Eaton fires broadside at Cheney
Some domestic U.S. politics:
Quote:
The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.
"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.
http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1442
Interesting commentary from one who was
quietly shuffled aside for non-performance directing Iraqi training. Not that I'd suggest sour grapes from one who as Chief of Infantry and Commandant of the US Army Infantry School before going to Iraq was not known for being a COIN expert...
That said, your post is as you said, domestic US politics. If the thread discusses operations, fine -- it it veers into domestic politics, I'll shut it down.
There are plenty of discussion boards that relish that stupidity; this is not one of them.
Somewhere a college professor is Crying
Once again fuchs, you have struck at our American system, and I for one am wounded to the core.
This indeed is a demonstration of what is wrong with America, although perhaps not in the way that you meant to illustrate. My question is, who on earth thought that this was a response to anything? Based upon reading MG Eaton’s statement, he gives no indication that he has even read what former-Vice President Cheney said. Given that his current ‘prominence’ derives primarily from being an outspoken critic of George Bush, I would be fairly surprised if he did. It seems as though this was a hip pocket statement to be whipped out whenever anyone in the past administration dared to voice dissent. Indeed, the provenance of the site on which this ‘response’ was posted is politically interesting, and perhaps relevant.
However, while it is easy to mock MG Eaton, he is not wholly responsible for the piss poor response, assuming that he wrote it. After all he is just following the grand tradition of military argumentation. For those who have not followed the link allow me to summarize “P1: You suck. P2: You Suck. P3: Here is my resume. P4: Therefore I am right.” I have seen this exact argument unfold over everything from work orders to national strategy and it always is the same. In fact, I am fairly sure that every single person in the military has had someone when arguing say “Well, if you had (been in combat/to ranger school/ in SF/ in supply/the right clearance) you would understand.” I have actually seen a conversation where one person was unaware of the resume of the other and they cycled through four of five ‘accomplishments’ before they found one they could rely upon. Indeed, I tell my non-military colleagues, that you know when you have won the argument when out comes the ‘combat’ card.
A real response would have raised points that Dick Cheney had made, and then refuted them with facts. This response is nothing more than an ad hominem attack on Cheney. But it doesn’t matter how wrong someone is, if her facts are right and her logic is sound, odds are in favor of her being right. Instead, in most political discourse, we get sophistry and logical fallacies left and right. It gets even worse when dealing with military issues.
Finally, while I am not defending Dick Cheney at all, my main take away from his speech was that the president should stop pondering his navel and do something. For all the Bush administrations many flaws, it was decisive. I was always taught, and continue to believe, that in war the best thing you can do is the right thing. Then next best thing you can do is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Put another way, it is hard to correct your course, if you aren’t moving at all.
In other words, get the lead out and make a decision, before someone else makes it for you. Indeed no decision is a decision all to itself. I don’t think that this is an unrealistic request since this is the president who was supposed to have superior judgement, be ready day one, will listen to his generals, and already issued the Afghanistan plan. I don’t buy the ‘we need more time’ thing. If time were such an issue, then perhaps we could put Health Care, Global Warming, The Olympics, Harvard Professors et al. on the back burner for a couple of weeks, and sort this out. After all, soldiers are dying now, and Commander in Chief is actually a Constitutional responsibility of the President.
Abu Suleyman makes a larger point.
I have been concerned for a long time that we make too much of "force protection" in a volunteer armed force. Since 1973 we have all volunteered to fight for our country even unto death for "good" foreign policies or "bad" - but we ceased to be a conscript force at that time (I know it took a number of years for the draftees to flow out of the system completely). So, while casualties are always tragic and more so if they are unnecessary, I have believed that we (the US govt and public) make too much of them. But Abu Suleyman makes an economic argument - a correct one IMHO - that casualties need to be taken itno account in making decisions etc. Thanks for the Econ 101 reminder:cool:
Cheers
JohnT
