional foes. These lessons were not lost on the more astute members of America's political class. In 1961, President Kennedy warned of "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin — war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by evading and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him." In response to these threats, Kennedy undertook a comprehensive program to prepare America's armed forces for counterinsurgency.
Despite the experience of their allies and the urging of their president, America's generals failed to prepare their forces for counterinsurgency. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Decker assured his young president, "Any good soldier can handle guerrillas." Despite Kennedy's guidance to the contrary, the Army viewed the conflict in Vietnam in conventional terms. As late as 1964, Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated flatly that "the essence of the problem in Vietnam is military." While the Army made minor organizational adjustments at the urging of the president, the generals clung to what Andrew Krepinevich has called "the Army concept," a vision of warfare focused on the destruction of the enemy's forces.
Having failed to visualize accurately the conditions of combat in Vietnam, America's generals prosecuted the war in conventional terms. The U.S. military embarked on a graduated attrition strategy intended to compel North Vietnam to accept a negotiated peace. The U.S. undertook modest efforts at innovation in Vietnam. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), spearheaded by the State Department's "Blowtorch" Bob Kromer, was a serious effort to address the political and economic causes of the insurgency. The Marine Corps' Combined Action Program (CAP) was an innovative approach to population security. However, these efforts are best described as too little, too late. Innovations such as CORDS and CAP never received the resources necessary to make a large-scale difference. The U.S. military grudgingly accepted these innovations late in the war, after the American public's commitment to the conflict began to wane.
America's generals not only failed to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat. As H.R. McMaster noted in "Dereliction of Duty," the Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided by service parochialism and failed to develop a unified and coherent recommendation to the president for prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson estimated in 1965 that victory would require as many as 700,000 troops for up to five years. Commandant of the Marine Corps Wallace Greene made a similar estimate on troop levels. As President Johnson incrementally escalated the war, neither man made his views known to the president or Congress. President Johnson made a concerted effort to conceal the costs and consequences of Vietnam from the public, but such duplicity required the passive consent of America's generals.
Having participated in the deception of the American people during the war, the Army chose after the war to deceive itself. In "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife," John Nagl argued that instead of learning from defeat, the Army after Vietnam focused its energies on the kind of wars it knew how to win — high-technology conventional wars. An essential contribution to this strategy of denial was the publication of "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War," by Col. Harry Summers. Summers, a faculty member of the U.S. Army War College, argued that the Army had erred by not focusing enough on conventional warfare in Vietnam, a lesson the Army was happy to hear. Despite having been recently defeated by an insurgency, the Army slashed training and resources devoted to counterinsurgency.
By the early 1990s, the Army's focus on conventional war-fighting appeared to have been vindicated. During the 1980s, the U.S. military benefited from the largest peacetime military buildup in the nation's history. High-technology equipment dramatically increased the mobility and lethality of our ground forces. The Army's National Training Center honed the Army's conventional war-fighting skills to a razor's edge. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signaled the demise of the Soviet Union and the futility of direct confrontation with the U.S. Despite the fact the U.S. supported insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola to hasten the Soviet Union's demise, the U.S. military gave little thought to counterinsurgency throughout the 1990s. America's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past — state-on-state conflicts against conventional forces. America's swift defeat of the Iraqi Army, the world's fourth-largest, in 1991 seemed to confirm the wisdom of the U.S. military's post-Vietnam reforms. But the military learned the wrong lessons from Operation Desert Storm. It continued to prepare for the last war, while its future enemies prepared for a new kind of war.
Failures of Generalship in Iraq
America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. First, throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly. Second, America's generals failed to estimate correctly both the means and the ways necessary to achieve the aims of policy prior to beginning the war in Iraq. Finally, America's generals did not provide Congress and the public with an accurate assessment of the conflict in Iraq.
Despite paying lip service to "transformation" throughout the 1990s, America's armed forces failed to change in significant ways after the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In "The Sling and the Stone," T.X. Hammes argues that the Defense Department's transformation strategy focuses almost exclusively on high-technology conventional wars. The doctrine, organizations, equipment and training of the U.S. military confirm this observation. The armed forces fought the global war on terrorism for the first five years with a counterinsurgency doctrine last revised in the Reagan administration. Despite engaging in numerous stability operations throughout the 1990s, the armed forces did little to bolster their capabilities for civic reconstruction and security force development. Procurement priorities during the 1990s followed the Cold War model, with significant funding devoted to new fighter aircraft and artillery systems. The most commonly used tactical scenarios in both schools and training centers replicated high-intensity interstate conflict. At the dawn of the 21st century, the U.S. is fighting brutal, adaptive insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, while our armed forces have spent the preceding decade having done little to prepare for such conflicts.
Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America's generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.
Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.
After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.
After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. The Iraq Study Group concluded that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq." The ISG noted that "on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." Population security is the most important measure of effectiveness in counterinsurgency. For more than three years, America's generals continued to insist that the U.S. was making progress in Iraq. However, for Iraqi civilians, each year from 2003 onward was more deadly than the one preceding it. For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq. Moreover, America's generals have not explained clearly the larger strategic risks of committing so large a portion of the nation's deployable land power to a single theater of operations.
The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. To understand how the U.S. could face defeat at the hands of a weaker insurgent enemy for the second time in a generation, we must look at the structural influences that produce our general officer corps.
The Generals We Need
The most insightful examination of failed generalship comes from J.F.C. Fuller's "Generalship: Its Diseases and Their Cure." Fuller was a British major general who saw action in the first attempts at armored warfare in World War I. He found three common characteristics in great generals — courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness.
The need for intelligent, creative and courageous general officers is self-evident. An understanding of the larger aspects of war is essential to great generalship. However, a survey of Army three- and four-star generals shows that only 25 percent hold advanced degrees from civilian institutions in the social sciences or humanities. Counterinsurgency theory holds that proficiency in foreign languages is essential to success, yet only one in four of the Army's senior generals speaks another language. While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.
Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.
If America desires creative intelligence and moral courage in its general officer corps, it must create a system that rewards these qualities. Congress can create such incentives by exercising its proper oversight function in three areas. First, Congress must change the system for selecting general officers. Second, oversight committees must apply increased scrutiny over generating the necessary means and pursuing appropriate ways for applying America's military power. Third, the Senate must hold accountable through its confirmation powers those officers who fail to achieve the aims of policy at an acceptable cost in blood and treasure.
To improve the creative intelligence of our generals, Congress must change the officer promotion system in ways that reward adaptation and intellectual achievement. Congress should require the armed services to implement 360-degree evaluations for field-grade and flag officers. Junior officers and noncommissioned officers are often the first to adapt because they bear the brunt of failed tactics most directly. They are also less wed to organizational norms and less influenced by organizational taboos. Junior leaders have valuable insights regarding the effectiveness of their leaders, but the current promotion system excludes these judgments. Incorporating subordinate and peer reviews into promotion decisions for senior leaders would produce officers more willing to adapt to changing circumstances, and less likely to conform to outmoded practices.
Congress should also modify the officer promotion system in ways that reward intellectual achievement. The Senate should examine the education and professional writing of nominees for three- and four-star billets as part of the confirmation process. The Senate would never confirm to the Supreme Court a nominee who had neither been to law school nor written legal opinions. However, it routinely confirms four-star generals who possess neither graduate education in the social sciences or humanities nor the capability to speak a foreign language. Senior general officers must have a vision of what future conflicts will look like and what capabilities the U.S. requires to prevail in those conflicts. They must possess the capability to understand and interact with foreign cultures. A solid record of intellectual achievement and fluency in foreign languages are effective indicators of an officer's potential for senior leadership.
To reward moral courage in our general officers, Congress must ask hard questions about the means and ways for war as part of its oversight responsibility. Some of the answers will be shocking, which is perhaps why Congress has not asked and the generals have not told. Congress must ask for a candid assessment of the money and manpower required over the next generation to prevail in the Long War. The money required to prevail may place fiscal constraints on popular domestic priorities. The quantity and quality of manpower required may call into question the viability of the all-volunteer military. Congress must re-examine the allocation of existing resources, and demand that procurement priorities reflect the most likely threats we will face. Congress must be equally rigorous in ensuring that the ways of war contribute to conflict termination consistent with the aims of national policy. If our operations produce more enemies than they defeat, no amount of force is sufficient to prevail. Current oversight efforts have proved inadequate, allowing the executive branch, the services and lobbyists to present information that is sometimes incomplete, inaccurate or self-serving. Exercising adequate oversight will require members of Congress to develop the expertise necessary to ask the right questions and display the courage to follow the truth wherever it leads them.
Finally, Congress must enhance accountability by exercising its little-used authority to confirm the retired rank of general officers. By law, Congress must confirm an officer who retires at three- or four-star rank. In the past this requirement has been pro forma in all but a few cases. A general who presides over a massive human rights scandal or a substantial deterioration in security ought to be retired at a lower rank than one who serves with distinction. A general who fails to provide Congress with an accurate and candid assessment of strategic probabilities ought to suffer the same penalty. As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm the retired ranks of general officers, Congress can restore accountability among senior military leaders.
Mortal Danger
This article began with Frederick the Great's admonition to his officers to focus their energies on the larger aspects of war. The Prussian monarch's innovations had made his army the terror of Europe, but he knew that his adversaries were learning and adapting. Frederick feared that his generals would master his system of war without thinking deeply about the ever-changing nature of war, and in doing so would place Prussia's security at risk. These fears would prove prophetic. At the Battle of Valmy in 1792, Frederick's successors were checked by France's ragtag citizen army. In the fourteen years that followed, Prussia's generals assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like those of the past. In 1806, the Prussian Army marched lockstep into defeat and disaster at the hands of Napoleon at Jena. Frederick's prophecy had come to pass; Prussia became a French vassal.
Iraq is America's Valmy. America's generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security. The power and the responsibility to identify such generals lie with the U.S. Congress. If Congress does not act, our Jena awaits us.
Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago. The views expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army or the Defense Department.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Something for Everyone
“I always wanted to be somebody, but I should’ve been more specific.” ~ Lily Tomlin
“A commone mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” ~ Douglas Adams
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“A commone mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” ~ Douglas Adams
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
ABC News: Funnies: A Pooh Press Conference
ABC News: Funnies: A Pooh Press Conference
Real Time
Bill Maher: "NBC is bringing back 'The Bionic Woman.' Which is about a woman who is half human, half robot and everybody loves her. And the people over at the Hillary Clinton campaign, this is a good omen for them."
Late Night
Conan O'Brien: "Today at the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held their last joint press conference. Yeah. In other words, it was the last time they played Christopher Robin and Pooh."
Real Time
Bill Maher: "NBC is bringing back 'The Bionic Woman.' Which is about a woman who is half human, half robot and everybody loves her. And the people over at the Hillary Clinton campaign, this is a good omen for them."
Late Night
Conan O'Brien: "Today at the White House, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held their last joint press conference. Yeah. In other words, it was the last time they played Christopher Robin and Pooh."
Monday, May 28, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Reagan Diaries Reveal President's Faith - U.S. - CBN News
Reagan Diaries Reveal President's Faith - U.S. - CBN News
The diaries record Reagan's thoughts about the events of the day and other parts of his life, including his family and often with his characteristic humor.
For instance, he wrote, "Insanity is hereditary you catch it from your kids."
The diaries also show the president's faith. He wrote this entry several days after he was shot by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981.
"Getting shot hurts. Still my fear was growing, because no matter how hard I tried to breathe, it seemed I was getting less and less air. I focused on the tiled ceiling and prayed.
"But I realized I couldn't ask for God's help while, at the same time, I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn't that the meaning of the lost sheep?
"We are all God's children and, therefore, equally beloved by Him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold. Whatever happens now, I owe my life to God and will try to serve him in every way I can."
The diaries record Reagan's thoughts about the events of the day and other parts of his life, including his family and often with his characteristic humor.
For instance, he wrote, "Insanity is hereditary you catch it from your kids."
The diaries also show the president's faith. He wrote this entry several days after he was shot by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981.
"Getting shot hurts. Still my fear was growing, because no matter how hard I tried to breathe, it seemed I was getting less and less air. I focused on the tiled ceiling and prayed.
"But I realized I couldn't ask for God's help while, at the same time, I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn't that the meaning of the lost sheep?
"We are all God's children and, therefore, equally beloved by Him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold. Whatever happens now, I owe my life to God and will try to serve him in every way I can."
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Friday, May 04, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Even Gipper can't pull this one out
Even Gipper can't pull this one out - Robert Borosage
Borosage argues that Reagan's conservative ideology "is at the root of Bush's failures." A deep, deep misunderstanding! Borosage will never change his mind, but what if others see Bush and Reagan in the same way?
Here is what John Ridley said about power, about achieving a position from which to sway public debate: "All that matters is accomplishment. The very pinnacle of ascendancy is the ability to live and work without regard for the sentiments of others and with, as Sister Rand would tell us, a selfish virtue."
I couldn't place the reference to Sister Rand, figuring she was someone like Sister Souljah or someone else I didn't know about. Then I realized Ridley was referring to Ayn Rand!
Long live individual autonomy and self-reliance! Where can I get John Ridley's e-mail address?
Borosage argues that Reagan's conservative ideology "is at the root of Bush's failures." A deep, deep misunderstanding! Borosage will never change his mind, but what if others see Bush and Reagan in the same way?
Here is what John Ridley said about power, about achieving a position from which to sway public debate: "All that matters is accomplishment. The very pinnacle of ascendancy is the ability to live and work without regard for the sentiments of others and with, as Sister Rand would tell us, a selfish virtue."
I couldn't place the reference to Sister Rand, figuring she was someone like Sister Souljah or someone else I didn't know about. Then I realized Ridley was referring to Ayn Rand!
Long live individual autonomy and self-reliance! Where can I get John Ridley's e-mail address?
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
"The President Has Effectively Gone AWOL"
"The President Has Effectively Gone AWOL" - John Nichols
John Nichols quotes several military officers in his article written after President Bush's May 1 veto of Congress's war funding bill:
The problem with Bush's "I'm-so-above-politics" line is that he has been disregarding advice from military commanders since before the war began.
Consider the response to his veto from top military men who commanded troops in Iraq.
"The President vetoed our troops and the American people," says retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste. "His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the nation to defeat world wide Islamic extremism is tragic. We deserve more from our commander-in-chief and his administration."
Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton: "This administration and the previously Republican-controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America's Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever [it is] apparent [that] only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war -- alone, without their President's support."
Retired military commanders associated with the Washington-based National Security Network have been blunt about their sense that Bush is not just wrong about Iraq but that he is failing the troops he purports to support.
Some make historical comparisons.
Says retired Lt. Gen. Robert Gard: "With this veto, the president has doomed us to repeating a terrible history." President Bush's current position is hauntingly reminiscent of March 1968 in Vietnam. At that time, both the Secretary of Defense and the President had recognized that the war could not be won militarily--just as our military commanders in Iraq have acknowledged. But not wanting to be tainted with losing a war, President Johnson authorized a surge of 25,000 troops. At that point, there had been 24,000 U.S. troops killed in action. Five years later, when the withdrawal of US troops was complete, we had suffered 34,000 additional combat deaths.
Others offer a straightforward assessment of Bush's failure as the commander-in-chief. "By vetoing this bill and failing to initiate an immediate and phased withdrawal, the President has effectively gone AWOL, deserting his duty post, leaving American forces with an impossible mission, suffering wholly unnecessary casualties," argues retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom.
John Nichols quotes several military officers in his article written after President Bush's May 1 veto of Congress's war funding bill:
The problem with Bush's "I'm-so-above-politics" line is that he has been disregarding advice from military commanders since before the war began.
Consider the response to his veto from top military men who commanded troops in Iraq.
"The President vetoed our troops and the American people," says retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste. "His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the nation to defeat world wide Islamic extremism is tragic. We deserve more from our commander-in-chief and his administration."
Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton: "This administration and the previously Republican-controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America's Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever [it is] apparent [that] only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war -- alone, without their President's support."
Retired military commanders associated with the Washington-based National Security Network have been blunt about their sense that Bush is not just wrong about Iraq but that he is failing the troops he purports to support.
Some make historical comparisons.
Says retired Lt. Gen. Robert Gard: "With this veto, the president has doomed us to repeating a terrible history." President Bush's current position is hauntingly reminiscent of March 1968 in Vietnam. At that time, both the Secretary of Defense and the President had recognized that the war could not be won militarily--just as our military commanders in Iraq have acknowledged. But not wanting to be tainted with losing a war, President Johnson authorized a surge of 25,000 troops. At that point, there had been 24,000 U.S. troops killed in action. Five years later, when the withdrawal of US troops was complete, we had suffered 34,000 additional combat deaths.
Others offer a straightforward assessment of Bush's failure as the commander-in-chief. "By vetoing this bill and failing to initiate an immediate and phased withdrawal, the President has effectively gone AWOL, deserting his duty post, leaving American forces with an impossible mission, suffering wholly unnecessary casualties," argues retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq
General says Bush 'AWOL' on Iraq:
"To put this in a simple Army metaphor, the commander in chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is 'absent without leave.' He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge." ~Lt. Gen. William Odom (Ret.)
"To put this in a simple Army metaphor, the commander in chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is 'absent without leave.' He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge." ~Lt. Gen. William Odom (Ret.)
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Watching the ship go down
Watching the ship go down - David Ignatius
"This is the most incompetent White House I've seen since I came to Washington," said one GOP senator. "The White House legislative liaison team is incompetent, pitiful, embarrassing. My colleagues can't even tell you who the White House Senate liaison is. There is rank incompetence throughout the government. It's the weakest Cabinet I've seen." And remember, this is a Republican talking." ~David Ignatius
"This is the most incompetent White House I've seen since I came to Washington," said one GOP senator. "The White House legislative liaison team is incompetent, pitiful, embarrassing. My colleagues can't even tell you who the White House Senate liaison is. There is rank incompetence throughout the government. It's the weakest Cabinet I've seen." And remember, this is a Republican talking." ~David Ignatius
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The Black Reagan?
The Black Reagan? - Sean Higgins
"Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead." ~Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic convention
"Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead." ~Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic convention
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
The inside story of the Soviet downfall
The inside story of the Soviet downfall - Wes Vernon:
"The fact is that the first Reagan administration adopted, designed, and successfully implemented an integrated set of policies, strategies, and tactics specifically directed toward the eventual destruction (without war) of the Soviet Union and the successful ending of the Cold War with victory for the West." ~Norm Bailey
"The fact is that the first Reagan administration adopted, designed, and successfully implemented an integrated set of policies, strategies, and tactics specifically directed toward the eventual destruction (without war) of the Soviet Union and the successful ending of the Cold War with victory for the West." ~Norm Bailey
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Difficult Times
For young men accustomed to success - to getting what they wanted by hard work, as well as by privilege - the powerlessness was lonely, isolating. It was also maturing.
~ Susannah Meadows and Evan Thomas in Newsweek
~ Susannah Meadows and Evan Thomas in Newsweek
Friday, April 20, 2007
Fame
Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease...
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.
~ John Keats
To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease...
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.
~ John Keats
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
'Your Iraq plan?' is a pointless question
'Your Iraq plan?' is a pointless question - Andrew Bacevich
Candidates should acknowledge that Bush's war is a failure and look beyond Iraq.
Candidates should acknowledge that Bush's war is a failure and look beyond Iraq.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Right Yearns for New Reagan
Right Yearns for New Reagan - Matt Stearns
The popular conservative president offered clarity, humor and grit many say the '08 GOP hopefuls lack.
The popular conservative president offered clarity, humor and grit many say the '08 GOP hopefuls lack.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Two Quotations
"Power does not corrupt men. Fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power." ~ George Bernard Shaw
"Great necessities call out great virtues." ~ Abigail Adams
"Great necessities call out great virtues." ~ Abigail Adams
A Time For Everything - Is This Rudy's?
A Time For Everything - Is This Rudy's? - Star Parker
One of Reagan's great sources of appeal was that he didn't seem to need the presidency to make him someone. He already was someone and this seemed to be the job he was cut out to do.
One of Reagan's great sources of appeal was that he didn't seem to need the presidency to make him someone. He already was someone and this seemed to be the job he was cut out to do.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Libertarian Party Vision
Libertarian Party
Libertarian: The only party that keeps the government out of your bedroom and out of your wallet.
That's an updated view of Reagan's famous statement: "Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government is the problem." We've heard that quotation so often that we can forget what it actually means. It means that to live better, we dismantle our government. We weaken it. We constrict its ability to do things. We don't look to it for help. We ignore it. We make it leave us alone.
No politician since Reagan has argued for this vision. No leader has given us credible hope of moving toward it.
Libertarian: The only party that keeps the government out of your bedroom and out of your wallet.
That's an updated view of Reagan's famous statement: "Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government is the problem." We've heard that quotation so often that we can forget what it actually means. It means that to live better, we dismantle our government. We weaken it. We constrict its ability to do things. We don't look to it for help. We ignore it. We make it leave us alone.
No politician since Reagan has argued for this vision. No leader has given us credible hope of moving toward it.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Trouble With Loyalty - Peggy Noonan
OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan
"Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise." ~Hannah Arendt
"Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise." ~Hannah Arendt
Monday, March 12, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Entire Iraq fiasco is a war that is beyond outrageous
Inside Bay Area - Entire Iraq fiasco is a war that is beyond outrageous: "The idea that supporting our troops translates into backing the war has always been wrong headed, predating the Peloponnesian War and Aristophanes' anti-war play Lysistrata. The way to support our troops is to keep them out of wars, particularly wars that are not justified, have no clear goal and are poorly planned."
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Margaret Thatcher Eulogy to Ronald Reagan
Maggie Thatcher talks about Reagan's accomplishments, especially what he did to end the Cold War.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
Bloggers flock to Obama's Web site
Bloggers flock to Obama's Web site | Chicago Tribune: "Barack Obama's newly revamped Web site looks a lot like MySpace and Facebook, and that is no accident.
As a presidential candidate offering himself as a generational change agent, Obama is leveraging online social networking in a nearly unprecedented way in yet another clear measure of how the Internet is transforming politics."
As a presidential candidate offering himself as a generational change agent, Obama is leveraging online social networking in a nearly unprecedented way in yet another clear measure of how the Internet is transforming politics."
Friday, February 09, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Molly Ivins, Populist Texas Columnist, Dies at 62 - New York Times
Molly Ivins, Populist Texas Columnist, Dies at 62 - New York Times: "In her syndicated column, which appeared in about 350 newspapers, Ms. Ivins cultivated the voice of a folksy populist who derided those who acted too big for their britches. She was rowdy and profane, but she could filet her ideological opponents with droll precision.
After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that America was engaged in a cultural war, she said his speech “probably sounded better in the original German.”"
After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that America was engaged in a cultural war, she said his speech “probably sounded better in the original German.”"
Saturday, January 27, 2007
FW: A Libertarian State of the Union Message Please report and circulate
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------ Forwarded Message
From: George Phillies <phillies@4liberty.net>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:19:10 -0500
To: <undisclosed-recipients:;>
Subject: A Libertarian State of the Union Message Please report and
circulate
The American people can tell the truth.
The United States is on the wrong track. The state of the Union is not
good, and it is getting worse by the day.
Our brave men and women perish in Iraq, fighting for ever-changing
objectives. The trade deficit soars toward a trillion dollars a year.
The national debt of the United States climbs three-quarters of a
trillion dollars a year. The Federal government treats our Bill of
Rights as a doormat. Our immigration laws are an unenforced joke. Some
children receive excellent educations. Others face a dismal future with
little studying or learning. Medical care costs are through the
ceiling. Energy and environmental issues endanger our national safety.
Take-home pay is stagnant. A third of young African-American men are
someplace on their way through the justice system, in jail, on
probation, or disenfranchised.
And what has Congress debated, the past few years? Gay marriage.
Abortion. French Fries: Congress renamed them. Twice. Flag burning.
Billions in corporate welfare subsidies.
It's time for a change. It's time for a new future, the Libertarian
future of peace, freedom, and prosperity. What are some of our
problems, and how would Libertarians solve them to bring you a happier
report next year?
The War On Iraq was built on a pile of lies. Our armed forces in Iraq
should be removed as rapidly as logistics permit. The major delays are
moving equipment and supplies, not people. Until then, we should
announce we are leaving, cease offensive operations, remove our forces
from urban areas such as the Green Zone, and emphatically suggest to the
Iraqis that they need a divorce: Iraq would be happier split into four
parts, namely a Kurdish part, a Sunni part, a Shia part, and a part for
the secularized Iraqis who 25 years ago brought Iraq to the standard of
living of Greece.
There should be an Independent Commission of Inquiry, with complete
access to all Federal records and full powers to force testimony
(witnesses can always plead the Fifth), to determine what was being said
behind the scenes as the War On Iraq was sold to the American people.
Graft and corruption affecting the War effort should be most rigorously
investigated and prosecuted, starting with the 18 billion dollars in
cash that was flown to Iraq and disappeared.
Warrantless wiretaps and warrantless searches are crimes. Reading your
email without a warrant is a crime. Kidnapping and torturing people are
crimes. If you go abroad and torture someone until they die, it's a
death penalty offense. Generating legal justifications for kidnapping
and torturing people is not an official duty: it's part of a criminal
conspiracy. There are no legal exemptions for government officials who
claim they are just following orders: That's the Nuremberg Defense, and
it's invalid. I will ask Congress to create a Corps of Special
Prosecutors to see that every single person who committed these and
other crimes in the name of America is given a fair trial. Judges and
juries will decide their fates.
Oh, and I have a message to anyone who tries 'graymail' (Trying to block
a trial by requesting secret documents.) Your crime was far more
dangerous to America than the loss of a few secrets. I will happily
declassify whatever you request.
Debt: We should end the national debt, the 'grandchild tax'. You spend,
your grandchildren pay. That's immoral, and will be brought to a stop.
I have offered a plan to discharge the national debt over 30 years,
and will seek to put it into effect. For runaway budgets, I have a
plan. Not the veto pen. If elected I will I gather be the first
President to have a computer in my working office, and attached to it
will be the 'veto-high-speed-laser-printer'.
Education: The No Child Left Behind Act bears no semblance to a
legitimate activity of the Federal government. I will work for its
repeal. In its place, I will ask Congress to phase in a tax credit,
$5000 to each child, available to anyone or any company who contributes
to the child's education. That's enrichment like computers, books in
the house, and a daily newspaper subscription. That's tuition for
private schoolers. That's teaching materials for home schoolers.
Health care costs to your insurance company can be cut by a quarter,
almost overnight. Several years ago, Congress passed a law requiring
hospital emergency rooms to treat anyone who reached their doors. They
did not bother to pay for this requirement. They required hospitals to
find the money. Hospitals found the money: they send the bills to your
insurance company. In effect, they imposed a hidden Federal tax, the
'cost transfer'. When you go to a hospital, your health insurance is
charged for the medical care of the uninsured. That's the cost
transfer. It's a de facto Federal sales tax on your health insurance,
and it's huge.
The Libertarian solution: Hospitals should not be forced to give 'free'
medical care unless Congress pays for it. Remove requirements that
hospitals give care when no one is paying for it. Charity stays legal.
Make cost transfers illegal. Your insurance rates will fall a quarter
or more. Also, all medical expenses should have the same tax
consequence: they should be deductions. Whether your employer buys
insurance, you buy insurance, or you pay out of pocket for costs, those
costs should be treated the same way by the IRS
America's dependence on foreign oil endangers our security. We can't
solve our oil shortage by drilling here in the USA: American oil
production is beyond its peak and will continue to decline, no matter
whether or not we allow drilling in Alaska or Florida. The Bush
Republican ethanol from corn program is a corporate welfare boondoggle:
the energy in the ethanol is barely more than the energy in the coal
burned to distill the ethanol up to fuel purity.
The most effective thing the Federal government can do to solve the
long-term energy problem is to offer fixed-price contracts for buying
electricity from private vendors, vendors who use renewable sources,
wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, whatever. The contracts will offer at
most a modest premium over current energy prices. The objective over
some years, including energy trades, is to move the Federal government
entirely to renewable energy sources. There will be no boondoggle
construction projects with Federal guarantees and massive cost overruns
paid by your taxes: The Federal government only buys the electricity.
Private enterprise does what it does best, deciding how to make that
electricity at a profit.
The American people are entitled to decide for themselves how we want to
handle immigration. Some people want more immigration. Others want
less. Some want more people from the old country. Others want people
from places that have not historically sent us immigrants. Those are
political decisions, properly made by the people and Congress, not by
the President. The current Libertarian Party platform represents a
positive point of view here, as do Congressman Ron Paul's remarks. I
offer one guiding principle: You can't have true open borders and a
welfare system at the same time: You'll go broke. Indeed, given the
bankrupt nature of our Social Security system, every time someone enters
our work force, our long-term national indebtedness goes up. A lot.
Finally, the national problem that gets ignored, because it's invisible
to most Americans: A third of young African-American men pass through
the prison and parole system, generally for criminal charges created by
the war on drugs. That', thanks to selective enforcement, is the racist
war on drugs. Those young men, many of them, end up disenfranchised and
relatively unemployable. They remain in our inner cities, a sullen,
disaffected population isolated from the vibrant political and economic
life of our Republic. Americans should remember: Every so often, one
spark is enough to transform a silently sullen population into a
population that expresses its rage. In the 1960s, we had riots, massive
episodes of looting and burning. This time, that population has watched
the Iraqi resistance on television. This time, they may choose far more
violent and disruptive approaches.
Here we have a challenging problem to solve. Admitting that we have a
problem is the first step. A vigorous application of the Presidential
pardon pen may help. The Bully Pulpit of the Oval Office may persuade
Congress that the racist War on Drugs is as ineffective as liquor
prohibition, is as destructive as liquor prohibition, and like liquor
prohibition should be brought to an end.
The difficulties faced by small business -- the people who might employ
these unemployed young men and their sisters and brothers -- are
manifold. Government regulations that increase the costs for a large
business are a crushing burden on small businesses. For the good of the
country, we must change our treatment of the small businesses that
create the bulk of new jobs.
Solve the above problems, and take home pay will climb. Communist China
has 8% economic growth every year. There is no reason why free America
cannot do as well.
That's the State of the Union. We are on the wrong track. Matters are
getting worse, not better.
Fortunately, the ship of state has not yet sunk.
There is still time for American creativity and initiative to turn us
around.
There is still time for Americans to agree: Ask not what your government
can do for you. Ask what you, freely and voluntarily, chose to do.
There is still time to choose the Libertarian future of peace, freedom,
and prosperity.
------ End of Forwarded Message
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Quotation About All Kinds of Pain
"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa
The Will to Fight
From Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, page 223:
The price has been enormous, and not just in American and Iraqi lives. One hideous consequence of the White House's biggest lie - conflating Saddam's regime with the international threat of radical Islam, fusing the war of choice in Iraq with the war of necessity that began on 9/11 - is that the public, having turned against one war, automatically rejects the other. When Americans gave up on Iraq in 2005, the percentage who regarded fighting terrorism as a top national priority fell in sync. That's the bottom line of the Bush catastrophe: the administration at once increased the ranks of jihadists by turning Iraq into a new training ground and recruitment magnet while at the same time exhausting America's will and resources to confront that expanded threat.
The price has been enormous, and not just in American and Iraqi lives. One hideous consequence of the White House's biggest lie - conflating Saddam's regime with the international threat of radical Islam, fusing the war of choice in Iraq with the war of necessity that began on 9/11 - is that the public, having turned against one war, automatically rejects the other. When Americans gave up on Iraq in 2005, the percentage who regarded fighting terrorism as a top national priority fell in sync. That's the bottom line of the Bush catastrophe: the administration at once increased the ranks of jihadists by turning Iraq into a new training ground and recruitment magnet while at the same time exhausting America's will and resources to confront that expanded threat.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Political Struggle
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." ~Mahatma Gandhi
