NOBODY LOVES DONALD: Or at least, there’s a sudden wave of anti-Rumsfeld sentiment from people who have been supportive in the past. Jules Crittenden called for Rumsfeld’s resignation earlier this week (he also wants Cheney to resign and be replaced by Condi); on Tuesday the four military papers (Army Times, Navy Times, etc.) will call for Rumsfeld to be replaced, and it’s hard to avoid a sense that the buzzards are circling. On the other hand, this December Vanity Fair article — conveniently made available just before the election — suggests that the issue isn’t so much Rumsfeld as President Bush, though the critics, especially Ken Adelman, get in plenty of swipes at Rumsfeld, too.

It’s hard to know what to make of this. Rumsfeld’s a polarizing figure, and antiwar people have been talking smack about him for so long that legitimate criticism tends to get lost in the fog of politics. But this critique of Rumsfeld’s management style from Michael Ledeen is more troubling, because it’s specific.

Bush, of course, has said that Rumsfeld isn’t going anywhere — and if he’d wanted to manage a political subject-change before the election, replacing Rumsfeld would have been a way to signal a new direction and perhaps win over some doubters, so how likely is it that he will change his mind afterward? At any rate, who would replace Rumsfeld? Harold Ford, Jr. suggested Sam Nunn, but I don’t think that’s very likely.

My concerns about losing momentum in the war on terror really go to the top — if Bush wanted more action, I think Rumsfeld would be delivering it. He certainly has in the past.

UPDATE: Reader Len Smith is unimpressed with the criticisms:

Read the critique on Rummy and felt it was not specific enough for me to judge whether or not he is performing well. It actually sounded like a lot of grousing I hear in corporate break rooms. No direction, Boss is sending me on a wild goose chase again, etc., etc.. Pretty common comments in a dynamic environment. My boss and I once decided not to put any “goals” on my annual review because it was a worthless exercise. In my business, what is important today is old news tomorrow. So I tend to discount these type of complaints.

What I want to know is:

Are the goals of the US military clearly stated to both the administration and the troops?

Are we better today than we were yesterday?

Are the risks, both military and geopolitical, clearly defined and communicated up and down the chain of command?

Can we fight a 3 block war in the Middle East and a conventional war in Korea?

Is our logistics system better than WalMart’s?

Are we prepared for today’s mission and tomorrow’s threat, what about the next decade?

What are our plans to fight the informational war?

These are the kind of things I would like to know before I pass judgment on SecDef’s performance. My son is an enlisted grunt with the Marines so I hear every gripe about “management”, and yet he can not wait to deploy to Iraq in a couple of months. I personally prefer to look at retention numbers as a good measurement of performance. When the guys that live in the organization keep coming back for another 4 years, one has to ask “what are we doing right?”

I can not say with any certainty that Rummy is performing well. I do know that I don’t want the job. Too many whiners!

Yes, our political system is very efficient at delivering those. And Greyhawk emails:

The “four military papers” aren’t military publications – they are the publications of Gannett’s Military Times Media group. Gannett is America’s largest newspaper publisher in terms of daily circulation. In addition to numerous “local papers” (here’s a list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gannett_Company ) they publish USA Today. Army Times is an official Army publication in the same way USA Today is an official USA publication.

“Trade journal” might be an apt description, but circulation of the papers has never been very deep among individual service members. “Office copies” abound.

Yes, I realized that they’re not official, but I still thought it somewhat significant. But it’s worth mentioning this in case others didn’t know.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Ledeen says that Vanity Fair misrepresented him:

Readers of NRO know well how disappointed I have been with our failure to address Iran, which was, and remains, the central issue, and it has been particularly maddening to live through extended periods when our children were in battle zones where Iranian-supported terrorists were using Iranian-made weapons against Americans, Iraqis and Afghans. I have been expressing my discontent for more than three years. So much for a change of heart dictated by developments on the ground.

So it is totally misleading for Vanity Fair to suggest that I have had second thoughts about our Iraq policy. But then one shouldn’t be surprised. No one ever bothered to check any of the lies in the first screed, and obviously no fact-checker was involved in the latest “promotion.” I actually wrote to David Rose, the author of the article-to-come, a person for whom I have considerable respect. He confirmed that words attributed to me in the promo had been taken out of context.

And reader Frank “Varifrank” Martin emails:

Anyone who thinks Rumsfeld is doing an awful job doesn’t understand his job or his mission from the President. Rumsfeld [doesn't] just hold a position in the cabinet, his mission from the President was to literally transform the Military. In terms of organizational culture, there is no culture in the world more institutionally resistant to change than the Military. Add to that, the difficulty of cutting or changing the various lines of revenue to industry that are naturally going to be impacted by that change, and you get a wicked combination of people who are very unhappy at the start that you’ve appeared on the scene.

Rumsfeld is not a nice guy and he has no ambitions beyond this job. He’s not looking at this job as a way to trade up for Presidency someday. That makes it difficult for anyone to “influence” his decisions, which means they go to “plan B” by attacking him at every turn in an attempt to make his job harder, in hopes that he will ask them to knock it off, and give them some form of favor in return. He of course, doesn’t give a damn, which in their minds is what makes him the ‘most dangerous man’ in Washington.

The Military needs transformation, everyone agrees on that, not because the people in it are bad, or that the men and women in it are bad, but its an organization built for a job that’s changed tremendously with world events. It hasn’t changed, and it wont, without someone forcing that sort of institutional transformation. Its a hard job and its rarely successful.

The Military cannot change itself, no organization can do that. Imagine your company or organization suddenly saying that it needs to change to meet business challenges because that’s what the CEO read in a magazine over the weekend. How’s that work? You spend months on “Mission statements” and going on useless employee retreats and in the end, the same lame-o fatass managers run the same asininely redundant departments only with different titles and cost centers. How do you get a company to change? You don’t change because you want to, you change because the competition forces you to change. You get creamed in a quarterly result, or you get merged with the competition. So what happens to us if our Military gets creamed in combat or “Merged”? In that respect, Rumsfelds transformation doest seem so bad now does it?

The Military cannot change itself. Air Force screams at the Navy, Navy screams at the Army, and everyone screams at the Marines, and the Coast Guard continues to go on unfunded. Congress just sits squirms in its seat every time someone wants to do something simple like close an air force base, Private Industry? Oh sure that will work out fine, no self interest there, right?

So what do you do? You get a man just exactly like Rumsfeld, who’s been around forever, knows exactly what works and what doesn’t work, knows where all the bodies are buried at every level of the chain of command and you let him loose by putting him at the top.

Rumsfeld is uniquely and highly qualified to do exactly what he is doing. He is an institutional nightmare to the lifetime bureaucrat. Think of Rumsfeld as one of those CEO’s that gets hired to turn around a company in bankruptcy court, or like Tom Peters without the PR team. This is not to say that the Military is “bankrupt”, but it has lost its way in some places. Do we really need a dozen more Seawolf submarines or should we have 50 more C-17s and C-5s? F-22’s or MV-22’s?, Airborne Laser Missile Defense or another 10 brigades of Marines and Special Forces? I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I know better than to ask Admiral Chuck “Seawolf” Hardmore if we need more Seawolf submarines.

That’s why we are lucky to have him, and that’s why everyone hates him, because in the end Rumsfeld will be remembered as the greatest change agent of all time.

I certainly hope so.

MORE: David Frum also says that Vanity Fair is misrepresenting his position:

My most fundamental views on the war in Iraq remain as they were in 2003: The war was right, victory is essential, and defeat would be calamitous.

And that to my knowledge is the view of everybody quoted in the release and the piece: Adelman, Cohen, Ledeen, Perle, Pletka, Rubin, and all the others.

(Not that it matters, but this fight is very personal for many of those people. Cohen and Ledeen have both had children serve in Iraq, Cohen’s in the Tenth Mountain Division, Ledeen’s daughter in the civil administration and his elder son in the Marines. As a civilian adviser in Iraq, Rubin displayed impressive personal courage living solo for long periods of time in the Shiite zones of east Baghdad.)

Vanity Fair then set my words in its own context in its press release. They added words outside the quote marks to change the plain meaning of quotations.

Vanity Fair dishonestly shilling for the Democrats just before an election? Who’da thought it?

MORE: And here’s more from Michael Rubin, who was also quoted in the piece:

Some people interviewed for the piece are annoyed because they granted interviews on the condition that the article not appear before the election. Vanity Fair is spinning a series of long interviews detailing the introspection and debate that occurs among responsible policymakers every day into a pre-election hit job. Who doesn’t constantly question and reassess? Vanity Fair’s agenda was a pre-election hit job, and I guess some of us quoted are at fault for believing too much in integrity. What the article seeks to do is push square pegs into round holes. Readers will see that the content of the piece does not match the sensational headlines. Were people gathered around the author gripping about Bush? No. Were people identifying faults in the implementation? Yes. Are people sick of the autodafe whereby pundits demand “neocon” confessions to fit their own silly conspiracy theories? Yes. Have those interviewed changed their mind about the war? I have not, no matter how self-serving partisan pundits or lazy journalists want to spin it. I can’t speak for others. . . .

We cannot go around the world betraying our allies—in this case Iraqis who believed in us or allied with us—just because of short-term political expediency. This is not just about Iraq: If we abandon Iraq, we will not only prove correct all of Usama Bin Laden’s rhetoric about the US being a paper tiger, but we will also demonstrate—as James Baker and George H.W. Bush did in 1991—that listening to the White House and alliance with the United States is a fool’s decision. We can expect no allies anywhere, be they in Asia, Africa, or Latin America, if we continue to sacrifice principles to short-term realist calculations. It’s not enough to have an attention span of two years, when the rest of the world thinks in decades if not centuries.

Vanity Fair apparently feels otherwise.

STILL MORE: A reader who prefers anonymity emails:

There is no “loss of momentum” in Iraq.

The deliberate, carefully thought-out mission there is to force the Iraqis to build up a military/security apparatus strong enough to defend the country. If we try to “crush” the insurgency ourselves, the Iraqis will have no incentive to fight. They will sit back and let us battle the unending waves of jihadis, Ba’athists, and Shi’ite militias. We will have to stay there forever while the government enriches itself in the traditional Arab style.

The ball is in the Iraqis’ court. We took away the obstacle to their freedom. If they choose to embrace death, corruption, incompetence, lethal religious mania, and stone-age tribalism, then at least we’ll finally know the limitations of the people in that part of the world.

The experiment had to be made.

Hmm. Some support for this notion — and for the idea that attrition is running in the U.S.’s favor — can be found in this analysis. But for better or worse, the so-called “three year rule” is well-known to U.S. planners — U.S. voters will support a war for three years, but then get antsy for a conclusion. This attitude may be bad, especially as applied to “messy small wars,” but it’s a reality. If the Bush Administration embarked on a strategy that was going to bring this into play, it should have worked much harder on the domestic side, and it hasn’t done that.

On the other hand, it’s also true that if democracy can’t work in Iraq, then we should probably adopt a “more rubble, less trouble” approach to other countries in the region that threaten us. If a comparatively wealthy and secular Arab country can’t make it as a democratic republic, then what hope is there for places that are less wealthy, or less secular?

MORE STILL: Tom Bevan reprints a letter from a reader:

I just came from three years in the bowels of the Pentagon and the SECDEF is generally though of there as tough but fair. Have mistakes been made? Sure, they always are but the professional military learns from it’s mistakes.

Rumsfeld should have probably committed more soldiers to the peacekeeping in Iraq. We didn’t need more to win the battle but to pacify the country afterward. Problem is the services are so small after the Clinton years that there just aren’t enough forces to go much above 140K on a continuing basis. And no one here wants a draft. It would have been nice to get further international support, but that didn’t work out, especially after Madrid. I think everyone in the Pentagon, if not the entire DOD hoped the Iraqis would take more responsibility for themselves and not destroy their country’s infrastructure and their countrymen. But unfortunately they are not.

The Army Times op-ed probably won’t change a single mind in the services. We’re all pretty hard-headed and don’t generally take our cues from the press. We wouldn’t be in the Service if we did.

Read the whole thing. Also, here’s a response from the Pentagon to the Army Times, etc. editorials.

EVEN MORE: Reader Chip Fussell emails:

My son is a USMA educated (ranked 50th in a class of almost 1,000) CPT in Army Special Forces. On January 3, 2005 his team was ambushed in Afghanistan, he was seriously wounded and came as close to dying as I think possible and not die. One of his men, a John Kerry educationally challenged SGT who had a BS in Chemistry and was an NCAA cross country champion was killed, and another of his team members ultimately lost a leg. The IED that initated the ambush did the damage, the team repelled the small arms follow-up with what I imagine was over whelming ferocity. My son recovered in time to return to his team on the Pakistan border and accomplish quite a lot in the war on terror.

Having said that, I voted for President Bush in large part so that Rumsfeld would remain as Sec. of Defense, and I continue to support the President and the Secretary as does my son and almost everyone with whom he has contact in the Army.

For the record, I am a registered Democrat and have always been, although my Dad, retired from the Air Force to Harrison, Tennessee, left to join the Repubs and my son, more influenced by my Dad, is a Republican.

Further thoughts from Elephants in Academia. It seems that some people love Donald after all. Meanwhile, Pierre Legrand thinks Rumsfeld should be asking for more money. “Defense spending in 2006 remained at 3.7% of GDP a level not far from the lowest point of the Clinton years and which we were led to believe by Candidate Bush was too low.” And Kurt Hoglund sends this link, and this one.

FINALLY: Various lefty bloggers keep linking to this post for the “more rubble, less trouble” language and misrepresenting that as something I’m advocating. In fact, of course, I’m advocating exactly the opposite as should be clear to anyone who is not deeply dishonest or hopelessly incapable of reading comprehension. The “more rubble, less trouble” phrase refers to what Victor Davis Hanson calls a kind of “punitive isolationism” that I think we’ll see if we give up in Iraq — and that was presaged by the Clinton Administration’s cruise-missile-based antiterror policy. It’s what I hope to prevent, not what I hope to see, and it’s the likely consequence of doing what the lefties want in foreign policy.

BUSH SLAMS HISTORICAL REVISIONISTS ON THE WAR: About time. Jeff Goldstein has more.

And read earlier posts on this subject here and here. Also here.

[And if you're coming in on a link from elsewhere, be sure to read this later post].

The White House needs to go on the offensive here in a big way — and Bush needs to be very plain that this is all about Democratic politicans pandering to the antiwar base, that it’s deeply dishonest, and that it hurts our troops abroad.

And yes, he should question their patriotism. Because they’re acting unpatriotically.

UPDATE: InstaPunk looks at the origins of the big lie on Iraq. Meanwhile, Michael Ubaldi emails:

President Bush should revisit the media-distorted Duelfer report, which confirmed that Saddam Hussein changed his strategy in the latter 1990s and intended to rebuild his WMD capacity when the sanctions-regime-turned-bonanza was lifted.

Ending the Gulf War — and by democratizing, aiding the prosecution of the war on terror — was always about Iraq and the despotic government its authoritarian culture made possible.

Just read the items linked above.

UPDATE: Reader Kathleen Boerger emails: “Could you do me a favor and define ‘patriotism’ please?”

I think it starts with not uttering falsehoods that damage the country in time of war, simply because your donor base wants to hear them.

Patriotic people could — and did — oppose the war. But so did a lot of scoundrels. And some who supported the war were not patriotic, if they did it out of opportunism or political calculation rather than honest belief. Those who are now trying to recast their prior positions through dishonest rewriting of history are not patriotic now, nor were they when they supported the war, if they did so then out of opportunism –which today’s revisionist history suggests.

Judging from the lefty hatemail this post has created, I have to observe that it’s odd — people who have spent the past year saying that Bush took us to war to enrich Halliburton somehow now think it’s beyond the bounds of civilized discussion to question people’s motives on the war. That’s part of the big lie, too.

More on historical revisionism, here.

If Democrats were smart, meanwhile, they’d be taking Bob Krumm’s advice:

Instead of looking backward to question why we’re at war, Democrats should focus on winning by increasing the size of the military, portraying a positive message, supporting not just the troops, but also their mission, and showing the world a united homefront in the midst of war.

There’s precedent for this counterintuitive approach–1992. When Bushes win victories abroad, the focus returns quickly to their failures at home. And as far as many Republican voters are concerned, there are domestic deficiencies aplenty in this Bush administration. Just as there were in his father’s.

So, Democrats, stop running against the war. You serve only to unite an otherwise disenchanted Republican base. If you take the war off the front page by winning it, Republicans will have to depend on their domestic record for victory. And, unfortunately, there’s little there to rally the base.

The desire of so many on the left to relive the Vietnam era is Karl Rove’s secret weapon.

MORE: The full text of Bush’s speech is here. Excerpt:

While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community’s judgments related to Iraq’s weapons programs.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: “When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.” That’s why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate — who had access to the same intelligence — voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. (Applause.)

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. (Applause.) Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. (Applause.)

(Applause.) Er, and (about time).

And read this post by Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics, too. Excerpt: “In the end, the story of the run-up to the Iraq war is about intelligence, but not in the way most people think. Intelligence is always flawed and imprecise, even more so when you’re dealing with a closed, paranoid and authoritarian regime like Hussein’s. It’s foolish to suggest Bush should have bucked consensus estimates on Iraq WMD built from more than a decade of intel, and it’s even worse to suggest he lied for not doing so.”

STILL MORE: Don Surber says it was Bush’s Gettysburg Address.

A RATHER RUDE ANTIWAR READER challenges me to admit that the Iraq invasion has produced a quagmire. This seems like an odd time to be claiming that given the recent elections, but I’ll just endorse this statement from Kevin Drum:

In other words, democracy is nice — eventually — but the bigger issue is kicking over the status quo in the Middle East and forcing change. And the hawks would argue that this is happening. Slowly and fitfully, to be sure, but let’s count up the successes so far: Iraq and Afghanistan are better off than before, Libya has given up its nuke program, Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution is a sign of progress, Egypt has held a more open election than any before it, and the Syrian regime is under considerable pressure.

Did the invasion of Iraq precipitate these changes? I think the hawks considerably overstate their case, but at the same time they do have a case. Even if Iraq is a mess, it might all be worthwhile if it eventually produces progress toward a more open, more liberal Middle East. At the very least, it’s an argument that needs to be engaged.

I think the critics overstate their case, and rather consistently ignore the good news that Kevin notes. My anonymous emailer thinks that U.S. casualties are proof of a quagmire. That’s an odd formulation, since it means that any war in which troops are killed, which means pretty much any war generally, is a quagmire. There’s no question that some antiwar folks think that’s true, but pardon me if I’m unimpressed with that argument. (What I said here in 2003 about antiwar folks being disappointed that things had gone so well seems to remain true, as people keep making every effort to portray Iraq as Vietnam). Saddam’s on trial, Iraqis are counting ballots, and as noted above we seem to have shaken things up — though I’d argue not enough yet — throughout the mideast.

If Bush’s effort here fails, it won’t be because the antiwar critique of bloodthirstiness and warmongering is correct. It will be because Bush hasn’t been vigorous enough in toppling governments and invading countries in the region. What happens with Syria in the next little while may answer that question. (And don’t miss this).

In the meantime, this piece by Jim Bennett from 2003 is also worth reading again. It has certainly proved prescient — just read the last paragraph.

UPDATE: Reader Fernando Colina emails:

One of the indications that the war may be going much better than the MSM would want it to is the Miers controversy in the right. At critical points in the course of the war I suspect that most conservatives would have let the Miers thing go relatively unchallenged because of overriding national interest. Not any more.

For years, the left has been focusing on domestic issues and has wished the war to go away; well, maybe it’s about to and the right is now refocusing on spending, the border and the supremes. The game has changed.

I think that’s probably right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stuart Williamson emails:

Quagmire is one of those ominous-sounding words that negativists apply blindly to any minor reversal or static situation. A quagmire is like a quicksand, into which you are steadily sucked down to death. That is certainly not the situation in Iraq and the Middle East generally. The truth is the exact reverse. The Arab peoples are slowly, slowly being raised out of the bog of despotism. Iraq is not even a stalemate: the forces of democracy are gaining, painfully slowly, but steadily. The best parallel is a wrestling match, with
the coalition gradually pinning their weakening opponents to the mat. Anyone who uses “quagmire” in a critical sense can be immediately dismissed as blindly anti-war and beyond reasoned response.

Indeed. Plus, people were declaring a “quagmire” by this time in 2001, suggesting that they’re both unduly negative, and anxious to be so.

More here and here.

MORE HISTORICAL REVISIONISM: “I don’t recall any prewar speeches about delivering democracy to the Middle East.”

Hmm. Must’ve missed the 2003 State of the Union address, where Bush said:

Different threats require different strategies. In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.

We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. . . .

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country.

And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. . . .

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world; it is God’s gift to humanity.

Just, you know, correcting the record.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Escalona sends these remarks by President Bush to the U.N. General Assembly from 2002:

The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people; they’ve suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.

And this Feb. 27, 2003 transcript (a month before the war) from PBS’s Newshour:

MARGARET WARNER: Last night, Pres. Bush laid out his argument that a post-Saddam Iraq could become a flourishing democracy.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. (Applause) The nation of Iraq, with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people, is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom. (Applause)

MARGARET WARNER: The president further asserted that a democratic Iraq could transform the entire region in a similar way.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: There are hopeful signs of the desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the freedom gap, so their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. From Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward political reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. (Applause) It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world, or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim, is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life.

Don’t these guys realize that we have Google?

Not to mention, apparently, better memories . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Scott Helgeson writes:

There’s plenty of antiwar articles that dismissed the administration’s arguments about promoting democracy.

From Alternet, Jan. 30, 2003: Link

It’s “bogus” reason #3.

From Counterpunch, Mar. 19, 2003: Link

“…he proclaims that his war against the people of Iraq will bring about something called ‘democracy’ for the struggling peoples of the Middle East.”

From Znet, Oct. 8, 2002:
Link

“In his speech, Bush claimed that he is motivated by a desire to see democracy in Iraq and by the ‘non-negotiable demands of human dignity.’”

This was from a quick search, I’m sure you can find many, many more examples. And yet now there’s a shocking case of amnesia.

So back then the claims were bogus — and now they’re new! As reader Matthew Tanner writes: “Y’know, you gotta laugh (or in your case, go ‘heh’) at these guys. Next: Bush hid his nefarious agenda in plain view! That bastard!”

Wasn’t it Cavour who said that the way to lie to diplomats is to tell the truth, since they will never believe that? I guess it’s not just for diplomats.

Meanwhile, here’s an earlier post by Jon Henke on related issues.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Steve Foley emails:

Bringing democracy to Iraq was also stated as one of the reasons for going to war in the congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to use military
force against Iraq.
(Link)

“Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to
remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;”

In fact, bringing democracy to Iraq has been this nation’s policy since 1998, signed into law by Bill Clinton. And here’s what President Clinton said in
his own speech way back then

(Link):

“The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq’s
history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.

My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership. “

Now that’s a really pre-war speech!

MORE: Ian Hamet offers an explanation for the selective memory:

The reason a large block of the country doesn’t recall Bush’s speeches calling for Iraqi liberation is that they simply were not listening. After all, they had already decided that they knew what Bush “really” meant, so they ignored what he said.

Makes sense.

STILL MORE: The Mudville Gazette notes that this revisionism is a case of history being written by the losers, and offers some further correction.

MORE STILL: Reader Chris Breisch makes a telling point: “In case no one remembers, the name of the operation wasn’t ‘Operation Let’s Go Kick Some Butt and Get Some WMD’s,’ it was ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.”

ARMOR: Various snarky antiwar readers seem to think that this story, in which Rumsfeld was challenged (by a member of my local National Guard outfit, actually) regarding armor, is somehow a devastating indictment of the Bush Administration and the war in toto. Actually, I’d say it’s rather a lot less than that.

Armor’s nice, of course, when people are shooting at you, and soldiers tend to want more of it. They’ve traditionally added sandbags, etc., to vehicles regardless of weight penalties that result. But as Jeff Taylor — no fan of Rumsfeld — notes over at Reason, it’s not as simple as more armor = better:

Truth is most U.S. military vehicles have required some kind of armor upgrade to withstand the volleys of RPGs and large-munition roadside bombs the Iraq conflict has produced. The Stryker units have what looks like steel grating around them to throw up an anti-RPG “fence,” photos of Bradleys show what looks like reactive armor kits in place, and even the mighty Abrams appear to have been modified with extra plating.

So it is just not a case of the bloodless Pentagon stiffing the Guard and Reserves with thin-skinned Humvees, as some of the comments today seem to suggest. Rummy was right, if typically tone-deaf, by telling Wilson he could get blown up in a tank too.

Further, more armor is not a magical solution, never has been. It is represents a trade-off between protection and mobility, just as in the age of knights when if the peasants managed to violently unhorse an up-armored foe, they could go off and have lunch and leave the knight flailing face down in the mud. If he didn’t drown, you could always stab him in the eye-slits later.

The preference for less armor can be seen today with at least some Marines in Fallujah. They point out that up-armoring their Humvees reduces the ability to see threats coming. Oh, but they bitch that the regular Army gets all the good stuff anyway, so at least that’s square.

Finally, was it a disgrace or outrage that American tankers in Normandy had to cut up German steel obstacles to make hedge-cutting teeth for their tanks? No, it was an inspired response to the insanity of war. Rummy being nuts has very little to do with this sad and eternal fact.

I think it’s nice that Rumsfeld heard criticisms from the troops — though not, in this case, troops that had actually gotten to Iraq yet — but to try to turn this into some sort of claim of generalized incompetence on the part of the Administration is to show, yet again, the ignorance of so many of the critics.

UPDATE: Reader Tim Morris emails: “I think it’s interesting that everyone seems to be missing the real point – the Secretary of Defense, essentially second only to the President in the civilian portion of the chain of command, was called to account by an enlisted solider, and a low ranking one at that, and he stood there and took it because that’s his job.”

It’s certainly an interesting contrast to the way that, say, Dan Rather receives criticism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This post, from another soldier who was present when the questions were asked, is a must-read:

I was very surprised when we were told there would be the opportunity to ask questions without first having them screened. I would have assumed there would have been some process where those who had questions submitted them prior to asking the Secretary, and had them approved. Instead, everyone in the room was given the option to stand, motion for one of the soldiers holding a microphone, and ask anything they desired. There was no particular order of what kind of questions were asked and the soldiers who asked questions ranged in rank from Specialists to Lieutenant Colonels. When I say I was surprised that this part of the event was not micromanaged, I want to ensure you that I was pleasantly surprised. In my opinion, it shows the attitude that this Secretary has towards the soldiers he is sworn to represent. It shows those in uniform that he does not see us or our concerns as “below his level,” but instead sends a signal that we are his concern, and ensuring we can accomplish the mission is his highest priority.

One more thing I would like to add is this, not one soldier present asked questions about why we were here, or expressed the sort of anti-war sentiment that Michael Moore led some to believe was prevalent in the military. Rather, the concern was about ensuring we would be supplied with all necessary equipment to accomplish the mission and return home safely. Let there be no doubt, this was not a hostile crowd eager to catch the Secretary of Defense off guard by grilling him with questions he has never had to answer.

More here, too. And here’s the bottom line, from Short Final:

Here’s what will come of this: Democrats will make political hay, and Rumsfield will get burned for having had the nads to stand up in front of the troops and field difficult questions. Who suffers the most from the Secretary of Defense not being able to have candid discussions with our troops for fear of being vilified by the press? Well, the only people that suffer from that are the troops that our press and Democrats pretend to support.

Indeed. And reader Walter Wallis emails:

I am amused that the MSM media has failed to note that the criticism of the failure to get armor kits to the troops comes primarily from members of the party whose leaders voted against appropriations to fund the war. They can’t have it both ways – or can they?

They’re doing their best, with a little help from the press. And they voted for the appropriations before they voted against them. Or was it the other way around? — I can’t remember.

MORE: Lance Frizzell — who I know because he used to play guitar for Audra and the Antidote, but who I didn’t know was on active duty now — sends this email from the scene:

I’m over here (Iraq) w/ the 278th but I was at Beuhring when the Rumsfeld appearance occurred. I have 2 thoughts:

1) What’s left out here is what happens if we hang out in Kuwait waiting for the official armor kits to arrive: the current rotation gets extended yet again. Most folks I know want these guys to get home ASAP. They’ve done their time and they should get to go home.

If I’m delayed next xmas b/c somebody was too good to find an alternate solution to a problem I’ll be highly pissed. After all, this is the US Army.

2) Your soldier-reader is right about unstaged, direct access to the SecDef. It would have been very easy to select soldiers who would have made sure no embarrassing questions were asked. I for one would have been happy to ask something along the lines of “given John Kerry’s appalling lack of respect for all things military, just how much of a disaster would he have been as President?”

Of course, it turns out that although the access was direct, it wasn’t quite unstaged. Drudge has reprinted an email from a reporter who says he planted the questions with the soldiers.

Should we have more armor? Beats me. Are people who are using this issue as a way of unfairly portraying Rumsfeld as a heartless murderer of American troops way off-base? Yes. Absolutely.

Meanwhile, DefenseTech notes that “Even so-called up-armored Humvees will shred if hit by a well-placed RPG shot,” and points out that the Pentagon is working on something better.

BOY, THIS didn’t take long. I do, however, want to stress what I said in the update to this post.

UPDATE: Ted Rall, on the other hand, writes this like he means it. [LATER: That link is dead now: Go here to read the column.]

He really is a loathsome human being.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Hobbs has identified a suitable Rall-related charity.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Armed Liberal has related comments.

MORE: Andrew Sullivan on Rall:

After 9/11, I was roundly criticized for daring to suggest that there were some people in America who wanted the terrorists to win. But if you read Ted Rall and others, there can be no mistake.

The antiwar left — if it wants to be taken seriously, which is at best an open question — should disavow the likes of Rall. But it won’t, because too many of its supporters agree with him.

STILL MORE: Hmm. According to this, Ted Rall is an award-winning moderate. Sheesh. Remember this the next time antiwar folks say it’s unfair to associate them with losers like Rall.

MORE STILL: An antiwar reader emails:

Now, if you’re going to play gotcha with us everytime some member of the radical fringe of my side says something stupid on DU or Ted Rall decides to pipe up, I ask you: when will you repudiate Misha or the posters on FreeRepublic? It’s a two way street.

Yeah, but this is a cop-out because they aren’t comparable. Whenever I mention people who want the United States to lose, I’m told “yeah, but they’re the fringe.” But they’re NOT. Misha and the freepers don’t have syndicated columns. They’re not winning awards from allegedly-mainstream outfits. They’re not published with those views in allegedly-respectable newspapers. Rall is.

Ditto with ANSWER — they’re the indispensable core of the antiwar movement. You can try to dismiss them as a fringe, but no alternative group has been able to replace them because, in fact, they aren’t the fringe of the antiwar movement. Their hostility to America, their desire for America to lose, is just a more distilled version of something we see all over. Look at what Gary Kamiya wrote last spring:

I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I’m not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.

Kamiya gave this a redemptive spin, but I see plenty of examples where that’s entirely lacking. Here’s Tom Robbins:

Quite probably the worst thing about the inevitable and totally unjustifiable war with Iraq is that there’s no chance the U.S. might lose it. America is a young country, and intellectually, emotionally, and physically, it has been exhibiting all the characteristics of an adolescent bully, a pubescent punk who’s too big for his britches and too strong for his age. Someday, perhaps, we may grow out of our mindless, pimple-faced arrogance, but in the meantime, it might do us a ton of good to have our butts kicked. Unfortunately, like most of the targets we pick on, Iraq is much too weak to give us the thrashing our continuously overbearing behavior deserves.

Then there’s Chrissie Hynde:

Between songs, the pugnacious Hynde, in a classic black T-shirt and jeans, bantered and battled with the crowd. She dedicated “You Know Who Your Friends Are” to “all you junkies and f–,” gave a shout-out to the late Joe Strummer, opined that she hopes the United States loses if it goes to war with Iraq (”Bring it on! Give us what we deserve!”), and introduced the song “Fools Must Die” with the self-deprecating quip, “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

If these people were on the “fringe,” they’d be repudiated — as they’d be if they were, say, calling black people by racist terms. But wishing for America to lose, apparently, is unexceptionable. Fringe? Of society, maybe. Of the antiwar movement? Doesn’t sound like it. They may not reflect majority opinion, but they’re clearly not regarded as beyond the pale.

YET MORE STILL: Tacitus has more links on this. Some of his commenters accuse me of deliberately blurring the line between antiwar and anti-America. But I don’t think I’m the one doing that.

I’ve drawn the distinction repeatedly, but the fact is that the real energy in the antiwar movement comes from people who don’t like America. A.N.S.W.E.R. is central to the movement. Nobody else can organize the protests or turn out the bodies. It’s as if the religious right relied on Fred Phelps to do their organization, then tried to claim that they weren’t like him. But they’ve been very careful to distance themselves from guys like him. I don’t see similar care from the antiwar movement — I see happy solidarity until someone makes an issue, followed by righteous indignation when this stuff is pointed out.

If you’re embarrassed to be in bed with these guys, here’s my advice: Get out of the bed. Meanwhile LT Smash has more on this.

THIS ATTACK in Iraq is bad news. Well, all of them are. That the other side has an offensive going, of course, doesn’t mean the war’s going badly — the Battle of the Bulge is proof of that. But it’s important to learn from what’s going on and adjust tactics to match. Learning faster is one of the keys to victory in war. Unfortunately, the poor quality of reporting from Iraq, coupled with obvious military secrecy concerns, makes it hard for me to know how well we’re doing in that regard.

Do we need more troops? I don’t know that, either. Josh Chafetz thinks we might. On the other hand people who are a lot closer to the situation than me seem to feel otherwise.

I suspect that these attacks are being sustained by Syria, Iran, and elements in Saudi Arabia, who want the United States thinking about problems in Iraq, and hence more reluctant to move against them. I wonder if this is a good move for them, though, given that the obvious response is to get them busy thinking about problems at home. . . .

UPDATE: Somebody just sent me a “but Bush said the war was over!” bit of snarkmail. Uh, no, he didn’t. Bush actually said that major combat was over in Iraq. The war on terror — really the war on fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, and those who back them — is nowhere near over. Bush knows that, and he’s said it repeatedly.

I actually got several variations on this theme, from antiwar types who always seem glad when people die in Iraq, so long as they’re Americans or our allies. They’re usually the same people who puff up if you “question their patriotism.”

I don’t question it. They’ve put its existence beyond question by wishing for America to lose.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Aziz Poonawalla emails to ask if I meant that all antiwar people are anti-American. Uh, no, and I’ve said that plenty of times. Just the ones who dance on the graves of our soldiers, and our allies. And I get plenty of email from them, so I know they’re out there.

Meanwhile Charles Austin emails:

like your analogy to the Battle of the Bulge, but I’d like to extend it a bit. I’ve been trying to point out for some time that we are engaged in a War on Terrorism, of which Iraq is merely a prolonged battle. We do not refer to the War of Midway, the War of Sicily, the War of Okinawa, the War of Monte Cassino, the War of Stalingrad, or, as you noted by extension, the War of the Bulge. All of these battles were extended activities within the context of a larger war, some of which lasted longer than the major combat actions of the Battle of Iraq. So why should we continue referring to the War of Iraq?

Good point. And, to be fair, the Administration has made pretty clear that this isn’t the end.

EXPLOSION AT U.N. HEADQUARTERS IN BAGHDAD: Hmm. The problem is that everyone in Iraq, both pro- and anti-Saddam, has a reason to dislike the U.N., which makes assigning responsibility tricky. Put this together with the mortar attack on (presumably pro-Saddam) Iraqi prisoners the other day and it almost makes me wonder if there’s a third force at work here. Follow the link for updates as they come in — The Command Post is all over this story.

UPDATE: Maybe the bomb was planted by environmentalists, angry at the U.N.’s complicity in ecological devastation under Saddam:

An expedition by Duke University wetlands expert Curtis Richardson to evaluate damage to Iraq’s storied Mesopotamian Marshlands revealed an environmental disaster of vast proportions. However, he also found the potential for restoring a significant portion of the marshes and with them the Marsh Arab culture.

On his June 16-26 trip, he encountered dust-bowl-level desiccation within the former wetlands, a destroyed date palm industry, a drinking water crisis, wrecked laboratories, and a pressing need to train a new generation of environmental researchers. . . .

“Saddam Hussein was a master ‘brown field generator,’” said Richardson, referring to a term for environmental decimation. “He churned that country upside down. It looks like you let a child loose in a sand box with hand grenades.”

I don’t remember Kofi Annan speaking about about this stuff, do you?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Beets says the Dream Palace of the UN just collapsed, as the above-the-fray mentality of internationals proves unequal to reality, again.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Nord agrees:

I’m sure someone else has raised this point, but it seems that the bombing of the UN compound would be something of a wakeup call to the naifs out there who somehow believe that this battle is just between the U.S. and the Islamic fanatics. One anchor on CNN, believe it or not, seemed mystified at the attack, noting that the UN “has been a part of Iraq for years.” She was implying that the fanatics were supposed to respect the “neutral” UN and only go after the Americans. How naive! These nuts are attacking anyone and everyone who gets in their way. They’re not going to spare someone because he has a blue UN flag on his shirt. Their goal is to create chaos and anger.

I know it’s terribly naive of President Bush to say it, but these are, you know, bad people.

Rand Simberg, meanwhile, says that the U.N. should start asking “why do they hate us?”

Meanwhile Trent Telenko says that “combat journalists” are clueless about real combat. And see this post relating to Trent’s. Note the photo.

MORE: Kate points out that the U.N. rejected security measures aimed at preventing this sort of thing because it wanted to present a friendly image to Iraqis. Except, of course, that it’s likely not Iraqis who are behind this. (Tony Adragna thinks he knows who is.)

There’s more on this here. This event seems to be inducing an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance in lefty antiwar bloggers, who are responding — as always — by blaming the messenger. I guess it’s like the Hitler/Stalin pact all over again, or something. . . . Get over it guys. You may hate Bush — but it’s not about Bush, and you’re trying to make it about Bush so that you don’t have to face what it’s really about — people who want you just as dead as they want John Ashcroft, and don’t see any difference anyway, except that you might serve their cause as useful idiots, for a while, before they kill you, too.

THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT CRACKS UP: So far, it’s been such a bust that — as Clayton Cramer notes — even “progressive papers” like the L.A. Weekly are declaring it a failure:

Maybe someone in the peace movement should figure out that not only Bush could stop this war. So could Saddam — by resigning his unelected post and saving his people any further sacrifice. Yet I’ve yet to see one anti-war placard allude to Saddam’s responsibilities in securing the peace.

But talk about quagmires. The peace movement, which promises so much in its scope and energy, itself remains bogged down in a minimalist program of simply and only opposing U.S. military action. That’s hardly enough. . . .

Blocking traffic when 74 percent of the American people support the war, or endlessly whining about CNN’s coverage, or grandstanding as Michael Moore did at the Oscars telling America that a president who currently enjoys (for all the sordid reasons we know) stratospheric popularity ratings is “fictitious,” has much more to do with personal therapy than with effective politics. Continue on that tack and you can pretty much count on another four years of Bush, no matter how ugly the war turns. . . .

Protecting the Iraqi people, as the peace movement rightfully desires, is one helluva lot more complicated than merely shielding them from the collateral damage caused by U.S. bombs. (That is, unless you really believe that America is the “greatest terrorist state in the world,” as is so often repeated on KPFK’s drive-time shows. If your world-view is that facile, then indeed we have little more to discuss.)

Those who chant “U.S. out of Iraq” ought to be prepared, then, to offer themselves as human shields to protect the Kurds against threatening Turkish troops (a task currently in the hands of U.S. special forces). Or as shields to protect the southern marsh Arabs against occupation by the theocratic armed forces of Iran.

That seems about right, as this Christian Science Monitor story on the Antiwar movement’s PR problems notes:

“I just wonder how much Saddam is paying them,” says Charlie Lore, a businessman and former Vietnam protester who got stuck in a crowd of demonstrators in Manhattan last Thursday.

Even those in the mainstream who oppose the war often argue that protests are inappropriate with the conflict under way.

Others wonder if the demonstrators understand the issues driving US military action. Watching a Boston rally that drew an estimated 25,000 protesters last Saturday, Jim Cavan says he supports the war – and questions the critics’ motivations. “I feel like they’re doing it for fashion, and that it’s a throwback to the 60s and that no one understands what’s really going on,” he says. “If you’re going to protest, offer a solution. Don’t just protest for the sake of protesting.”

Meanwhile, speaking of, you know, solutions, Jackson Diehl pointed out last week — in a column that a lot of people, including me, missed at the time:

The Bush administration’s embrace of a democratization strategy for the postwar Middle East has triggered a torrent of scorn from the region’s traditional political and intellectual elites, not to mention regional experts at the State Department and CIA. Less noticed is the fact that it has also produced a flurry of political reforms, quasi-reforms and grass-roots initiatives in countries across the region.

Two days before the war began last week, the Palestinian legislative council dealt a major blow to the autocracy of Yasser Arafat, rejecting his attempt to limit the powers of a new prime minister. This happened by a democratic vote after a noisy democratic debate — which in turn came a few days after President Bush called for a strong prime minister in a Palestinian democracy.

The next day an Egyptian court finally ended the prosecution of the country’s leading pro-democracy activist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had twice been sentenced to prison on trumped-up charges — and whose last conviction prompted the Bush administration to freeze aid to Egypt. Two weeks earlier, Gamal Mubarak, would-be heir to his father, Hosni, as president, announced a plan to end trials of civilians in the security courts in which Ibrahim was sentenced, and proposed an independent national council to monitor human rights.

A week before Mubarak spoke, King Abdullah of Jordan, who has not allowed an election since taking office four years ago and who dissolved parliament in 2001, set a date for parliamentary elections. He chose June 17, thereby ensuring that as the postwar political discussion gets underway, Jordan will be able to point to its own democratic exercise.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been urging Western journalists to take note of an “Arab Charter” floated by ruling Crown Prince Abdullah, which calls for “internal reform and enhanced political participation in the Arab states,” and a related petition by 104 intellectuals calling for the direct election in Saudi Arabia of a consultative council, an independent judiciary and freedom of speech and assembly. In January, on Abdullah’s order, a host of senior Saudi officials met with a visiting delegation from Human Rights Watch — the first time a Western human rights group had been allowed to visit the country.

These aren’t huge accomplishments, it’s true. But they’re more than the antiwar movement has managed. Meanwhile I agree with Bill Quick’s suggestion:

Wouldn’t it be nice if the first act of the new Iraqi government would be to invite Dr. Ibrahim to emigrate to a place where he could speak, write, and think freely?

You get more freedom with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone.

THEY’RE NOT ANTIWAR — THEY’RE JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: A continuing series.

LOTS OF GOOD POSTS over at SgtStryker.com today. I’ve decided that I’m not going to try minute-by-minute newsblogging at the moment, because it’s being done so well there, and at The Command Post.

I’m following Josh Chafetz’s lead here. I’m always saying that the Blogosphere is smarter than I am — so let it do the work!

UPDATE: Oh, and don’t forget The Agonist, currently posting that:

CNN just announced that Greek antiwar advocates have tried to bomb an American bank and an American restaurant in Athens.

They’re not “antiwar,” CNN. They’re just on the other side.