Rumsfeld stepping down (merged) (1 Viewer)

[RebSaint]

I'm not intimidated by SoonerJim.



Heh.

 

[SoonerJim]

.They insist that disinterested can mean only “impartial”: A disinterested observer is the best judge of behavior. QUOTE]

This is the context of my statement. My goal in life was to get to a point where daily foibles or politics would not affect me. My silence for many years was a primer for my expositions on SR.com.

 

[RebSaint]

I have a question: I'm not convinced that this guy's "pedigree" regarding the Cold War is necessarily a good thing.

Isn't the "reversal" of Cold War policy vis a vis wanting to prop up democratic dominos the source of trouble in the first place? That is, the occupation of Iraq is about fundementally changing the middle east.

One of the critiques I've had of this president's foreign policy is that he's trying to fit square cold war pegs in a round post cold war world.

Not that I think Gates won't be good--just a question to others who might have thought the same thing.

 

[SoonerJim]

I have a question: I'm not convinced that this guy's "pedigree" regarding the Cold War is necessarily a good thing.

Isn't the "reversal" of Cold War policy vis a vis wanting to prop up democratic dominos the source of trouble in the first place? That is, the occupation of Iraq is about fundementally changing the middle east.

One of the critiques I've had of this president's foreign policy is that he's trying to fit square cold war pegs in a round post cold war world.

Not that I think Gates won't be good--just a question to others who might have thought the same thing.

I assume this is a rhetorical question, as you're the historian on the board. The internecine conflicts of WWI and WWII were dissolved by the halving of Europe between the Allied nations and Soviets. Absent the Soviet empire, the USA alone is free to bring about, in Frances Fukayama's phrase, "the end of history". The Islamic rise in the Middle East provides a test of the first post-cold War project, the so-called "muscular" Rooseveltian diplomacy posited by the Project for a New American Century. September 11 was the opening.

A world consensus existed in 1998 that Hussein had used and was in possession of WMDs. Their acknowledged absence today does not justify recalibration of judgements made in hindsight. You work with the information at hand. Bush chose the intelligence which fit his world view and anticipated threats in the context of the time. We now all agree it was wrong. Stalin ignored his generals' warning of Barbarossa, so Bush 43 still has a way to go in the national intelligence sphere.

Gates is a protege of Brent Skowcroft, last seen toasting Deng Xiaoping after the latter killed up to 5,000 at Tiannanmen Square. If influences hold true to form, we will exchange Wilsonian democracy for Kissingerian realpolitic. This may not be the improvement we seek, but may be the improvement we get.

 

[St. Widge]

I have a question: I'm not convinced that this guy's "pedigree" regarding the Cold War is necessarily a good thing.

Isn't the "reversal" of Cold War policy vis a vis wanting to prop up democratic dominos the source of trouble in the first place? That is, the occupation of Iraq is about fundementally changing the middle east.

One of the critiques I've had of this president's foreign policy is that he's trying to fit square cold war pegs in a round post cold war world.

Not that I think Gates won't be good--just a question to others who might have thought the same thing.

Interesting point Reb. I do agree that the cold war approach of propping and forcing democracy on various places is part of the problem. But in the Cold War, we didn't start a big shooting war to do it. We did it covertly and with surgical precision. (Well not with the Bay of Pigs, but still. . . )

Anyway, I think our problems in the Middle East largely traces back to joining with the British to create Zionist state and supporting that state over the years at the expense of any alliance with their Muslim neighbors. You are right that that was in many was a result of the Cold War since Israel was "allied" with us against the USSR, but I'm not sure it was a necessary effect of the Cold War, it's just one of the allies we choose. It think the results would have been the same had we chosen Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. as our allies in the Middle East.

The short of it for me is that I'm not a big fan of our getting involved in the internal politics of other nations, but if we are going to do it, it better be effective in furthering our national interests. I think the Cold War guys knew what they were doing and how to do it where as the new Noe-Con World Police concept has failed miserably. In fact, I suspect that the Cold War guys would have liked a guy like Saddam in power in Iraq. He was a secular leader who could be bought with either weapons, women, cars or money. He could be controlled, unlike what is going on there now. You can't control a religious zealot. And I'm not arguing Saddam wasn't a bad guy. He was. In fact, he was a terrible human and a war criminal/mass murderer, but, he posed little to no threat the U.S. and could have been used to great advantage in the Middle East. If he committed genocide/mass murder/war crimes, that was an issue for the U.N. and The Haag, not the United States Military.

 

[RebSaint]

Gates is a protege of Brent Skowcroft, last seen toasting Deng Xiaoping after the latter killed up to 5,000 at Tiannanmen Square. If influences hold true to form, we will exchange Wilsonian democracy for Kissingerian realpolitic. This may not be the improvement we seek, but may be the improvement we get.

Not really a rhetorical question, but just an observation knowing that containment netted mixed results. In Turkey and Greece, it worked by elevating democratic regimes through military/financial assistance. It was certainly one of the main reasons for the Marshall plan of occupying, and democratizing Europe.

East Asia was a mixed bag. In hindsight, the stalemate in Korea was justified because of the Soviet influence. Of course, the course of containment was changed with each administration--but the basic premise was the same; the spread of communism was antithetical to the vital national interests of the United States. The premise of going into Iraq was the same; theoretically, an Iraq with WMDs meant that he was poised to use such weapons in some sort of aggressive manner. So instead of just containing Hussein, the decision to go into Iraq combined Cold War containment with premptive strike, with of course, a Wilsonian ending (democracy)

But Wilsonian idealism it seems to me has only worked working with polities which have some sort of democratic culture. I can understand taking military action containing Hussein as done in Gulf War one--but Gulf War II was Containment by premptive strike; with the effort to democratize Iraq thence the middle east.

So we have Containment with a Bushism/Wilsonian twist. To Contain Iraq by premptive strike; along with the Wilsonian notion of democratizing those who we deem not culturally with international program.

What we have here is curious welter of antiquated policy.

Hitting Iraq was based on pre-emptive strike (Bush), democratization based on containment, (Cold War) and democratization based on Wilson.

 

[RebSaint]

Interesting point Reb. I do agree that the cold war approach of propping and forcing democracy on various places is part of the problem. But in the Cold War, we didn't start a big shooting war to do it. We did it covertly and with surgical precision. (Well not with the Bay of Pigs, but still. . . )

Anyway, I think our problems in the Middle East largely traces back to joining with the British to create Zionist state and supporting that state over the years at the expense of any alliance with their Muslim neighbors. You are right that that was in many was a result of the Cold War since Israel was "allied" with us against the USSR, but I'm not sure it was a necessary effect of the Cold War, it's just one of the allies we choose. It think the results would have been the same had we chosen Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. as our allies in the Middle East.

The short of it for me is that I'm not a big fan of our getting involved in the internal politics of other nations, but if we are going to do it, it better be effective in furthering our national interests. I think the Cold War guys knew what they were doing and how to do it where as the new Noe-Con World Police concept has failed miserably. In fact, I suspect that the Cold War guys would have liked a guy like Saddam in power in Iraq. He was a secular leader who could be bought with either weapons, women, cars or money. He could be controlled, unlike what is going on there now. You can't control a religious zealot. And I'm not arguing Saddam wasn't a bad guy. He was. In fact, he was a terrible human and a war criminal/mass murderer, but, he posed little to no threat the U.S. and could have been used to great advantage in the Middle East. If he committed genocide/mass murder/war crimes, that was an issue for the U.N. and The Haag, not the United States Military.

We're on the same page, here. Excellent points, Widge.

Saddam was a state terrorist, but intel didn't support that he was aligned with Al-Queda or the international terrorist network. Or if he was, it certainly wasn't worth occupying a muslim country to produce more people who might join religious zealot organizations hell-bent on killing Americans. Iran didn't like Hussein.

Which is why I'm wondering why this country's foreign policy still utilizes cold war/wilsonian ideals--along with Bush's interesting twist of premptive strike.

 

[DadsDream]

Scott Stantis, Alabama, The Birmingham News.

 

[SoonerJim]

Iraq, for all its 25 year dominion under the Stalinist dictator Hussein, was viewed as "doable". Recall the hidden population waiting to greet us as liberators, as Wolfowitz so reminded us. Similarly, Iran also has barely repressed western influences. Under every Iranian burka is a Rudi Bhaktiar waiting to emerge.

Was Japan any less amenable to Democratization given their history and fighting capability? They had martyrs too. Every war has an unfolding script and no one can reliably predict an outcome.

Presumably, hundreds of analysts, military historians, diplomates, academics, and assorted personnel have input into these ventures. Is Rumsfeld the first to take the fall? Where are the rest? What's their culpability? His inputs are not perfect, but may be the best we have.

In hindsight, they love religion more than liberty, and we apparently cannot convince them otherwise short of total war. That would require another attack employing WMDs, which was the point in the first place.

One bad result of this war is that Iraq cannot be a regional counterweight to Iran. We additionally get no credit from the other nations in the area for his removal, and we are utterly alone among western nations in pressing for a Saddamless state. That may be less our fault than theirs, since Moslems have compromised those countries irreparably.

The Soviet bloc could project force and engaging them was simpler, a contest of nations. Today, Islam is the only growing demographic in Europe and Russia. We at least had help during the cold War. We won't have Sharia law in Baltimore, but Paris madrassahs are an impending reality. We are IT. We cannot employ the Cold War model because no one else is on board.

 

[St. Widge]

Which is why I'm wondering why this country's foreign policy still utilizes cold war/wilsonian ideals--along with Bush's interesting twist of premptive strike.

I think a good foreign policy uses each of those principles when they are appropriate. In this case, I think it's pretty clear that the wrong approach was used. Personally, I'm an isolationist (I know I'm evil). So, my solution to all of these issues would be to stop getting involved in the internal affairs of other countries and worry only about what happens in our own borders. If International Law is broken, it should be handled by Courts sitting with jurisdiction under International Law. If military intervention is required, it should only be done in conjunction with the agreement of the vast majority of civilized nations and not on our own or with few allies and many enemies or neutrals.

But, it seems inevitable that our foreign policy will always involve getting involved in the internal affairs of other nations under the guise of "national security"/ U.S. Interest. Which, is probably the truth most times, because we have become so intertwined in the affairs of other nations, we almost have no choice but to interfere, because we are not going to free ourselves of those entanglements. Too many people have too much time and money invested in those entanglements and old grudges die hard.

So, I guess the question is which is the best of the worst forms of foreign policy/entanglement with the internal affairs of other nations? IMO, I'd prefer the Regan/CIA/Cold War approach where we use "military advisors" and financial support to prop up the people we like and only when forced to do we actually use our military, much less engage in a full scale war. And I guess the caveat is that I like the Regan version of cold war foreign policy the most. He made sure the rest of the world knew our military was powerful, let the CIA do the things we don't want to know about and used our economic power to bring down our enemy. After so many lives were lost in Korea, Vietnam and covert operations all over the world, the Cold War was really won with comparatively very few shots being fired. (I was going to say no shots were fired, but DD would have corrected me. Because he seems to know about some things that civilians don't know about.)

I would like to see a similar approach in the Middle East, with the exception of refusing to show any favoritism in the Arab v. Israeli conflicts. Beyond that, I want a strong military and intelligence community that can identify specific terrorists and then take them out with precision and extreme prejudice. Then, I want to use our infectious culture and economic power to bring capitalism, not democracy to the Middle East. This way we stay strong in the eyes of our enemy and we win this "war" with the power of Microsoft, McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

 

[JimEverett]

Gates is a freaking crook
Perhaps one of the first battles you are going to see will involve a rehashing of Iran-Contra.

 

[saintanism]

Mistake #1. Rumsfeld and the Bush Admin relied on inconclusive and faulty Intel as a reason to go to War. The Bush Admin was not alone in believing the threat was real and Saddam was widely considered a danger to national and international security throughout the world. Rummy and Bush were duped by Ahmad Chalabi and other members of the Iraqi National Congress as well as other factions with political interest in Iraq.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/19/wirq19.xml

Mistake #2. Rumsfeld's idea of a lighter, faster more maneuverable force sounded good on paper and actually worked really well in the initial war operations. But shortly after President Bush's Mission Accomplished speech we needed about 50-100,000 more troupes to help provide security and train Iraqi troupes, and weed out the bad guys. Rummy didn't allow that to happen. Instead he did exactly what he said he was going to do. Stay the course.

Mistake #3. After the initial occupation of Iraq, Rumsfeld advised Bush to disband the Iraqi Army. Saddam's real threat came from his Secret Police and the Republican Guards and the Baath Party. When the Iraqi Army was completely disbanded there were no local troupes who knew the cities and neighborhoods well enough to help provide security and intelligence. After the Nazis were defeated in WWII Eisenhower and Roosevelt kept much of the German Army intact while the concentrated on going after members of thew the SS and Nazi Party Officials. This made reconstruction of Europe much easier. Rummy didn't do that in Iraq.

Mistake #4. He didn't listen to the Generals who are running operations in Iraq or the top brass. Rummy wasn't going to admit fault or accept any contrary opinions to his own. Bush fell for it and that is what lead to then Sec of State Colin Powell bailing out.

Mistake #5. He was very out of touch and condescending toward the press. Whenever Rumsfeld was asked a tough yet fair question he would always start by saying " Well my goodness" or he would try to spin it into a ridiculous question back to the journalist. Rummy would always sound as if to say, "how dare you ask me to account to the American people. I'm the one in charge here and don't you forget it. I don't have to explain myself or my decisions to the press of the American people. I have a war to run".

Personally I'm glad Rummy is gone. I wish he had resigned two years ago. I'm not really against the war in Iraq. I'm just against how the war was run so incompetently. If you're going to do something, do it right. Gen Douglas MacArthur once said "In war there is no substitute for complete and total victory". But Rummy and the Bush admin didn't play to win.

 

[blackadder]

I think a good foreign policy uses each of those principles when they are appropriate. In this case, I think it's pretty clear that the wrong approach was used. Personally, I'm an isolationist (I know I'm evil). So, my solution to all of these issues would be to stop getting involved in the internal affairs of other countries and worry only about what happens in our own borders. If International Law is broken, it should be handled by Courts sitting with jurisdiction under International Law. If military intervention is required, it should only be done in conjunction with the agreement of the vast majority of civilized nations and not on our own or with few allies and many enemies or neutrals.

But, it seems inevitable that our foreign policy will always involve getting involved in the internal affairs of other nations under the guise of "national security"/ U.S. Interest. Which, is probably the truth most times, because we have become so intertwined in the affairs of other nations, we almost have no choice but to interfere, because we are not going to free ourselves of those entanglements. Too many people have too much time and money invested in those entanglements and old grudges die hard.

So, I guess the question is which is the best of the worst forms of foreign policy/entanglement with the internal affairs of other nations? IMO, I'd prefer the Regan/CIA/Cold War approach where we use "military advisors" and financial support to prop up the people we like and only when forced to do we actually use our military, much less engage in a full scale war. And I guess the caveat is that I like the Regan version of cold war foreign policy the most. He made sure the rest of the world knew our military was powerful, let the CIA do the things we don't want to know about and used our economic power to bring down our enemy. After so many lives were lost in Korea, Vietnam and covert operations all over the world, the Cold War was really won with comparatively very few shots being fired. (I was going to say no shots were fired, but DD would have corrected me. Because he seems to know about some things that civilians don't know about.)

I would like to see a similar approach in the Middle East, with the exception of refusing to show any favoritism in the Arab v. Israeli conflicts. Beyond that, I want a strong military and intelligence community that can identify specific terrorists and then take them out with precision and extreme prejudice. Then, I want to use our infectious culture and economic power to bring capitalism, not democracy to the Middle East. This way we stay strong in the eyes of our enemy and we win this "war" with the power of Microsoft, McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

Capitalism is there for those who want it. Look at Dubai.

 

[blackadder]

I assume this is a rhetorical question, as you're the historian on the board. The internecine conflicts of WWI and WWII were dissolved by the halving of Europe between the Allied nations and Soviets. Absent the Soviet empire, the USA alone is free to bring about, in Frances Fukayama's phrase, "the end of history". The Islamic rise in the Middle East provides a test of the first post-cold War project, the so-called "muscular" Rooseveltian diplomacy posited by the Project for a New American Century. September 11 was the opening.

A world consensus existed in 1998 that Hussein had used and was in possession of WMDs. Their acknowledged absence today does not justify recalibration of judgements made in hindsight. You work with the information at hand. Bush chose the intelligence which fit his world view and anticipated threats in the context of the time. We now all agree it was wrong. Stalin ignored his generals' warning of Barbarossa, so Bush 43 still has a way to go in the national intelligence sphere.

Gates is a protege of Brent Skowcroft, last seen toasting Deng Xiaoping after the latter killed up to 5,000 at Tiannanmen Square. If influences hold true to form, we will exchange Wilsonian democracy for Kissingerian realpolitic. This may not be the improvement we seek, but may be the improvement we get.

O' Reilly stated the opinion that Gates is a proxy for James Baker and that Baker and Bush 41's foreign policy team are now ascendant.

This will beinteresting to see because Baker is a little more realistic about the Middle East.

The Neocons won't be very happy.

 

[MLU]

Not my usual thoroughness complete with links, but in a quick google of the guy:

Per various websites:
- the only career officer in CIA's history to rise from entry-level employee to Director.
- joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1966 and spent nearly 27 years as an intelligence professional
- wrote "From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War"
- has a doctorate in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown (Hence the "Dr. Robert Gates")
- works with James Baker's Iraq Study Group that just finished studying Iraq and making some recommendations
- Eagle Scout
- Spent two years in the Air Force because the CIA didn't offer exemptions from the draft during Vietnam (became an analyst after)
- was slated to become CIA Director in early '87, but withdrew because of his role in Iran-Contra
- allegedly gave info to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War
- was confirmed as Director in 1991 after GHWBush's nomination and stayed until 1993

Note to self: pick up copy of "From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War"

Under every Iranian burka is a Rudi Bhaktiar waiting to emerge.

It's not very often I get a chance to correct Jim (Sooner or tehe travelling one), so I gotta take my shots when I can.

It's Bakhtiar. We can only hope there is one of her behind every burka... (yeesssss.....)

/score

O' Reilly stated the opinion that Gates is a proxy for James Baker and that Baker and Bush 41's foreign policy team are now ascendant.

This will beinteresting to see because Baker is a little more realistic about the Middle East.

The Neocons won't be very happy.

I can actually see this. Gates is on record as saying that he has no interests in the Washington game now, but SOD is a pretty nice prize. Getting to lean on Baker is a definite bonus. I look forward to the Baker Commission's report which should be published soon...