Surging to Victory
I just did what our last Secretary of Defense did. I skimmed the Iraq Study Group Report. Rumsfeld and I did more than the President, who pretended to care about the report before the election and then dismissed it out of hand after.
Today in his last press conference of the year, Bush once again showed his inflexibility. He sees the situation in Iraq as simply a matter of continuing the “hard work” and maintaining our will to achieve “victory”. He is incapable of seeing any big picture other than a rosy portrait of a world of democratic nations fawning over the US as the Great Enabler. He just cannot grasp ideas of international relations and internal politics within other nations on any but the most elementary level. Bush admits we are not “winning” in Iraq, or maybe only that we are not winning right now, or maybe that we are not winning as fast as he thought we would, or at least that if we are not winning then we are not losing either. Does that mean we are tied? Yes, tied down, in a fiasco.
There is ridiculous talk of a “troop surge”, that will enable us to turn some undefined corner. Comparisons to Vietnam become more apt as the debacle continues. We had troop surges in Vietnam several times, in fact ten years straight thru 1969 until we had over half a million troops there. Then our troop numbers ebbed out over the next five years. During the 15 years we had troops in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese armed forces increased each year, though their four fold increase did not enable them to achieve victory.
The Iraq Study Group Report provides a systematic potpourri of recommendations which will not be followed by Bush, except possibly a few cherry picked ones, modified to suit his obscured vision. I expect during his last two years troop levels in Iraq will increase somewhat under the pretense of only being temporary. The American people clearly expressed their desire in November that we start seriously to end our military involvement in Iraq. The 2008 Presidential election will give us an opportunity to choose a new President, based in some large part on what the candidates present as their plan for getting our troops out of the Iraq mess.
Iraq differs from Vietnam in that the American people are much less inclined to be sucked into massive troop level escalations. In Vietnam we faced an enemy with a unified nationalistic purpose, but in Iraq there is great disunity among those who fight us. Eventually, we will ebb our troops from Iraq, probably in the first four years of our next Presidency, and Iraq will continue to be a disunified and tumultuous nation for many years to come.
The Vietnam War is still controversial to many Americans, and those who criticized it, like John Kerry, continue to pay a political price. As a Senator, Kerry voted for the resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. There were 23 Senators who voted against that resolution. All were Democrats, except the one Independent, Jeffords from Vermont. Bush and the Republicans made the invasion of Iraq a partisan political litmus test of patriotism. Senators voting on the resolution in October, 2002, obviously had one eye on the election of the next month. Only 4 of the 34 Senators running for 2002 re-election voted no (under 12%). Twice as many (8) up for 2004 re-election voted no (23.5%), while of the 33 not up until 2006, 11 voted no (33%). Three of the four resolution opponents up for 2002 re-election won, and are still in the Senate, Durbin of Illinois, Levin of Michigan and Reed of Rhode Island. The fourth, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota was killed in a plane crash a couple weeks before the 2002 election.
A blogger has put together this helpful list of the Senators who opposed the Iraq resolution, including some very prescient quotes from statements in opposition by 13 of the 23. The entire quotes are worth reading, but for those in a hurry, here are the high points:
Akaka (HI)- no plan for occupation - objectives not made clear
Conrad (ND)- war last resort - pre-emptive attack make world more dangerous
Dayton (MN) - no imminent threat -for political advantage in election
Durbin (IL) - possession of weapons is not enough - we are a non-aggressor
Feingold (WI) - arguments for war don’t add up -shifting justifications
Jeffords (VT) - no immediate threat - put energy into non-proliferation work
Kennedy (MA) - exhaust alternatives on Iraq - pursue al Qaeda
Leahy (VT) - blank check - no facts
Levin (MI) - work through UN for long range security
Mikulski (MD) - need international legitimacy - also focus on al Qaeda
Reed (RI) - acting alone bad for many reasons
Stabenow (MI) - wrong approach will make a more dangerous world
Wyden (OR) - no clear and present threat.
None of the Senators who voted against the resolution was considered a viable candidate for the Presidency in 2004 or would be in 2008. Barach Obama was not in the Senate at the time of the resolution, but he publicly opposed it and is now considered a viable candidate if he chooses to run.
posted by Tom Blake | 10:47 AM
5 Comments:
And, of course, Hillary Clinton made the same huge mistake that Kerry did, voting for the Iraq Resolution. She will have no better success at explaining this away than did Kerry. Obama was lucky, but I wonder if his campaign will catch on. I think he is far to inexperienced to be president. I would far sooner forgive Hillary one case of bad judgement than experiment with Obama.
But the Democrats most likely will lose in 2008, so why waste much time on them? My favorite, McCain, will have a tough time because of his Iraq position. He wants to increase the number of combatants there! Pretty stupid politically, given the mood of the nation. If he keeps this up he will appear to be a Bush clone, or a cousin at best. And it is stupid also stategically. Tom has described the Vietnam comparison accurately, in my view. More and more troops will be sucked into the abyss, and there will be no strategic benefit to the US fir their sacrifice.
John from Phoenix
There's something about Hilary. Viscerally, when I see and hear her, my guts just don't want her to be President. I'll be trying to analyze this more as her campaign plays out. As for her Iraq invasion vote, I don't think it was so much bad judgement as it was a true measure of what her approach to foreign policy might be. But again, time will give us more to consider.
Obama is definitely inexperienced, but then we have had many such men as President. Inexperiencedd candidates usually associate themselves with more experienced types for campaign purposes, as Bush II did with Powell and Cheney, the first of whom he did not really listen to and to the second of whom he still listens too much. Obama has not yet trooped out his mentors to my knowledge, and if he does choose to run, seeing who they are will be interesting.
You know how little I think of McCain, but I do need to acknowledge he is considered the Republican front runner right now. Some say his call for more troops is to endear himself to the right wing to get the nomination, and then during the campaign he will tone that down to appeal to the broader electorate. Sounds like his sort of flexible principles to me. There are things I like about him as a man, but I dislike him very much as a politician. As with Hilary, I will be analyzing McCain more as the race for 2008 continues.
On the Vietnam War comparisons, I don't think I mentioned the draft. I agree with Congressman Wrangel that if we had a draft now, the public opposition to the Iraq War would be overwhelming. The supposed all volunteer military is in fact peopled with many immigrant, inner city and rural people of low income, essentially bribed into joining. In fact, to meet recruitment goals, the services have been lowering their standards, for instance enlisting people with some kinds of criminal records.
The best politicians have been flexible. FDR drove Eleanor mad because he would pass on many battles she thought he should fight.
But I don't think McCain's flexibility is creating his position on increasing troop strength in Iraq. I'm afraid it is his famous independence. He has been bucking public opinion on this for some time. I think he really believes that is the right course. Probably his experience as a POW has something to do with it.
And that is a reservation I have about McCain. I have no problem voting for former successful military leaders as President. They have the public's confidence that if they choose not to fight, it is in the best interest of the country. Ike is a great example, and W is the best counter- example. Kennedy is another counter-example, acquiescing to the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
John from Phoenix
Having been in the armed forces is a plus for an American politician, but there is a significant difference between a General officer and a lower ranking person. Ike was the only President of General rank in the 20th Century, the first one since Grant, the victorious Civil War General. Grant's Presidency was seriously flawed. Ike's was bland. After the Gulf War supposedly soothed some of the embarassment of Vietnam, Schwartzkopf and Powell were seen as possible Presidential timber, but both decided not to run. Wes Clark's 2004 candidacy barely got off the ground.
Junior officers do not really have the administrative experience of the Ike and Grant types. It seems to help politically if you get injured in the line of duty; Kennedy was sunk, McCain downed and captured and Dole crippled. Kerry's injuries were not significant, and though they entitled him to Purple Hearts, the supposed "support our troops" Republicans questioned what should have been his unquestionable service.
Teddy Roosevelt, always a bit different, was a mid level officer who charged up San Juan Hill with much bravado and courage. Carter was pretty high ranking, but served more in a scientific capacity. Two people we don't think of as military types are Truman, who was in the thick of things as an artillery officer in WWI, and McGovern, who was a bomber pilot in WWII.
I see I didn't complete my thought. I said I don't have a problem with successful military leaders as president, but it is hard to classify being a POW as having a successful military career. Such a person might have other agendas just as someone who claims a military career but who has long durations of being missing from meetings.
I had forgotten that Truman had a distinguished military career, and I think I remember reading that his military record helped him get elected to Congress.
McGovern's military career was a surprise to me when I first read about it in Stephen Ambrose's excellent history: The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B24's Over Germany. In that book, Ambrose nearly cannonizes McGovern for his leadership, courage, and skill.
John from Phoenix
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