October 24, 2003
Sob-sisters ...
Armed Liberal says some good things about the Rumsfeld Memo...
...This memo - and article - are glimmers of hope to me. First, they suggest that the Administration, which I have been convinced has pursued a somewhat closed-minded approach in the leadup to the war is willing to look at alternate paths. Next, and most critically important, it means they are asking the right core question - how do we know when we're winning? How do we define 'victory' in this murky conflict? ....I suspect Rumsfeld is like his memo most of the time, but it normally doesn't get publicized. You can't blame him! There's a very good reason why all administrations are protected by Executive Privilege. Good decision-making requires frank talk. People need to feel free to brainstorm, and to toss out crazy ideas...and to pound on tables and scream, "You're crazy! That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard of! We're doomed!" And nobody's going to talk (or scream) frankly if they're going to be fodder for ambitious politicians, or show up in Drudge.....The success of the American economic model is built largely on failure.
It is built on our willingness as a people to try things and to risk failing........Our military success is founded on the incredible logistical and technological advantages that our economy has given us - and also on our willingness to apply the same principles to our warfighting; to learn, to adapt, to change.
If Rumsfeld hasn't written this memo, he should have been fired, and I hope to God that the fact that so many Democrats are seizing on it is so much political spin, rather than sheer naive stupidity - which is what it is if they aren't spinning. ....
A.L. mentions that he is "critical of the Administration for doing the right thing - taking the Islamist threat seriously and responding - yet lacking (or at least not sharing) a clear vision of what we were doing ..." But any clear vision that doesn't respect certain pieties will be chopped to pieces. I suspect there's a lot of the Administration's vision that isn't being shared with us because it's way too clear! Because it's cold-blooded and surgical. War leaders, like surgeons, must be willing to cut ruthlessly and shed blood, and they do it to save lives in the long run. But they have to conceal this from the world's sob-sisters, and pretend that they only acted reluctantly and because they were forced to...
Even the Democracy-for-Iraq. If the vision were expressed clearly it might be something like, "We're going let this Democracy bug loose and it's going to hit a bunch of tin-pot tyrannies like the "flesh-eating virus."
Posted by John Weidner at October 24, 2003 10:53 PM | TrackBackre: your impression that Rumsfeld is like this most of the time, yes, you are correct, and you should read the book Bush at War, by Woodward.
It's a compelling read, whether or not you like Woodward and as long as you don't belong to the Bush-Haters(TM) club.
It explains very clearly that Rumsfeld is like this. It explains how he has been trying to bring big, strategic thinking to the Pentagon. It explains how often he uses memos as a way to begin a conversation, to open up more for consideration.
It also shows how little planning could ever have gone into a response to 9/11--how all of the highest officials moved through those weeks, feeling out their options, moving forward on all fronts.
The book demonstrates strongly why conspiracy theorists are wrong--that there never could be a conspiracy in national security events carried out in these venues. You might take away from it as well that "There was no plan"--but in fact, what you see is that there never Is a Plan, there never Could Be a Plan, per se. There can only be multiple directions followed by multiple players, taking into account an ever changing environment--and the other side of that coin is constant reassessment.
Did the DoD/State Dept/NSC have no plan? Well, yes and no. They made one/some/many, and they remade them, and when things didn't work, they tried other things. They made a plan based on consensus and options.
The book also gives lie to the belief that the administration held a closed-minded approach in the first place. The administration consists of many people--no one cabal is in charge.
I think what is most surprising is that the book makes it clear that "the administration's vision" is really a fallacy--there is no monolith. And truthfully, maybe there seldom are in administrations. I think you'd find out something else interesting from the book--not we've succeeded this well in spite of that lack of monolith, but maybe because of it.
