Donald Ducks Out
David Weigel | November 8, 2006, 12:52pm
CNN is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld has resigned as Secretary of Defense. More as it comes in.
UPDATE:
Here's the story.President Bush said Wednesday Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is
stepping down and former CIA Director Robert Gates will take over at
the Pentagon and in prosecuting the war in Iraq.Rumsfeld,
architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six
stormy years at the Pentagon, Republican officials said.
UPDATE: Bad timing award on the day goes to
this Reuters story, sent out at 10:50 a.m.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
the face of U.S. war policy and a lightning rod for critics
worldwide, will not be forced out just because he faces a
tougher time from resurgent Democrats.
GILMORE | November 8, 2006, 3:40pm | #
The enemies we went after during GWOT will learn the wrong lesson - that they can achieve victory by simply waiting the U.S. out until its political will diminishes and that the U.S. will uniformly fail to stand by those who trusted the U.S. to help them.
Uhm. What?
We've let the terrorists win by getting rid of an incompetant bureaucrat?
That makes a lot of sense. What did they 'win' exactly? Frequent flier miles? subscription to Jihad Monthly?
I love how everything politcial is a 'message' to the 'terrorists/our enemies' for some people. It makes Al Quaeda sound like a Washington Week roundtable discussion.
How about sending a 'message' to the thousands of soldiers who get shot at and blown up every day because the fucking DoD has no plan?
No, they dont need a 'message'...
The best support you can give troops is Leadership. Not a lot of BS patriotism. Give them a direction to move in, keep gas in their tanks. Rumsfeld failed in providing both direction as well as logistics and manpower support.
maybe we should appoint Wilford Brimley as secretary of defense and insist that we can kick their ass with an even MORE senile old crab. That will be a message. In your face Osama.
I love how people talk about Rumsfeld's wonderful 'transformation' of the military.
Look at the numbers of major weapons systems projects under bush 1, clinton, then bush v1.1.
Look at what those projects were, and ask yourself why we're still doing many of them. Billions upon billions upon billions in things that have nothing to do with our 'transformed' military. i think the GAO went
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06368.pdf
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/08/19/major_arms_soar_to_twice_pre_911_cost/
Look at the quality and flexibility provided by subcontracting logistics and other support services.
Christ, look at what we pay for a gallon of gas in Iraq.
Look at all that, and then repeat the claim that this guy was anything other than testy jerk who made some mammoth fucking mistakes that have cost many lives and billions of dollars. Please
rob | November 8, 2006, 4:46pm | #
gaius - Congrats on the baby - my wife is due soon as well.
You raise some interesting theories I think are worth responding to.
1) The US is "engaging in a war we cannot win (because we cannot define victory) and which no one has any plan to win (only to fight) "
How was victory defined in other wars? Frankly, I'd argue the military victory was achieved in short order in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The occupation, on the other hand, continues. The U.S. is fighting an insurgency and those are always bloody and wful. In historical terms, U.S. casualties aren't so bad - though that probably doesn't matter to someone who lost his leg to an IED in Iraq or to the family of someone who has died fighting.
2. "which is all but certain, as all interminable wars do, to vacate the constitution of a republic and replace it with a militarily-ingratiated dictatorship."
Time will tell. I don't think the Republic is as doomed as those who read Gibbons as prophectic for the U.S. seem to think.
3.) "world war two was hard, mr john. but it was not a war without end. there was a definable non-ideological victory and there was a realistic plan to win it. afghanistan has neither. nor does iraq. these are examples of the failure of a morally exhausted american state, not of any external phenomena at all."
Hmmm... I guess if you pretend that we didn't occupy Germany and Japan at the end of WW2 and that we still maintain a military presence there to this day.
3.) "the problems posed by terrorism never had a military solution, and that we tried to impose one says far more about us than about our enemies. it is in many respects the ultimate vindication of bin laden's accusations of moral weakness."
Force can only be replied to with force - you can argue that terror is best left to the police, but in many countries the military and the police are essentially the same. Even Britain has far fewer barriers between federal power and police actions. (Frankly, I'd rather a military solution than a merger of police and military powers in the U.S.)
Non-violent protest only works if you're faced with a first-world, Western nation with a well-developed sense of shame. bin Laden's claim is not just that we are morally weak (which he'd argue is because we do not follow Allah) but also that we are too cowardly to stand and fight and do what it takes. Only time will tell on that front.
gaius marius | November 8, 2006, 4:52pm | #
If we leave Afghanistan, it will be turned over the to Taliban and Al Quada will use it as a base to plot our murders. Considering that fact, how is leaving ever going to be an option?
There is no way around that except surrender
nonetheless we must leave, mr john, because by staying we are not solving problems -- predictably enough, we are multiplying them where we are not merely deferring them. or do you seriously consider that the mindset of the madrassas has been, what, moderated by our actions there? any more than it was the the intercessions of the soviets?
if i may presume (and please correct me) -- you seek repression of a dangerous outside impulse that you have deemed irrational. and i suspect you see it as irrational because you have not made a successful effort to understand it. fair enough.
but that does not preclude it from having rational underpinnings -- even the least rational of our behaviors often do. so it is now here, imo. these third worlders are rising in insurgency against the west -- not america, but the west and have been for some two centuries now -- because of how we have mismanaged their local affairs. look at the political and military history of western interventionism in the third world since the age of empires dawned and it isn't hard to imagine why -- no american would take such merciless abuse, i should hope.
to attack these attackers, then, we must try to address the root of their motivation -- what gives them sustenance and credibility among billions of people worldwide who are similarly disaffected. the solutions are not military -- i agree with you, this is a war without end that will destroy us long before it changes any hostile minds. killing their partisans only reinforces their ire and public sympathy, as it does ours when the roles are reversed. this is a hydra -- it requires a solution, not a beating.
leaving would be the first of many steps, but a completely necessary one. bin laden knows this -- one of the most popular points of his agenda among his third world supporters is the expulsion of western military forces from muslim lands -- but he thinks we are morally incapable of it. he thinks we are too weak to leave -- this is the missed but all-important subtext underlying all his taunts of the "paper tiger".
would the taliban reemerge? probably -- people in afghanistan in the main profess to desire it, from what i've read. but we cannot be shortsighted enough to allow that setback to deter us from a longer-term plan for reconciliation that will kill the barbarians at the root.
you want a hard and courageous route to a real solution? imo, this is it. battering tents and camels with missiles, engaging in mass torture and dropping jdams on wedding parties will do nothing (at best). accepting that the counterparty has legitimate grievances that require redressment in order for them to join the world community as functioning and cooperative partners under western economic and political systems will get the job done.
gaius marius | November 8, 2006, 5:12pm | #
How was victory defined in other wars? Frankly, I'd argue the military victory was achieved in short order in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The occupation, on the other hand, continues.
Hmmm... I guess if you pretend that we didn't occupy Germany and Japan at the end of WW2 and that we still maintain a military presence there to this day.
lol -- well, mr rob, i'd counter that victory was easily defined because european wars of nationalism were fought between the political apparati of nation-states -- and once one ceased to function, the war was over and organized resistance ceased by mutual consensus. we may note the atrocities of the fascists, but in the end the populations of italy, germany and japan in large part acquiesced when the end came -- not perfectly, of course, but let's not pretend that anything like what is happening in baghdad happened in berlin, rome and tokyo. and that's because the rules of war between european powers had been well and widely understood and refined from the age of chivalry forward.
that is not so here -- there is no common cultural and political understanding. that's why it's right to call them "barbarians".
moreover, i think we shouldn't limit the scope and therefore implications of what is going on here. the insurgencies in iraq and afghanistan are metastates of a continuous historical event of resistance that goes back to the end of the
battle of vienna. (just because we never learned the history doesn't mean it ain't important.) there's a reason al-sadr leads somethign called the
mahdi army. and the reason why the resistance will not end with these military occupation is because what fuels it vastly transcends these most recent incursions into the muslim umma -- it is a cultural resistance to designs of western empire.
you can argue that terror is best left to the police
i'm not. i don't think police work in the end solves this problem any more than tossing pot users in jail solves drug abuse.
the solution isn't in trying to beat others into compliance (we can't) or bribe them into submission (merely deferral) or promote autocracies. the solution is in a measure of power-sharing and real cooperative redressment of grievances.
without that, all the shooting and jailtime is just window dressing on the path to the barbarian invasions, imo. it morally weakens us and morally strengthens them.
rob | November 8, 2006, 6:28pm | #
"i'd counter that victory was easily defined because european wars of nationalism were fought between the political apparati of nation-states" - gm
Wasn't that what we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan? The Baathist regime and the Taliban regime?
"and once one ceased to function, the war was over and organized resistance ceased by mutual consensus." - gm
I'd argue that the reason that it didn't work like that this time is because this is a post-Westphalian conflict against an enemy that (like the Japanese in WW2) have no concept of Geneva Convention-style post-30 Years War concessions in warfare. (Neither did the Romans or the Greeks, and look what it got them! Heh!) But you get around to that on your own... Sigh...
"and that's because the rules of war between european powers had been well and widely understood and refined from the age of chivalry forward." - gm
So you can't fight an insurgency because it doesn't have a central gov't?
"that is not so here -- there is no common cultural and political understanding. that's why it's right to call them 'barbarians'" - gm
No argument from me there, I suppose.
"moreover, i think we shouldn't limit the scope and therefore implications of what is going on here. the insurgencies in iraq and afghanistan are metastates of a continuous historical event of resistance that goes back to the end of the battle of vienna...it is a cultural resistance to designs of western empire." - gm
I'd actually agree with you on the historical roots of the conflict. I just don't think we agree on whether it can/should be fought.
"the solution isn't in trying to beat others into compliance (we can't) or bribe them into submission (merely deferral) or promote autocracies. the solution is in a measure of power-sharing and real cooperative redressment of grievances." - gm
In their rational(ized) view, the only redressment is the slaughter of our citizens. How can "power-sharing" and "cooperative redressment of grievances" take place in this scenario?
"without that, all the shooting and jailtime is just window dressing on the path to the barbarian invasions, imo. it morally weakens us and morally strengthens them." - gm
They'll never invade. But they'll continue to launch attacks unless we keep a lid on it, IMO.
"there is probably no culture on earth today with a more finely attuned sense of shame than islamic culture." - gm
But for a Wahabbist, shame is not caused by violent action to an unresisting victim, it is in not conducting jihad against enemies of the faith.
"they obviously love peace and their children too and detest being shamed -- it is motivating their resistance to what we've done in iraq." - gm
No, I think a twisted, extreme version of their faith inter-mingled with somewhat irrational politics motivates the resistance.
"remember, we are the ones rolling tank armies through their streets and dropping 500-pounders on their homes. truly, would not you and i resist in kind if the roles were reversed?" - gm
Undeniably we'd resist if the attacks continued after we'd reached a nice, Western-civilized peace agreement and the occupying troops were acting as an interim police force rather than conducting running gun battles with insurgents who refuse to surrender.
"bin laden is an opportunist that rides this much broader and more sensible and tangible angst -- holding him up as though he were important is rather like holding up david duke as an example of what every last southerner is." -gm
I tend to think of bin Laden as a true believer of the Jim Jones sort. I don't think he's a hypocrite, I just thinks he's dangerously faithful to a twisted creed.
"it's not a reasonable way to address the bigger problems that honest and sensible third worlers have with western empire." - gm
I feel bad for any honest and sensible third worlders caught in the middle as I would for any non-combatant in a war zone. But that doesn't mean that I'm willing to put their welfare and well-being above that of my own countrymen.
"first, it's not extortionary, mr rob -- if anything, the west is the party that has dealt extorionary terms to a weakening and beleaguered third world since the 18th c. as a conservative, that's merely being historically honest." - gm
The way of the world in years past is not the burden of the current generation. The sins of the father cannot be borne by succeeding generations. That's a fundamental principle of Wetern civilization that is at odds with the model you advocate.
"secondly, parts of the third world are already integrated into the systems of western empire -- westenr civilization has tentacles in every part of the globe. indeed, that in combination with our mismanagement is what has forced people to resist so!" - gm
Indeed, that's their primary complaint!
"there's every reason to believe that cooperative integration can and will work" - gm
Maybe at the point of a sword, which is SADLY how this historically has worked.
"recent examples of the success of western principles include russia (late 17th c on), china (18th c on) and turkey (since ataturk)." - gm
I'm not carrying the blame for Communism as a Western Civ concept (Russia & China). I've had friends travel to Turkey, it's no garden spot of Western enlightenment.
"western economic ideas -- capitalism, socialism, communism -- and political ideas influence and even dominate social models the world over." - gm
Actually, they mostly replace the other social models. That's one of the biggest complaints of the Wahabbist sect. Neither of us thinks they attack McDonald's and KFC restaurants because they hate trans fat?
"there's no fundamental barrier here so long as we present attractive ideas that work without presenting brazen threats or demanding undue central control as a means of alienation, imo." - gm
I can't think of a more attractive idea than being able to look upon the faces of beautiful women in a crowd, and that hasn't caught on in places that require the burkha. I think this is a lovely idea, kind of like putting a flower in a soldier's rifle or standing in front of a tank at Tianamen Square. Historically, outside of first-world Western nations this just gets you shot in the face or squashed under a tank tread.
I'd vastly prefer your model, gaius, but as a student of history you surely recognize that historically there aren't many precedents for this. In fact, there are more examples in modern history of defeating insurgencies than there are of victories achieved by the means you advocate.
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