I was mowing yesterday after reading this particular article and I was stuck on the opening paragraph:
In 1984 as a 31 year old captain I was in Sudan in the Sudanese staff college and preparing to travel throughout Africa as a FAO trainee. I had one overseas tour under my belt, one Masters degree on the Middle East with Arabic language training, and a tour in the 82d Airplane Gang.I first met Doug Feith in 1984; the year he would come to the Pentagon as a 27-year-old "DASD" (deputy assistant secretary of defense) and political appointee working for Richard Perle.
Ten years later I had the pleasure and the displeasure to work with a number of Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State or Defense while serving as the US Defense Attache in 2 crisis countries. I met Mssr Feith's counterparts--the political appointees. Some were good. Some were even great. But the bad ones were terrible in their ignorant arrogance. Consider that a DASD is essentially a "Super Colonel" "BG" equivalent as an SES.
Now think about that. Would you accept a 27 year old as an Assistant Division Commander? If his name was Alexander, maybe. But a 27 year old DASD who's only qualification was his political ties and his academics suddenly is making and executing policy inside the Pentagon. He got there because of his connections to Richard Perle--who was effective as a policy wonk against the USSR but has been in my opinion an unmitigated disaster since the wall fell.
So any way Feith comes in and he is accustomed to weilding power without ever feeling what it is like to be the subject of such power. His focus is himself and his political patron. When he comes back in the early 2000s, we again have the same. No wonder he blames everyone else. He has never paid any dues beyond patronage for what he has done or not done. We should not expect him to act any differently in writing his memoirs.
Tom
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