October 30, 2005

Quote of the Day II

More Republican Wise Men are getting fed up. First Scowcroft versus Cheney. Now Mel Laird, Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense, talks (polite but firm) turkey re: Don Rumsfeld:

Donald Rumsfeld has been my friend for more than 40 years. Gerald Ford and I went to Evanston to support him in his first congressional race, and I urged President Bush to appoint him secretary of defense. But his overconfident and self-assured style on every issue, while initially endearing him to the media, did not play well with Congress during his first term. My friends in Congress tell me Rumsfeld has modified his style of late, wisely becoming more collegial. Several secretaries during my service on the Appropriations Committee, running all the way from the tenure of Charlie Wilson to that of Clark Clifford, made the mistake of thinking they must appear much smarter than the elected officials to whom they reported. It doesn't always work.

If Rumsfeld wants something from those who are elected to make decisions for the American people, then he must continue to show more deference to Congress. To do otherwise will endanger public support and the funding stream for the Iraq war and its future requirements. A sour relationship on Capitol Hill could doom the whole effort. The importance of this solidarity between Congress and the administration did not escape Saddam Hussein, nor has it escaped the insurgents. In the days leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, television stations there showed 1975 footage of U.S. embassy support personnel escaping to helicopters from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon. It was Saddam's message to his people that the United States does not keep its commitments and that we are only as good as the word of our current president. We failed to deliver the logistical support to our allies in South Vietnam during the post-Watergate period because of a breakdown of leadership in Washington. The failure of one administration to keep the promises of another had a devastating effect on the North-South negotiations.

There are no guarantees of continuity in a partisan democracy. We are making commitments as to the future of Iraq on an almost daily basis. These commitments must be understood now so they can be honored later. Every skirmish on the home front that betrays a lack of solidarity on Iraq gives the insurgents more hope and ultimately endangers the men and women we have sent to Iraq to fight in this war for us. We are now committed to a favorable outcome in Iraq, but it must be understood that this will require long-term assistance or our efforts will be in vain.

Shorter Laird: Rummy can be one arrogant sonofabitch. And, alas, such hubris can impact us all, with potential dire consequences for the national interest.

Don't miss this part of Laird's piece either:

Vietnam, however, should be a cautionary tale when fighting guerrilla style, whether it be in the streets or in the jungle. Back then, frightened and untrained U.S. troops were ill equipped to govern their baser instincts and fears. Countless innocent civilians were killed in the indiscriminate hunt for Vietcong among the South Vietnamese peasantry. Some of the worst historical memories of the Vietnam War stem from those atrocities. Our volunteer troops in Iraq are better trained and supervised, yet the potential remains for a slaughter of innocents. Reports have already surfaced of skittish American soldiers shooting Iraqi civilians in acts that can only be attributed to poor training and discipline.

To stop abuses and mistakes by the rank and file, whether in the prisons or on the streets, heads must roll at much higher levels than they have thus far. I well remember the unexpected public support for Lieutenant William Calley, accused in the massacre of civilians in the village of My Lai. The massacre did not occur on my watch, but Calley's trial did, and Americans flooded the White House with letters of protest when it appeared that Calley would be the scapegoat while his superiors walked free. The best way to keep foot soldiers honest is to make sure their commanders know that they themselves will be held responsible for any breach of honor.

For me, the alleged prison scandals reported to have occurred in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo Bay have been a disturbing reminder of the mistreatment of our own POWs by North Vietnam. The conditions in our current prison camps are nowhere near as horrific as they were at the "Hanoi Hilton," but that is no reason to pat ourselves on the back. The minute we begin to deport prisoners to other nations where they can legally be tortured, when we hold people without charges or trial, when we move prisoners around to avoid the prying inspections of the Red Cross, when prisoners die inexplicably on our watch, we are on a slippery slope toward the inhumanity that we deplore. In Vietnam, I made sure we always took the high ground with regard to the treatment of enemy prisoners. I opened our prison camps wide to international inspectors, so that we could demand the same from Hanoi. In Iraq, there are no American POWs being held in camps by the insurgents. There are only murder victims whose decapitated bodies are left for us to find. But that does not give us license to be brutal in return.

Again, the adults in the party are rising from their slumber. You don't read about this much in leading quarters of the right blogosphere--as it's mostly populated by hacks and torture apologists and, yes, barking moonbats. But the people that matter in the party, really matter, are speaking up more and more. That's good. I just wish more of them were bloggers!

All respect to Melvin Laird, Greg, but he is well past 80 and has not "mattered in the Republican Party" for years. Col. Wilkerson spoke up after his boss, Sec. Powell, was long gone. Brent Scowcroft has been on the outside since the first Bush administration ended and matters a lot more to the community of former foreign policymakers than he does to the GOP.

This is not a comment on whether the various arguments put forth by these and other people are right or wrong. My point is only that among the people who do have constituencies in the GOP nationally or in specific states there has been no more than sporadic opposition to individual administration actions or policies, and with rare exceptions most of that has been mere ineffectual grousing.

Posted by: JEB at October 30, 2005 10:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

By all means quote a man who was unable to prevent defeat in VietNam and unable to stop the Soviet Union when it really mattered. If we want to know how to defeat an insurgency, he would obviously be my first choice.

Not!

Subsunk

Posted by: Subsunk at November 1, 2005 03:33 AM | Permalink to this comment

Greg,

I respect and admire much of your analysis. however you and laird are blaming the wrong people with respect to the vietnam analogy. It is not the administration that is in the wrong, but the cavalier, ADD, immoral, unprincipled, wobbly congress critters that are at fault. Get behind the mission and stay behind the mission. Stop impeding the administration, stop with the destructive pork, be real men and act like responsible leaders (I know, I know, impossible and ahistorical, but it's what they're supposed to do).

For you, I think the problem is that you're a lawyer and are used to an environment where people respect and respond to laws. No matter what the US does, the traitors of the left and the NGOs will collude with false friends (Fwance, EU, UN) and enemies (Al Jazeera, AQ, Hezbollah, Hizb ul Tahir......) to produce the most degraded and distorted view of the US. Since they are going to scream that it's the end of the world, no matter what, the actions of the administration with respect to using the actual provisions of the various conventionsto deal with these guys appropriately are appropriate. We are in the law of the jungle here, and must demonstrate that we can not be messed with. So we need free hands, and to be seen by our enemies to have free hands, to get these things done.

Just as we need to remove the fetish for stability and the status quo, we need to deal with barbarians like the are barbarians. No rules, just right, to steal a phrase from Outback. Our enemies should be afraid of CIA or SpecOps showing up in the middle of the night, and the rough things that will happen to them. No safe havens, no comfort, no rest, and only the peace of the grave.

It is not the place for lawyers. Lawyers convinced Clinton not to hit Osama and other terrorists. Lawyers convinced so many presidents not to take appropriate actions in a fetish of process or for sovereignty of failed states. Lawyers are only useful and productive (well necessary, at least) for conduct within peaceful societies. for conduct between states and barbarian tribes, there is only power, and the application of force. That's what we need, everywhere, at all times, across all borders, is the credible threat of massive force against our barbarian enemies. If Fwance or Yale Law has a problem, they can cry themselves to sleep. Though by all appearances, Fwance will be too busy dealing with a counter insurgency against the Islamists in Paris to interfere much anymore.

Posted by: hey at November 4, 2005 07:51 PM | Permalink to this comment