Cheney Agonistes - Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner on National Review Online
- # If one were to say the vice president emeritus, as a matter of understood decorum, should refrain from criticism of the subsequent administration, then why did former vice president Al Gore — to the delight of much of the media — go on a virtual barnstorming crusade against the Bush administration in language far more partisan and hysterical (e.g., “He [Bush] lied to us! He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!”)?
- # If one were to say that the vice president was representing some fringe position on the status of detainees at Guantánamo, then one need only review the transcript of Attorney General Eric Holder’s 2002 CNN interview when Holder explicitly said those at Guantánamo could be held indefinitely for the duration of the war and were without the benefit of the protections offered by the Geneva Convention Accords.
- # If one were to argue Cheney is simply covering his tracks on the subject of waterboarding, then one need only be reminded that Cheney admits he was briefed and approved the techniques and now candidly tells us why he did so — while the Speaker of the House was likewise briefed, and by her silence as a congressional overseer approved de facto the techniques, but now quite disingenuously denied such complicity at the very time she seeks to ruin the careers of lawyers who merely offered opinions rather than set or oversaw policy.
- # If one were to believe that Cheney was selectively trying to refashion the past, then consider that (a) his points are clearly in reply to the Obama’s administration’s own prior selective release of Bush-administration legal counsel briefs, done for partisan political purposes and over the objections of career CIA officers, and (b) Cheney is asking for full, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may disclosure in his requests to make the entire record public of both the interrogations and their relevance to preventing further attacks.
Despite Wes. D’s dislike of the SecDef, I always thought (and still do) that Bush’s appointments of Rumsfeld and Cheney were his two best. I never worried with either one of them about their determination to defend America by killing her enemies.
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Yep, no one is perfect and when the first shot is fired the plans change, and all that. But you always knew they would defend America. In my former job, my boss’s wife was an Obama supporter. Over his office door, I pasted a computer generated bumper sticker:
CHENEY / RUMSFELD 08
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft. Better than any other congruent Administration troika of the past fifty years, even if (with hindsight) Rummy didn’t get it right.
And if GWB had had John Bolton as SecState instead of that useless sack of shit Colin Powell, it would have been perfect.
Cheney is like someone’s crotchety (sp?) old man. He was uptight and square. But he went to work and paid his bills and went to church on Sunday. He also made the tough decisions that needed to be made and let the chips fall as they may. He doesn’t now pretend that he wasn’t in the loop. Not flashy. Solid. I’ll take that over the Bill Clintons and Barack Obamas of the world any day.
I stand by that assessment too. 100%. Rumsfeld will go down as one of the worst. He was an egotistical shit that was more concerned with his legacy as the Secretary that “transformed” the military than actually fighting and winning a war. He opposed the Surge, increasing Army troop strength (he wanted to cut not grow), and refused to admit that there was a civil war in Iraq. His ouster saved us. I just wish they had fired his sorry ass sooner.
Out in the real world beyond military turf wars, Wes, your scenario only works if GWB was giving Rummy an entirely free hand. There’s little evidence that Bush himself intended to stay in Iraq beyond “mission completed,” and, in fact, only did so at the behest of the two Democrats in his cabinet, Powell and Rice. Nor do I think we should have stayed, either. If we hadn’t, there would have been no need for a Surge, and even that was probably won by the Shia militias as much, if not more, than US troops.
That victory, by the way, was characterized as a “civil war.” Actually, it was more of an ethnic cleansing, and long overdue, in my opinion.
Which is why we hear so much from him now I suppose. Rummy reminds me of Nimitz and Spruance, two men very responsible for winning the war in the pacific, that said very little after it was done, and refused to write their memoirs.
Good point, Barry. Rumsfeld is hardly acting like a man trying to create or maintain a “legacy.”
That seems to be getting done more by retired military chiefs who are trying to rewrite history while they praise Obama. (And that of course includes chief high uber-army squish Colin Powell, noted “Republican.”)
Rummy knows he fucked up and has been quiet. he published a revisionist history piece a while back that was soundly trounced by many people. he is just lying low. whether he was taking orders from above makes no difference to me. i know Bush and Rummy both expected a drive by war. but 4 years in to it, Rummy wouldn’t listen to the Generals when they used words like insurgency and civil war. rummy wanted to go and fight with 4 divisions and i giant cup of wishful thinking. even if you want to spread blame around bush and cheney it doesn’t matter to me. fuck all of them. they dorked it up and rummy played his role like a true bureaucrat.
Wes, I know you don’t like the man and perhaps your reasons are valid.
On the other hand, knocking off the talibums with few troops on the ground in a place that has buried one contestant after another, and capturing baghdad in less than 4 weeks, are remarkable acheivements. No wartime leader has been mistake or error free. It remains my belief that the start of both campaigns were remarkable in their acheivement with low loss of life on our side. Perhaps everything that followed can be laid at Rumsfelds doorstep, but I seriously doubt that is the case. I believe that General Franks assesment differs from yours. In any event, it is easy to look back and see the mistakes and not so easy to look forward and predict them.
Bill’s last point remains mine, I would trust Cheney and Rumsfeld to act in our best interests, mistakes and all.
last time i checked the taliban are alive and well and almost taking over pakistan.
i’m not looking back to see anything. i’m in the army and i was there through all the in-fighting with him. please don’t confuse luck with sound strategy either. also, Franks is covering his ass and didn’t exactly leave the military with his head held high. knowing bill, i’m actually surprised he gives rummy a break, especially after just finishing codevilla’s latest book (although bill is a lot smarter than me). rummy didn’t transform anything, he fucked up afghanistan and iraq by not providing the proper amount of troops to on the ground, he refused to listen to anyone that wasn’t a yes man, and fired anyone that opposed him, and he wasted soldiers lives trying unfounded tactics such as “flying artillery” (we’ve known for 50 years that this doesn’t work). sorry, but i’m on the business end of fuck ups like this and i have little sympathy for the man.
we’ll agree to disagree mkay?
You’re missing my entire point, Wes, which, admittedly, represents a position different than the one I held at the time of the invasions.
It was a huge mistake to try to “impose democracy” on Afghanistan and Iraq. And I am speaking for Codevilla here as well: What would make us safe?
It would be for regimes supporting Islamist terror to stop doing so. Absent that support, Islamist terror is a minor blip in the general scheme of things.
Now ask yourself: Does the Saddam Hussein regime support Islamist terror any more?
Answer: It does not, because we destroyed it. It took a massive military effort that lasted less than thirty days to topple Saddam. Rummy and Franks orchestrated that one, and we had plenty of troops to handle it. Good one, Rummy and Franks!
It took less effort, and less time, to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Again, good one, Rummy and Franks!
Our total casualty rate in those two wars was ridiculously tiny, the smallest ever in major conflicts.
Now here is the mistake, and it was George Bush’s mistake, not Rumsfeld’s! We decided to “impose democracy” on Iraq, and at the same time, at the behest of our enemies in Saudi Wahabbia, to prop up our Sunni enemies in both places.
Insanity.
And the military men who supported that strategy were just as crazy.
Codevilla makes it plain: Our role should have ended with the toppling of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. At that point, all we needed to do was withdraw, give our Shia allies, or, in Afghanistan’s case, the local enemies of the Taliban, permission to do what comes naturally, and sign treaties with the resulting governments to the effect that they would not support Islamist terrrorism, or we’d blow them to hell just as we had done with their predecessors.
The world would be a different, and much better place, had we done so.
Picture the alternate reality:
Two weeks after the aircraft carrier and “Mission Accomplished,” we start pulling out troops from Iraq. We initiate arms shipments to local Shia who wish to complete the destruction of the Hussein regime. They do so. We return home, shining with victory. Something similar goes on in Afghanistan.
Libya eschews terrorism and weapons development, saying, “We don’t want Bush to do to us what he did to Hussein.”
Arabs scream and howl, to no avail. Iran takes another look at their own support for terror and pursuit of nuclear weapons, in the face of two demonstrations of US military might.
They either back down or, more likely, resist, and we first bomb them, and then, if necessary, we invade and destroy that regime.
Syria would be looking to kiss our asses as deeply as possible.
Israel would finally be free to assure their own defenses.
And George Bush would be a hero, and the GOP brand would never have been brighter. Very likely we would not have Obama as president today.
Rummy may have screwed up the occupation/democracy strategy, [and he had a lot of help from high military figures as well -WTQ] but he should never have been forced to implement it in the first place.
What Bill said.
DCP.
Of course. I really don’t like to disagree with the guy that has his but on the line. I am aware of your service and deeply appreciate it. However, there are times when an educated outside viewer has a perspective quite different, and no less valid, than one on the inside. What I would point out is, this is entirely consistent with the fighting of wars. There have always been disagreements and personality conflicts. Halsey was made a Fleet Admiral. Spruance was blocked from reaching that recognition by one congressional critter from Georgia. Such is life. Nothing has changed except the actors. In the end, pain and all, with good men like yourself standing ready, we will win. The amount of pain we go through getting there will be determined by the mistakes and strategy employed. I certainly don’t agree with the strategy after the initial start. I do not believe in luck however. The initial startegy worked. The rest has been fubar.
As is normal, Bill writes precisely what I think in regards to this. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a professional writer read my mind and put in words what I think. I would say “Two minds…” but that would be an injustice to Bill as I do not measure up. Well said Bill.
Here is a somewhat more even-handed take on Rumsfeld’s tenure, which also tends to corroborate my belief that Rumsfeld never intended to wage an extended occupation of Iraq, and was forced into it more or less against his will by his Commander in Chief’s sudden turnabout, probably at the behest of the Saudis.
As for “flying artillery,” lots of things never work - until they do. Here’s a discussion of artillery issues. Not everybody thinks as Wes does.
I expect what really made Rumsfeld’s policies anathema to lots of traditional military men was his efforts to change the basic Army building bloc from the division to the brigade, as well as his support for a much stronger emphasis on special forces.
Bill, your link puts you on page three.
Page one
UPDATE: Thanks, Barry. Fixed it -WTQ