Scooter Libby pled not guilty today. It seems hard to believe he would do that, but in this age of O. J. Simpson, a high paid attorney can get you off no matter what evidence there is. Juan Cole at Informed Comment says that it seems apparent Libby wasn't primarily concerned about protecting his old boss, he could have pleaded guilty. He correctly points out that a trial might incriminate Cheney or his aide John Hannah or even Karl Rove. "My own interpretation is that it is now every man for himself. That is not good news for Bush."
But as Emptywheel points out at
The Next Hurrah, Libby and hired Ted Wells and "Bush family consigliere James Baker's colleague, William Jeffress to manage his defense." I seriously doubt Baker's partner would sign on as Libby's attorney unless it was at the request or at least with the permission of Bush himself. Loyalty runs
deep in the Bush family.
This Administration has gone far out of it's way to
defraud the American people into the Iraq war. Where were the lessons of history?
Traditionally, broad principles of foreign policy varies little from one administration to another, even when the transition crosses party lines. After 9/11, Bush, with the encouragement of the Neocons, threw out the book, creating what as come to be known as the
Bush Doctrine . Based on the assumption that "United States has, and intends to keep, military strength beyond challenge", the Bush Administration decided it "would take actions as necessary to continue its status as the world's sole military superpower", including but not limited to, preemptive wars against potential aggressors, even if done so unilaterally, without United Nations
sanction, without the support or participation of NATO or other allies. While projecting US military and economic interests, they would actively promoting democracy and freedom in all regions of the world. As we can see by recent events, this was hardly a policy only of altruism. It was also political cover for the most aggressive foreign policy ever pursued by a 20th Century President of the United States. Bush, deftly dodged all criticism by declaring at West Point, "America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish. We wish for others only what we wish for ourselves -- safety from violence, the rewards of liberty, and the hope for a better life." The new
policy was fully delineated in a National Security Council text entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States issued on September 17, 2002.
Several former government officials have come out against all or part of the Bush Doctrine. Most recently, Bush Sr's Secretary of Defense Brent
Scowcroft spoke out against the Neocon naïveté, particularly Paul Wolfowitz idealistic and unrealistic view that Democracy can be exported. Now Nixon's Secretary of Defense, Melvin R. Laird applies the principles he learned from the Vietnam era. Like Scowcroft, Laird pulls no punches.
Foreign Affairs - Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam
For me, the alleged prison scandals reported to have occurred in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo 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.
[...]
As the secretary of defense who ended the draft in 1972, I see no need to return to conscription, even now that the prospect of combat has somewhat dampened the enthusiasm for military service. As long as service people -- current and future -- know where their president is leading them, the enlistments will follow.
[...]
But one lesson learned from Vietnam that is not widely recognized is that fear of casualties is not the prime motivator of the American people during a war. American soldiers will step up to the plate, and the American public will tolerate loss of life, if the conflict has worthy, achievable goals that are clearly espoused by the administration and if their leadership deals honestly with them.
[...]
Reserve and National Guard units are understaffed and have been abused by deployments that have taken individuals out of their units to serve as de facto army regulars, many in specialties for which they have not been trained, a practice that eats at the morale of reservists. Nearly 80 percent of the airlift capacity for this war and about 48 percent of the troops have come from Reserve and National Guard units. The high percentages are due, in part, to the specialized missions of those troops: transporting cargo, policing, rebuilding infrastructure, translating, conducting government affairs -- in short, the stuff of building a new nation. We have realized too late that our regular army forces have not been as well trained as they should have been for the new reality of an urban insurgent enemy. Nor was the military hierarchy paying serious attention to the hints that their mission in the twenty-first century would be nation building.
[...]
Secretary Rumsfeld is trying to reshape the army to be more mobile with fewer soldiers, in "units of action" built on the Special Forces model. But he is not being honest with himself or with Congress and the American people about how much money will be needed to make the transformation. Those specialized units will be more suited for urban guerrilla warfare, but light and lean is not the only way to maintain our military. Although guerrilla warfare looks like the wave of the future, we still face the specter of conventional divisional and corps warfare against other enemies. Both capabilities are expensive, but the downward trend of defense budgets does not recognize that. Except for bumps up in the Ronald Reagan years and during the Gulf War, the defense budget has been on a downward slide when viewed in constant dollars. We are coasting on the investments in research, development, and equipment made during earlier years.
[...]
Our pattern of fighting our battles alone or with a marginal "coalition of the willing" contributes to the downward spiral in resources and money. Ironically, Nixon had the answer back in 1969. At the heart of the Nixon Doctrine, announced that first year of his presidency, was the belief that the United States could not go it alone. As he said in his foreign policy report to Congress on February 18, 1970, the United States will participate in the defense and development of allies and friends, but "America cannot -- and will not -- conceive all the plans, design all the programs, execute all the decisions and undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world. We will help where it makes a real difference and is considered in our interest".
Three decades later, we have fallen into a pattern of neglecting our treaty alliances, such as NATO, and endangering the aid we can give our allies by throwing our resources into fights that our allies refuse to join. Vietnam was just such a fight, and Iraq is, too. If our treaty alliances were adequately tended to and shored up -- and here I include the UN -- we would not have so much trouble persuading others to join us when our cause is just.
MORE
Digby at Hullabaloo analyzes the Democrat's failures after 9/11. He also correctly points out that in hindsight, Clinton already took care of Sadaam's arsenal that remained after the first Gulf war.
A lot of Democrats (including both Clintons) made a political gamble that after 9/11 they had to support the invasion because if it was successful they would have been tagged as soft. They were fighting the last war, Gulf War I, in which many Democrats looked foolish for having objected to such a painless, inexpensive, glorious victory. I'm afraid that many of the Democratic leadership bet on the wrong horse ---- again. It is, sadly, a testament to how badly they deal with foreign policy that they got it wrong both times.
A lot of us out here in Real Murika didn't because we weren't playing politics --- just assessing the situation and deciding whether it made sense.
Still, it was undoubtedly difficult. 9/11 had cast a spell on our country, abetted by a media that turned the "war on terror" into an epic pageant of national pride and patriotism to such an extent that to question, much less oppose, was an act of political courage. There are very few politicans of either party with much of that: Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Chafee (R-RI),
Conrad (D-ND), Corzine (D-NJ), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA),
Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR).
Those were the Senators who voted against the resolution. How good, smart and prescient they appear today. The ones who didn't showed lousy instincts. When the president is an idiot, it should be easy to conclude that he is not going to make good decisions about the need for war --- or anything else. Millions of us knew the constant blathering about Bush's great "leadership" after 9/11 was hype. They should have too.
But still, even the most craven Democratic opportunist cannot be held responsible for the administration's repeated assertion's that Saddam was a "grave and gathering danger" or that the Bush Doctrine was dutifully printed out from the PNAC web-site and distributed after 9/11 without any serious consideration of its ramifications. Bush was pushing a line that had many people wondering if he didn't know something that the rest of us didn't. It was incomprehensible to a lot of Americans that an American president would be so reckless as to launch a war on unverified information.
There was no good reason to stage an invasion based upon the threat
assessment we had. 9/11 actually made that proposition more dangerous and short sighted than it would have been before. They knew this, which is why they hyped the threat with visions of mushroom clouds and nefarious drone planes disguised a crop dusters. They knew that if we relied solely upon the threat assessment that the Clinton administration relied upon, the country would not back their war. So they lied. The true irony is that it now appears that Clinton managed to accomplish what Bush said needed to be done, with a heavy bombing campaign during his own impeachment. (Talk about multi-tasking.)
Bush came along and spent billions of dollars, stretched our military beyond its capabilities, destroyed our international credibility and got tens of thousands killed to accomplish something that had already been done in 1998.
The fact is, after the end of Persian Gulf War in 1991, Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, already got it right with what has been called the Powell Doctrine. Powell was persuaded to expand its original concept to fit the realities of Gulf War II by strong arm tactics of Cheney and Rumsfeld. He is, more than anything, a good soldier. His commander in Chief demanded he support the Bush Doctrine. If Powell had been allowed to act as Secretary of State rather than be pre-empted by the cabal around Cheney, perhaps we would have avoided this war.
...the Doctrine expresses that military action should
be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.
Powell also was opposed to unilateral action and openly attempted to build an alliance against Iraq with marginal results. I'd bet he's never been much of a supporter of the Bush Doctrine. More likely, he supported the Nixon Doctrine.
No comments:
Post a Comment