Clinton & Obama admit 2007 Iraq war policy positions were influenced by politics. So was President Bush 2004 Iraq war policy. One is worse.

"Politics has no place in war policy." That's a good one!

A war-time memoir from a former Secretary of Defense  is nothing new.  It is unusual, perhaps unique, for the number two man in the United States military chain of command to publish a memoir while his Commander in Chief is still in office and the war is still going on. I plan to read  Bob Gate's new book "Duty" when available to the general public later this week.  Part of my interest in the book stems from hearing Bob Gates speak at the MPSF Speaker Series last year.

Like most, I've had to be satisfied with observing other's observations of the memoir as excerpts are revealed in the press and political talk show circuit.   Rather than comment on the commentary (there are plenty of pundits filling that role), I'll wait until I've had a chance to read it myself.  However, there is one excerpt getting a lot of attention that deserves a second look.

You call this a war protest?

Apparently there was a protest against the war in Washington D.C. on Saturday, along with the requisite counter-protest.

USA Today (AP):

"Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested.The group marched from the White House to the Capitol to demand an end to the Iraq war. Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now."

DoorFrame took a few pictures of the event and posted them at RumorsDaily.com :



Whatever. Now I know I am going to sound like an old fart reminiscing about the good old days ( which frankly were not all that good), but a paraphrased line from Crocodile Dundee seems apropos - "That's not a war protest... this is a war protest:"

Peter Wilson posted these pictures from the November 16,1969 Washington War Mobilization protest at his website emystic.com:


Some perspective from the BBC:

"One month after the 'Moratorium', on 15 November, 1969, the 'Mobilization' peace demonstration in Washington DC had a crowd estimated at from 250,000 to 500,000. This event remains the largest single anti-war protest in US history."

You've got to admit that, by comparison, Saturday's protest was rather pathetic.

There are a lot of angles we could examine comparing and contrasting these 1969 and 2007 events. Everything from crowd size, to generational attitudes, fashions, weather conditions or even comparing digital vs. film snapshot photography. I'll leave it to others to sort it all out.

Apparently, these days we prefer to do our protesting from the comfort of our homes, in front of a glowing screen, and with a cold beer in reach. I know I do.

Mark Fisher at the Washington Post:

"Anti- or pro-war, journalist, blogger or reader, we can probably agree that news coverage of events such as yesterday's rallies along the Mall routinely reveals a strong media bias toward covering crowds of people doing stuff outdoors, especially on a day featuring crisp air and brilliant sunshine... People at the pro-war, pro-surge Gathering of Eagles rally on the Mall and at the much larger antiwar, anti-Bush march from Lafayette Square to the Capitol had one thing in common: They were frustrated, both by smaller-than-expected crowds and by their inability to get their messages across, either in the media or to their elected officials."

UPDATE:
Jonn at "It Ain't Hell, but you can see it from here" attended and has more pictures. It looks like everybody on both sides had a really good time in the bright sunshine, and why not, it was a perfect day for a picnic and a walk in the park war protest. Jonn thinks DWSUWF is a "leftist" pining for the "good ol' days." I was unaware I had become a leftist, but I guess if you are sitting way up in the far right bleachers, everybody on the field looks like a leftist to you. Just sayin' Jonn. For our final words of wisdom on the protest, we'll defer to the sage Yogi Berra who may or may not have said - "Everything looks the same, only different. Of course, things in the past are never as they used to be."

Special note to Jonn: I see you also got to meet your "secret love." Between you and me, I don't get it. You can do better.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: 1969, Vietnam, protest, Iraq, surge.

Is Iraq like Vietnam? Lessons learned.

This is the last of three posts to examine the question "Is Iraq like Vietnam?" The catalyst for the series was the President's recent speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, where he invoked this historical analogy:

" ... one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields'"

He explicitly asserts that the lesson to be learned from Vietnam is that the U.S. withdrawal precipitated a bloodbath, chaos, and massacres for the Vietnamese and Cambodian people, and we should now apply that lesson to Iraq. In the first post of this series we conclude it is the wrong question to ask about future steps in Iraq. The second post questioned the historical basis for the President's claim. In this post we turn back to the question of legacy and "lessons learned."

There were indeed important lessons to be learned from Vietnam. We don't have to speculate about those lessons. There is no more committed "learning organization" than the United States Military. Every battle, every decision in every conflict is parsed and analyzed to extract lessons that can be applied to making our fighting forces more effective. You don't need to read all of the military and historical scholarship to glean the real lessons of Vietnam. That task has already been done.

The lessons of Vietnam were distilled into a doctrine by the Secretary of Defense, refined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accepted and embraced by the Commander in Chief. The SECDEF was Caspar Weinberger. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was General Colin Powell. The President that accepted and acted on the distilled lessons of Vietnam, was George Bush - George Herbert Walker Bush. Republicans one and all. The distilled wisdom of the United States military on the lessons learned from Vietnam, became known as the Weinberger Doctrine, and the Powell Doctrine.

The Powell doctrine was informed by Colin Powell's experience in two tours of duty in Vietnam. These quotes from his 1995 memoir My American Journey resonate eerily today, and foreshadow the true lessons of Vietnam. From chapters 4,5,6 entitled "It'll take half a million men to succeed", "Coming home", "Back to Vietnam":

“The powers that be seemed to believe that by manipulating words, we could change the truth. We had lost touch with reality. We were also deluded by technology. The enemy was primitive, and we were the most technologically advanced nation on earth. It therefore should be no contest.” P145

“In the years between my first and second tours, the logic of Captain Hieu’s explanation - the base is here to protect the airstrip, which is here to supply the base - had not changed, only widened. We’re here because we’re here…”

“War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support; we should mobilize the country’s resources to fulfill that mission and then go in to win. In Vietnam, we had entered into a a halfhearted half-war, with much of the nation opposed or indifferent, while a small fraction carried the burden.”

“I came to reexamine my feeling about the war … We accepted that we had been set to pursue a policy that had become bankrupt. Our political leaders had led us into a war for the one-size-fits-all rationale of anticommunism, which was only a partial fit for in Vietnam, where the war had its own historical roots in nationalism, anticolonialism, and civil strife beyond the east-west conflict. Our senior officers knew the war was going badly. Yet they bowed to groupthink pressure and kept up pretenses … the military failed to talk straight to its political superiors or to it itself. The tip leadership never went to the Secretary of Defense or the President and said, “The war is unwinnable the way we are fighting it.”

Last year DWSUWF was prompted by this book to write General Powell an open letter and ask a few questions:

"General Powell, How different is this Vietnam rationale, than the current rationale for our continued presence in Iraq as articulated by the President – We’re there now because it will be worse if we leave? Does the war in Iraq have the understanding and support of the American people? Have the country’s resources been adequately mobilized? Has anyone been asked to pay the price, beside the military and their families? Have our political leaders led us into a war in Iraq for the one-size-fits-all rationale of anti-terrorism, which is only a partial fit for Iraq?” Is the Iraq war “unwinnable” the way we are fighting it?"

All rhetorical questions, of course. We never received a reply, nor did we expect one, but one must wonder whether the answers could have and should have been found by this administration before we went to war in Iraq, by simply reviewing the distilled lessons of the Vietnam War:

From Wikipedia:

The Powell Doctrine, is a journalist created neologism, named after General Colin Powell in the run up to the 1990-1991 Gulf War. It is based in large part on the Weinberger Doctrine, devised by Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense and Powell's former boss.

The questions posed by the Powell Doctrine, which should be answered affirmatively before military action, are:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

How difficult would it be to apply these questions to Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afganistan and Iraq?

My assessment (Self imposed rule - no "maybe's" allowed - must be yes or no answers):

Weinberger/Powell Doctrine	Vietnam 1968	Gulf War 1990	Afgan. 2002	Iraq 2003	Iraq 2007
1. national security threat?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes/No*	Yes
2. clear attainable objective?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
3. risks/costs fully analyzed?	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
4. non-violent policy tried?	No	No	Yes	No	No
5. plausible exit strategy?	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
6. consequences considered?	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
7. American people support?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
8. wide international support?	No	Yes	Yes	No	No

* It depends. If Saddam had WMD's, then there was a real security threat. Nevertheless, by mid 2003, the "attainable objectives" of eliminating that threat and effecting regime change had been attained. Unattainable objectives ("Democratize the Middle East") were then added. Reasonable minds can disagree with my evaluation. I'll be happy to defend my choices in the comments.

Heh. Looking over the chart, it is apparent the President is right. Iraq really is like Vietnam. A final exercise is let to the reader - On the topic of lessons learned from Vietnam - Compare and Contrast:

The George Bush speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention on August 22, 2007 quoted at the top of this post, invoking the "legacy of Vietnam" while ignoring the distilled lessons of Vietnam.

Vs.

The George Bush speaking at the "8th Annual Reunion of Our Victory in the Desert" Feb. 28, 1999:

It was only after all peaceful means failed, he said, "that we had to fight..."I'll never forget," he said, when Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell "came over and said it was time to end the fighting -- mission accomplished. I said, 'Do [Gen. Norman] Schwarzkopf and the commanders agree.'" Bush said that within 30 seconds Powell had Schwarzkopf on the phone assuring him that the mission had been accomplished. "I don't believe in mission creep," he continued. "Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what? "Which sergeant, which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an urban guerilla war to find the most-secure dictator in the world? "Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho?" he asked. "We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous." Bush said, "We don't gain the size of our victory by how many innocent kids running away -- even though they're bad guys -- that we can slaughter. ... We're American soldiers; we don't do business that way." ... Bush said his memory of Vietnam influenced his thinking during the Gulf War. He recalled that politicians during the Vietnam War kept changing the conditions under which U.S. forces fought -- bombing halts and cease-fires... We didn't want any man or woman put into harm's way," Bush said. "We worked hard to form an international coalition..." - George H.W. Bush

There were indeed lessons to be learned from Vietnam.

One George Bush heeded those lessons.

One did not.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Colin Powell, 1975, Vietnam, George Bush, Iraq, surge, Gulf War, Powell Doctrine.

Is Iraq like Vietnam? Dubious history.

In the last post, we examined the question "Is Iraq like Vietnam?" , concluding it is the wrong question to ask about our involvement in Iraq. In the next two posts we address the President's analogy directly.

The President's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, made this comparison of Iraq to Vietnam:

" ... one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields'"

Contrary to the President's assertion, it is indeed a "mistakable" legacy, dubious history, and a poor analogy. Particularly if this assertion is meant to communicate, as has been asserted by many bloggers and columnists, that the 1975 Congressional vote to cutoff funding for Vietnam was the primary cause of the death of millions of Cambodians at the hands of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. The first step in deconstructing the President's version of history, is to separate the Vietnamese and Cambodian horrors that followed our withdrawal.

For the purposes of this post, we will stipulate that a direct consequence of the 1975 vote was hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese displaced, killed, and imprisoned after Saigon fell. These were the 'boat people' and victims of 're-education' camps' that the President references. It did happen but it did not have to happen that way. We could have planned better to support those who supported us. But as bad as it was, it still must be seen in the context of a fifteen year war, where two to three million Vietnamese and 52,000 Americans lost their lives. Such is the grisly calculus of war. Continuing American involvement after 1973 or 1975 does not mean that fewer Vietnamese lives or even the lives of our Vietnamese supporters would have been lost. After 15 years of American involvement in the fighting in Vietnam, it is hard to imagine how a better outcome would have resulted from an additional two or five or ten or fifteen more years of American intervention, as implied by this speech.

Nevertheless, what happened in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon happened to our shame. But the blame does not fall exclusively on the shoulder of the Democratic Congress that voted to cut off funds. That guilt must also be shared by the Republican Commander-in-Chief, Secretary of State, and administration that set the wheels in motion for that vote and its consequences.

Consider this transcript of a taped conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office in August 1972:

Kissinger: If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say, within a three- to four-month period, we have pushed [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu over the brink... even the Chinese won't like that. I mean, they'll pay verbal-- verbally, they'll like it--

Nixon: But it'll worry them.

Kissinger: But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won't help us all that much because our opponents will say we should've done it three years ago.

Nixon: I know.

Kissinger: So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which-- after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn.

Actual events did not stay precisely on Kissinger's schedule. This conversation took place in August, 1972. The Paris Peace Accord was signed five months later in January, 1973. Saigon fell a little over two years later, in April, 1975. Duplicity and domestic political gamesmanship by a Republican President and his Secretary of State set the timetable for the fall of Saigon. The Democratic Congress was an accessory to the crime. There is plenty of blame to go around.

As an interesting aside, we learned in September of last year, courtesy of Bob Woodward, that Henry Kissinger was again on the case:

"He said Kissinger, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, has been telling Bush and Cheney that 'in Iraq', he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

Kissinger's views apparently had evolved by November, when asked in a BBC interview "whether military victory in Iraq was still possible?" Kissinger responded:

"If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible."

I found no comfort in learning that Henry Kissinger was also advising this administration, but I digress. Back to the President's dubious history lesson.

The use of the words 'killing fields' by the President in this same context (Congressional vote for withdrawal equates to bloodbath and massacre) is a bridge too far. Those words are a specific reference to the massacres that took place in Cambodia under the Pol Pol led Khmer Rouge regime. The assertion that there is a direct cause and effect link between Congress voting to cut off funds for Vietnam in 1975, and the millions who died in Cambodia is dubious at best. Nevertheless, it has been seized on by many right-of-center bloggers and columnists as a justification for continuing our occupation of Iraq. Examples:

• "Vietnam, as in we fled and millions are now dead." - PeejZ at RightVoices
• "Millions died and many countries were in turmoil.Once more, it seems the ‘lessons of Vietnam’ need to be learnt once more, but not the lessons the left have us believe." - Fairfacts at No Minister
• "So Sirik Matak stayed in Phnom Penh and a month later was killed by the Khmer Rouge, along with about 2 million other people." - Mark Steyn in OC Register
• "Things were worse in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge liquidated over a third of the population, over two million people were murdered, while the rest of the population were used as slave labor. That is what happened when we abandoned South Vietnam, at the insistence of the Democrats who ran Congress." - Squatty at Kowabunga
• "...withdrawal does not mean putting the whole sorry mess behind us and returning to peace. Rather, it means great loss of life and of American credibility" - DC Innes at Principalities and Power
• "if we let Saigon happen to Baghdad. Let the death camps, the boat people and three decades of war happen all over again." - Lee at Postpolitical
• "2 million Cambodians were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge as a result of America's betrayal in Southeast Asia" - Jon Roth at GOP Bloggers
• "By injecting the aftermath of Vietnam into the post-Iraq War debate, President Bush opened the refrigerator door — and that sent the apologists for Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot scurrying." - Don Surber at DailyMail.com

Let us start with few indisputable facts. In 1975 a Democratically controlled Congress voted to cutoff funding for Vietnam. That is a fact. Later that year Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. That is a fact. In 1975-79 as many as two million Cambodians died at the hands of their own government under the despotic hand of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government. That is fact.

The fallacy is stopping with those facts and ignoring others when drawing the conclusion that the Congressional vote in 1975 is responsible for the death of two million Cambodians. The bloggers linked above do not stop there, but claim that Congress cutting off funding for Vietnam in 1975 is pretty much responsible for every bad thing that has happened in the world since 1975, including the Iranian hostage crisis, both Iraq wars, Saddam Hussein, 9/11, Valdimir Putin's poor fishing technique, and Rex Grossman unable to hold on to the football in last years Superbowl, et.al.

The problem with that formulation, is that these bloggers ignore inconvenient facts that undermine the argument. With those facts, we can come up with a whole host of other reasons for what happened in Cambodia. Take your pick:

• In 1975 Congress voted to cutoff funding for Vietnam that ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1972 President Nixon and Henry Kissinger planned a withdrawal they knew would lead to the failure of the South Vietnamese government and ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 197o Cambodian leader Prince Sihaounok was deposed by pro-American general Lon-Nol in a coup widely understood to have been engineered by the CIA. He was perceived as an American puppet further fueling the Khmer Rouge insurgency which ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1969 President Nixon ordered the carpet bombing of supply lines in Cambodia, with over 540,000 tons of American bombs killing between 140,000 and 500,000 civilians, fueling popular Cambodian support for the Khmer Rouge that ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 t the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1968 with 25,000 American dead in Vietnam, SECDEF Robert MacNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war, quit or was fired after informing LBJ that the war was not winnable. He chose to not share that insight with the American people until writing his memoirs some 30 years later. As a consequence, the war continued for another five years costing 27,000 American lives and ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.

Which of these where most responsible for the Cambodian massacres? Who knows? Yes, there was a bloodbath in Cambodia and there was suffering in Vietnam. But it is not clear that there was a direct causal relationship between the cutoff in funds in 1975 and the bloodbath in Cambodia. It is not clear that we would have or could have prevented the genocide in Cambodia if we stayed. It is easier to make the case that the bloodbath was not a consequence of leaving Vietnam too early (after over a decade of war and 52,000 American lives), but because we left Vietnam too late. Indeed, one can as easily extract a lesson from Vietnam that the risk of a bloodbath increases the longer we stay. There is no historical certainty here.

The assertion that the "killing fields" in Cambodia were a consequence of a Congressional vote to cut off funds for Vietnam is bad history, and a false analogy for Iraq. Obviously, if the history itself is wrong, extracting an analogous lesson for Iraq from that falsity is complete fantasy. Does this mean there is no risk of a bloodbath in Iraq should we leave? Of course not. That risk is real. As we begin our withdrawal from Iraq, as we inevitably must, we should strive to do so in a responsible way and minimize the likelihood of a bloodbath.

A bloodbath in Iraq is not certain, but there is no guarantee that a bloodbath will not occur.

There is no guarantee that we can prevent a bloodbath from happening.

Not if we stay.

Not if we go.

For the next and last post in this series, we will revisit the question of what lessons were learned from Vietnam. We will reference the lessons that were researched, codified, and understood by the military strategists that studied that war, and the military leaders who were soldiers in that war. Soldiers like General Colin Powell.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Colin Powell, 1975, Vietnam, George Bush, Iraq, surge, Henry Kissinger, Powell Doctrine.

Is Iraq like Vietnam? Wrong question.

Last week the President formally announced the designated autumn 2007 argument for justifying a continuing US military presence in Iraq.

" ... one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields' ..."

The Designated Argument: Since the Democrats voted to cut off funding for Vietnam in 1975, and massacres occurred in Cambodia, irresponsible Democrats were to blame and Congress must continue to support the President to avoid the same outcome in Iraq. The argument is usually illustrated in blogs by the iconic photo of the helicopter evacuation of the US Embassy in Saigon seen at the top of this post.

This is not a new argument. It has been a staple on right-of-center blogs and comment threads since Republicans realized there was a possibility of losing their congressional majorities in the mid-terms. It was used last year to argue why it was so vitally important for the Republicans to retain majority control in Congress [October 2006 RedState example here*]. We have already seen how effective that argument was with the American electorate in the midterms. It will be equally ineffective now. The argument is intellectually bankrupt for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, we will hear it over and over again before, during, and after the Petraeus report next month.

The Wrong Question. The Right Question.
The primary problem with invoking Vietnam as a reason to stay the course in Iraq, is that the argument is a red herring. Arguing whether presumed actions and consequences in 1975 Vietnam are applicable to 2007 Iraq is a fundamentally unresolvable and ultimately unknowable argument. It serves only to distract attention from the real question. The real question is not "Is the 1975 Congressional cutoff of funds for Vietnam an appropriate historical lesson for 2007 Iraq? The real question is "Can we trust the judgment of this President and this administration to understand/predict the consequences of any military decision or action in Iraq?

The primary responsibility of the President of the United States, is the role of Commander in Chief with the responsibility of protecting the security of the United States. My view, like most Americans, is that the President should be afforded wide latitude and the benefit of the doubt when assessing whether military action is required to meet a threat to our country or our people. I believe that it is not only reasonable, but incumbent on the American people to support the President if he determines there is a threat. That is his job. that is what we elect him to do.

President Bush was given that latitude by the American people through their elected representatives in Congress in October 2002. I supported that decision. In November,2002 - 70% of Americans supported taking military action to remove Saddam Hussein if diplomacy failed, based on the representations of this administration that Iraq and Saddam Hussein represented a real threat. By June of this year, only 30% of Americans supported the war in Iraq and 66% believed the war was either a mistake in the first place, or badly mismanaged. This President and this administration lost the confidence and support of the American people for one simple reason - They demonstrated unequivocally that they do not deserve that support.

This is the key point - the confidence the American people placed on the judgment of this president and this administration in 2002 proved to be misplaced. The threat was not imminent. The stated rationale for the war was wrong. Over the course of the occupation, the administration moved the goalposts (objectives for the war) again and again. The nature and resilience of the enemy was misunderstood. The planning for the occupation was non-existent. The force structure deployed to maintain stability was inadequate. Bad decisions were piled on bad decisions. Dogma took precedence over analysis. Political loyalty took precedence over competence. Failures of civilian and military leadership were not recognized by the administration in a timely manner and action to replace that failed leadership came far too late.

For these reasons and more the American people have lost confidence in the ability of this president and administration to competently prosecute this war. The critics of the war are not to blame. The architects and strategists for this war are to blame. If it is incumbent on the American people to support the president when a threat is identified, it is equally incumbent on the administration to be right about the reasons for war, and demonstrate competence in prosecuting the war. Failing that, the administration has no right to expect to retain the confidence of the American people in their judgment on matters of war.

The question is not whether leaving Iraq will create a bloodbath like Vietnam. The question is whether the American people can trust the judgment of this President and administration to make that assessment.

The verdict of the majority of Americans is in, and the answer is no. This administration has forfeited any expectation of retaining the confidence and support of the American people in their judgment on war. As a result, we have no alternative but to substitute the collective judgment of our representatives in Congress, until such time as we elect a new president. This is not optimal, in fact, it is a very, very bad substitute. We just have no other choice.

This is not to say, that the Petraeus "surge" strategy should be dismissed out of hand as the appropriate strategy now. Personally, I am highly dubious. For me to support it, I have to hear that Congress supports it, as I have no confidence in this President to make a correct war decision. The "surge" debate in Congress will be contentious, heated, with strongly expressed views on both side. That is the way it should be. That is the way our government is designed to work. But arguments comparing a 1975 cutoff of funds for Vietnam to 2007 Iraq will not be persuasive.

That said, and despite Kevin Sullivan's reasonable admonition, it is worth considering the factual basis of the rhetorical question in the title of this post - to explore whether, which and how lessons extracted from the Vietnam experience can be applied to Iraq.

Over the next couple of posts, we'll stage that question by casting two actors who had major roles to play in both the Vietnam and Iraq theater - Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell.


*NOTE: This example is, coincidently, the very comment exchange that caused RedState to ban DWSUWF, a state that continues to this day, despite my conversion to Republicanism and supporting a Republican for President in 2008. It is a puzzlement.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, 1975, Vietnam, George Bush, Iraq, surge, Henry Kissinger, Powell Doctrine.

Powell Agonistes

Not too long ago, Colin Powell was legitimately described as the most trusted man in American politics. Today he is perceived to struggle in a battle to rehabilitate his credibility, the most recent effort being a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert. I missed the show itself, as I was returning from an extended fishing holiday in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. [How was the fishing you ask? Quite good thank you. We had several fish fries comprised of some nice bass and plenty of panfish. I even managed to catch and release a couple of brookies despite my general incompetence with a fly rod.]

Upon my return, I got a flavor for the reaction to Powell's interview, when I re-immersed myself in the political pool by taking a deep dive with a quadruple twisting plunge on MSNBC, watching Tucker, Matthews, Olberman and Scarborough back-to-back-to-back-to-back. All had pointed questions for Powell.

CARLSON: "Powell‘s willingness to vote for a Democrat in ‘08 is interesting as well as the obvious rebuke he gave the Bush administration. But consider the opposite angle, though he has escaped the deep public anger absorbed by the president, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, any number of others in this administration, Colin Powell was the chief salesman of the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. So the question is, why would Barack Obama want his advice in the first place?"

MATTHEWS: "Why didn‘t Colin Powell just resign? Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has criticized this administration since he left office. But why did he salute the boss if he did not fully support the war? Where was Powell‘s tough talk against the administration when it would have counted?"

ROBACH (substituting for Olberman): "We know that Colin Powell did not advocate going to war, but he tells Tim Russert that once the president decided to do it, he, Powell, was with him all the way. Have we ever heard Colin Powell say that the president and that he ultimately made a mistake in that decision?"

HUFFINGTON (Guest on Scarborough Country): "So many people will tell you again and again that, if it wasn‘t for Colin Powell putting his enormous credibility behind the selling of the war, they would not have been behind the war. So I think it‘s really sad. It‘s a little bit like watching George Tenet, you know, come out, after all the damage has been done, and then singing a very different song. And, you know, of course, it‘s great that he wants to close down Guantanamo, not tomorrow but this afternoon, but where was that kind of moral authority when the country needed it? "

DWSUWF finds these questions for Colin Powell to be disingeuous, and a distraction from the important comments that Powell made in the interview. The questions are echoed and amplified by disngenuous bloggers on both the right and left. [SIDEBAR: Don't you just love the word "disingenuous"? It is such a great high-brow way for DWSUWF to say they are all "so completely full of sh*t their eyes are brown."]

Colin Powell is speaking out. This is exactly what we need him to do. The Powell Doctrine, forged from the lessons learned in Viet Nam, served this country well in the first gulf war and as a guiding set of principles for our involvement in other military conflicts. The irony of Colin Powell being a primary enabler for the US involvement in a conflict that so clearly violated the tenets of the doctrine that bears his name has not been lost on us. The only one who can solve the riddle of of Colin Powell is Powell himself.

Powell has been a recurring topic at DWSUWF, and taken to task for failing to contribute to the national dialog prior to the 2006 mid-term elections. In September, DWSUWF posed the question "whether Colin Powell might, in the judgement of history, carry the label of being to Iraq what McNamara was to Vietnam". A few weeks later, still questioning his silence, DWSUWF posted an Open Letter to Colin Powell, concluding with this:

"Your experience with the military, with this administration, with the field of conflict in Iraq, with both failed and successful US conflicts, means you are uniquely qualified to help the American people find the right path through this thicket, by shedding some light on the problem. Permit me to be blunt. As an American citizen that supported this war to a large extent because of your support of it, and your eloquent arguments before United Nations in January of 2003, I do not find it acceptable for you to withhold your assessment of the status and outlook for this war now. Quite frankly, you owe this country the benefit of your honest assessment now. You owe us your complete, unexpurgated, unvarnished view."

In all honesty, DWSUWF did not expect Colin Powell to respond to a letter from this blog, and was not surprised that he did not. Regardless, his statements and appearances in the MSM over the last few months have addressed many of the very concerns expressed in that letter. It is critically important for Powell's evolving perspective on the war he helped sell to be publicly aired, as the country struggles to find a way to bring it to an end. He provides a unique and important perspective that is worthy of careful consideration by all Americans.

DWSUWF highlighted more recent Colin Powell quotes in these posts (Thank you Mr. Powell, One more Rum & Mac for the road) while commenting on his 12/17/06 interview with Bob Scheifer on CBS News' Face the Nation:

SCHIEFFER: "Let me ask you about the retirement ceremony they had for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The vice president said Secretary Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense in the history of this country, or words to that effect. What is your assessment?

Mr. POWELL (paraphrased): Well, that's the vice president's judgement. As we all know, Rumsfeld had his nose so far up Cheney's fat ass, I am surprised they could pull him out to fire him.

More Powell quotes:

"So if it's grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing."

"...this looks like a civil war, and we ought to call it that."

"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purpose of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work..."

"...I think you have to talk to a country like Syria.

"The current active Army is not large enough, and the Marine Corps is not large enough, for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform."

"... we are a little less safe in the sense that we don't have the same force structure available for other problems."

"But sooner or later, you have to... begin the drawdown of US forces. I think that's got to happen sometime before the middle of next year, at least the beginning of this. You cannot--we cannot walk away."

To this list we can now add Powell's comments from his Sunday (6/10/06) appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert:

"The current strategy to deal with it... —the military surge, our part of the surge under General Petraeus—the only thing it can do is put a heavier lid on this boiling pot of civil war stew... The solution has to emerge from the other two legs, the Iraqi political actions and reconciliation, and building up the Iraqi security and police forces. And those two legs are not going well."

...at the end of the day, when this civil war resolves itself, as every civil war eventually does resolve itself, one way or the other, and we see a government emerge that does represent the interests of its people, then maybe that’s the best success we can hope for, even though it might not be a government... we would have designed in Philadelphia based on Jeffersonian principles."

" ...the president is not satisfied with the way in which the war has been managed. Now, you can, you can move the deck chairs around, and you can bring in new people and you can change the organizational arrangements, but, ultimately, the president has the responsibility. "

"Once the government in Baghdad came down, everything came down. And it was our responsibility then, under international law as the occupying authority as well as the liberators, to be responsible for restoring order, and we didn’t have enough troops there to restore that order nor did we have the political understanding of our obligation to restore that order."

"... the case that we took to the world and the case that we took to the American people rested not just in his human rights abuses or his cheating on the Oil for Food program, it rested on the real and present danger of weapons of mass destruction that he could use against his neighbors, or terrorists could use against us. That was the precipitating issue in my judgment, and it turned out those weapons were not there... they all came to the conclusion there are none, and they’re not buried in the ground, they weren’t shipped to Syria. We got it wrong."

"Guantanamo has become a major, major problem for... the way the world perceives America. And if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I’d close it. And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system."

Powell did not back away from his support of the war in 2003. Consequently the unasked and unanswered question for Colin Powell still goes begging: General Powell, even accepting that the decision was based on wrong intelligence, how do you justify your suppport for a military action that unambiguous failed to meet the tests of the Powell Doctrine?

Colinn Powell put his reputation on the line, performing in the role of Huckster In Chief, pitching the war in Iraq during his January, 2003 address to the United Nations. Notwithstanding, Powell is now making strong, direct statements that provide a valuable and important contribution to the dialog on Iraq, from a voice that is uniquely qualified to offer observations, recommendations and opinions. His MSM appearances sharpen the focus of his critical view of the administration's handling of the war, as well as his own complicity in its outcome. His words are a valuable resource for those Americans struggling to understand our remaining limited options in Iraq.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, libertarian, , Vietnam, Iraq, surge, Donald Rumsfeld, Powell Doctrine.

Bartender! One more Rum & Mac for the road.

Time Magazine Covers from 2004 and 1966

It is closing time here at the Repeating History Bar. We are way past final call, but I'm a regular, and the bartender slipped me one more Rum & Mac for the road. Hey, I'm a big tipper, he takes care of me. I didn't think much of this drink when I started sipping it here, but after pounding down doubles all night, I'm beginning to appreciate the peculiar character of this drink more and more.

Speaking at Donald Rumsfeld's retirement ceremony, Dick Cheney hailed Rumsfeld as "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had." In Sunday's interview with Bob Schieffer on on CBS News' Face the Nation, Colin Powell declined to agree:

SCHIEFFER: "Let me ask you about the retirement ceremony they had for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The vice president said Secretary Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense in the history of this country, or words to that effect. What is your assessment?

Mr. POWELL: "Well, that's the vice president's judgment. I've known many fine secretaries of defense: Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind himself. But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history, and it is a history that I think will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq."

Sometimes, a judicious amount of alcohol helps one to see things more clearly. With the copious quantities of R&M's I have ingested here at the RHB, I have developed a GWB-like capacity to peer into the soul of my fellow man and read their innermost thoughts. For the benefit of my loyal reader, a transcript of what Colin Powell was really saying:

Mr. POWELL: "Well, that's the vice president's judgement. As we all know, Rumsfeld had his nose so far up Cheney's fat ass, I am surprised they could pull him out to fire him. I've known many fine secretaries of defense: Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind himself. I wouldn't put Don ahead of Bill Cohen, Les Aspin or William Perry either. Now that I think about it , he wasn't better than Frank Carlucci or Harold Brown. Of course, Don couldn't carry the jockstrap of James Forrestall, George Marshall, Bob Lovett, Charles Wilson or Thomas Gates. And I'd definitely put Elliot Richardson, Melvin Laird, Neil McElroy and James Schlessinger ahead of Don SecDef-wise. Clark Clifford ... now thats close, but I'd have to give Clifford the edge. McNamara! Thats it! He is a marginally better secretary of defense than McNamara. No doubt. Don was better than Bob. But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history, and it is a history that will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq. I just hope I don't find myself burning in historical hell right next to Rumsfeld for all eternity. "

Bartender, could you freshen this up? Whenever I drink R&M's I feel the need to ramble on a bit about our outgoing Secretary of Defense. You know, I am not the only one that noticed the parallels between Don and good ol' Bob. Richard Galli of the Galli Report scooped DWSUWF by several months with a press release last June - excerpted here :

Bush Accepts Rumsfeld Resignation, Hires Robert McNamara

"I have a Thinkpad now" confident Vietnam warrior assures skeptics - "George Bush informed Donald Rumsfeld yesterday that one of his resignation letters had been discovered under a pile of unread security briefings, and the President had belatedly accepted it...In a statement released shortly after the press conference, Robert McNamara said he will be honored to answer his country’s call to service once again. “I have spent the last 30 years of my life educating the American people about the War in Vietnam without ever being held accountable for it,” McNamara said. “I have the experience and the skill set that the White House desperately needs right now.”

Hey! Is that Robert Scheer from TruthDig at end of the bar? He must be drinking Rum & Macs too - You know he's got the same mind-reading skills as me - look at this column where he's channeling Rumsfeld - gives me the willies just to think about it...

One Last Lie for the Road
"Did I write a secret memo saying that I don’t believe in this thing anymore? You bet! But you can’t let the public in on that and just cut-and-run. Jeez, how would that look for the Rummy Legacy? ... I’m not going down that negative road that finished off old Bob McNamara’s legacy. What a disappointment—this is a guy who could sell us the Vietnam War and then blows it by suddenly getting all squishy about the truth when he’s long retired. Jeez Louise, he was once my role model. No secretary of defense ever sold a losing war better. They think I’ve got a frozen smile, just look at those old pictures of Mac flying into Saigon and giving an upbeat assessment in the midst of carnage. Talk about whistling past the graveyard. And he stayed on the “We’re about to turn the corner” message right to the end when LBJ fired him, just like Georgie Porgie did me. "

Ah yes. The confidential memo. One last unexepected and somewhat astonishing bit of synchronicity between the outgoing SecDefs - 39 years apart, writing hand-wringing memos to their respective commanders in chief, outlining options for a failing war policy, and getting canned shortly thereafter. I pull a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket, smooth it out on the surface of the bar and wave it in the bartenders face. "Look at this!" I said. "I couldn't believe when I heard about the Rumsfeld memo. I had to see for myself how it compared to McNamara's 'Draft Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson' ... I actually looked up the orginal text of both messages to compare them." The bartender, seemingly unimpressed, topped off my glass and retreated to the other end of the bar, leaving the paper behind. "McNamara was a lot wordier." I mumbled under my breath to no one in particular. "But ... definite similarities... definite... similarities...."

MCNAMARA MEMO:
"Subject: Future Actions in Vietnam - May 19, 1967"
RUMSFELD MEMO:
"Subject: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action - Nov 6, 2006"

MCNAMARA: "This memorandum is written at a time when there appears to be no attractive course of action. The probabilities are that Hanoi has decided not to negotiate until the American electorate has been heard in November 1968. Continuation of our present moderate policy, while avoiding a larger war, will not change Hanoi's mind, so is not enough to satisfy the American people; increased force levels and actions against the North are likewise unlikely to change Hanoi's mind, and are likely to get us in even deeper in Southeast Asia and into a serious confrontation, if not war, with China and Russia; and we are not willing to yield. So we must choose among imperfect alternatives."
RUMSFELD: "The situation in Iraq has been evolving, and U.S. forces have adjusted, over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence. In my view it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough. Following is a range of options."

MCNAMARA: "The Vietnam war is unpopular in this country. It is becoming increasingly unpopular as it escalates--causing more American casualties, more fear of its growing into a wider war, more privation of the domestic sector, and more distress at the amount of suffering being visited on the non-combatants in Vietnam, South and North. Most Americans do not know how we got where we are, and most, without knowing why, but taking advantage of hindsight, are convinced that somehow we should not have gotten this deeply in. All want the war ended and expect their President to end it. Successfully. Or else."
RUMSFELD: "Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi Government and the U.S. — political, economic and security goals — to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made)."

MCNAMARA: "Publicly, emphasize consistently that the sole US objective in Vietnam has been and is to permit the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future, and declare that we have already either denied or offset the North Vietnamese intervention and that after the September elections in Vietnam we will have achieved success. The necessary steps having been taken to deny the North the ability to take over South Vietnam and an elected government sitting in Saigon, the South will be in position, albeit imperfect, to start the business of producing a full-spectrum government in South Vietnam."
RUMSFELD: "Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist... Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."

MCNAMARA [Course A - Not Recommended] : "... neither military defeat nor military victory is in the cards, with or without the large added deployments, and that the price of the large added deployments and the strategy of Course A will be to expand the war dangerously."
RUMSFELD [Below The Line - Not Recommended] : "Increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially."

MCNAMARA: "Move the newly elected Saigon government well beyond its National Reconciliation program to a political settlement with the non-Communist members of the NLF--to try to arrange a ceasefire and to reach an accommodation with the large number of South Vietnamese who are under the VC banner; to accept the non-Communist members of the NLF as members of an opposition political party and, if necessary, to accept their individual participation in the national government--in sum, a settlement to transform the members of the VC from military opponents to political opponents."
RUMSFELD: "Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period... Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it."

MCNAMARA [Recommended Course of Action - Course B] : "Limit force increases to no more than 30,000; avoid extending the ground conflict beyond the borders of South Vietnam; and concentrate the bombing on the infiltration routes south of 20 degrees. Unless the military situation worsens dramatically, add no more than 9 battalions to the approved program of 87 battalions....A part of this course would be a termination of bombing in the Red River basin unless military necessity required it, and a concentration of all sorties in North Vietnam on the infiltration routes in the neck of North Vietnam... We recommend Course B because it has the combined advantages of being a lever toward negotiations and toward ending the war on satisfactory terms, of helping our general position with the Soviets, of improving our image in the eyes of international opinion, of reducing the danger of confrontation with China and with the Soviet Union, and of reducing US losses."
RUMSFELD [Recommended Options - Above the Line]: "Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq....Retain high-end SOF capability and necessary support structure to target Al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other Coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for the ISF... Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi Government.
GATES: - Recommended Course of Action- TBD

The glass is empty. No one else is here. I steady myself on the bar as I roll off the stool. After the room slows to a manageable shimmer, I make my way to the door and out into the cold night fog. "This is not going to feel good in the morning." I think to myself, adding - "I'm not drinking those anymore."

Hangover Update 12/21/06: 06/11/07 Corrected Typos
I didn't drive in that condition. Still got caught in the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, libertarian, , Vietnam, ,Robert McNamara, Iraq, surge, Donald Rumsfeld, Powell Doctrine.

Thank You Mr. Powell

DWSUWF welcomes Colin Powell's reappearance on the national stage. I never received a reply or acknowledgment to my open letter sent to Colin Powell on September 25. In the letter I thanked him for weighing in on the interrogation of enemy combatants and called on Mr. Powell to speak out on the war that he helped to justify and launch. Excerpt:

"The question of interrogation of detainees is not the only issue where your opinion could be influential. Since resigning as Secretary of State, you have maintained a low public profile, choosing to either reserve judgment or simply not to share your thoughts with American public at large regarding the war in Iraq... Quite frankly, you are doing the American people a great disservice by not sharing your detailed views on the war in Iraq. From my perspective, there are disturbing similarities between your words describing Vietnam and the current conflict in Iraq, and even more disturbing similarities between McNamara’s public silence in 1968 and your public reticence on the war now... Permit me to be blunt. As an American citizen that supported this war to a large extent because of your support of it and your eloquent argument before United Nations in January of 2003, I do not find it acceptable for you to withhold your assessment of the status and outlook for this war. You owe this country the benefit of your honest assessment now. You owe us your complete, unexpurgated, unvarnished view."

I have no way of knowing whether Mr. Powell ever read or received the letter. I suspect it never made it past the flak catchers. Regardless, I was delighted to see that Sunday last, on CBS News' Face the Nation, Mr. Powell delivered the goods. Some quotes from the show (transcript here):

"I agree with the assessment of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton. It's grave and deteriorating. And as Secretary-designate of Defense Bob Gates said at his confirmation hearing, we're not winning. So if it's grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing."

"I see a situation where the government is having difficulty extending control...and nothing seems to be improving. It seemed to me that this looks like a civil war, and we ought to call it that."

"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purpose of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work... There needs to be a clear mission that these additional troops are going to be performing."

"...I think you have to talk to a country like Syria. It's a little--not--it's a little discordant to see that we're not talking to them, but the Iraqis have just opened their embassies in Damascus and Tehran."

"Iran is a little difficult... they're difficult to deal with, and they're acting very, very badly. But at the same time, I think that low-level conversations of the kind we had earlier might give us some channels of communication..."

"I'm suggesting that what General Schoomaker said the other day, before a committee looking at the Reserve and National Guard, that the active Army is about broken. General Schoomaker is absolutely right, and all of my contacts within the Army suggest that the Army has a serious problem in the active force, and it's a problem that will spread into the Guard and Reserves: Backlog of equipment that is not being repaired, soldiers--especially officers and noncommissioned officers--going on repetitive tours."

"The current active Army is not large enough, and the Marine Corps is not large enough, for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform. And we need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment."

"... we are a little less safe in the sense that we don't have the same force structure available for other problems. I think we have been somewhat constrained in our ability to influence events elsewhere."

"But sooner or later, you have to begin the baton pass. Passing it off to the Iraqis for their security and begin the drawdown of US forces. I think that's got to happen sometime before the middle of next year, at least the beginning of this. You cannot--we cannot walk away."

Predictably, Powell takes shots from both wings of the political bird, and stimulated comment across the political spectrum. From the right, Cassandra at Villainous Company posts "Why Colin Powell is impractical" saying this is "just more of Powell's woolgathering disguised as stunning feats of insight". From the left, David Mark at Jabbs is equally dismissive in his post "Good Soldier Powell" claiming "it's same old, same old." And from the unrepentant center, Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice, notes that the "Isolation Of Bush Administration Over Iraq Apparently Widens".

McQ at the QandO Blog takes a reasoned approach, linking Powell's comments to the the IPB (Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield), a prerequisite to defining any military mission, in his post "Why Colin Powell is concerned":

"Unless we give them the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" mission, this may be mission impossible, militarily speaking. And given that, you have to then question the utility of more troops. That's precisely where Colin Powell is coming from. So when I see Powell talking like this, I'm not at all put off by it, nor do I hear "defeatist talk". I hear a commander who, during his entire time in the service, demanded answers to those very questions and ensured that they were answered satisfactorily before he ever approved an operation. In fact step 2 in the Powell Doctrine asks "do we have a clear attainable objective?" That is the same question as that found in his quote. At this point, unless I've missed it, the answer is no."

Exactly.

In the mainstream media, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson used Powell's comments as a platform to also decry the lack of clarity on the mission in Iraq in his column "A Surge in Wasted Sacrifice":

"Here's an idea: Let's send more U.S. troops to Iraq. The generals say it's way too late to even think about resurrecting Colin Powell's "overwhelming force" doctrine, so let's send over a modest "surge" in troop strength that has almost no chance of making any difference -- except in the casualty count. Oh, and let's not give these soldiers and Marines any sort of well-defined mission. Let's just send them out into the bloody chaos of Baghdad and the deadly badlands of Anbar province with orders not to come back until they "get the job done."

Powell's unique perspective has moved the debate in a positive direction. As I said in the 9/25 letter:

"You were in Vietnam. You shaped our victory in Desert Storm. You participated in and argued for the decision to occupy Iraq in 2003. Your experience with the military, with this administration, with the field of conflict in Iraq, with both failed and successful US wars, makes you uniquely qualified to help the American people find the right path by shedding some light on the problem."

The reaction to Powell's statement show why we need to continue to hear his clear, strong perspective. Doubtless, my letter was never read. Powell's likely motivation to speak out now is to serve as a public proxy for his friends and colleagues in active service that are legally constrained from publicly airing their concerns. Whatever the motivation, his reappearance on the national stage is reason for me to say once again:

Thank you Mr. Powell. You are at least two years later than I would have liked, but still in time to make a difference.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, libertarian, , Vietnam, ,Robert McNamara, Iraq, surge, Bush, Powell Doctrine.