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Rumsfeld, Iraq, and Troop Levels

Back on my snarky comment post touching upon Rumsfeld and troop levels, Donna from Pajama Pundits posted an excellent comment several weeks ago. I apologize for the incredible lateness of this response. I started writing it up, and then got caught up in other things, and then this started growing into a project all of its own. Hopefully this was worth the wait — not that I actually think anybody was holding their breath for this post, or anything.

Recap

For a quick recap, Gregory Djerejian wrote a post (one of many) criticizing Rumsfeld, specifically on how he refuses to increase the number of troops in Iraq to the necessary level to ensure security and provide the best hope for a successful occupation. One of the commenters on that post kept asking what possible reason could Rumsfeld have for not increasing troop levels if it’s such a no-brainer.

Those of you familiar with my Case Against Bush post already know that my response was that Rumsfeld and Bush simply don’t care all that much what actually happens in Iraq. After all, it matches the pattern of other policies, and as I responded to him, the most striking example is the tax cut:

Recall [Bush] proposed [the tax cut] during an economic boom, using supply-side arguments to counter critics warning about it being inflationary. And indeed, it’s designed as a supply-side tax cut, focusing on the higher tax brackets who are more likely to invest the savings to spur production. When the recession hit, he marketed the same tax cut as a Keynesian recession-fighter — yet spurring supply is counter-productive when you have a CapEx recession due to excess inventories. A clear case where Bush obviously didn’t really care about the actual real-world consequences of the policy. He merely picked whatever theory was convenient at the time to sell the policy that he wanted (and there are huge parallels to how he used intelligence to sell the war rather than to determine if war was the right decision).

Indeed, I have yet to hear a better explanation of why Bush would pass a supply-side tax cut to fight a CapEx recession. And in addition to explaining that case, it also explains many Bush administration policies like the steel tariffs, subsidy-laden farm bill, and Medicare reform. It also would explain the low troop levels — as well as the reason why Rumsfeld still has his job despite Abu Ghraib.

One obvious reason Bush and Rumsfeld might not want to increase troop levels is cost. Outside of a draft (and Thorley Winston has an excellent comment at Winds of Change explaining why a draft is a ridiculous idea), increasing the size of a volunteer army requires increasing the incentives to volunteer, which means an increase in pay, not just to new recruits, but to everybody already enlisted. Such a cost would probably require drastic measures, such as rolling back Bush’s tax cuts or Medicare reform. But these policies were prioritized higher than success in Iraq — just like Iraq was prioritized higher than dealing (militarily or otherwise) with more immediate and graver threats, like North Korea, Iran, and Al Qaeda.

And this is where Donna came in. She made a number of points, so I’ll address them individually, not necessarily in the order she made them.

My Really Snarky Comment

There were a couple of reasons why blogging was so light the past couple of weeks. One of which was health related, which I won’t get into here (perhaps later on my LiveJournal account), beyond to say that everything’s okay now. The other reason being that I’ve been pretty active commenting on other blogs. I don’t get a whole lot of commenters here, and sometimes I have the itch for some more interaction. Or maybe I’m sometimes itching for a fight, who knows?

Anyway, I generally don’t get too snarky (in both comments and this blog), but I’d like to highlight one notable exception. The discussion revolved around Rumsfeld, troop levels, and how to pay for more troops. But the reason I’m reposting it here is cuz I got in a real zinger (and, of course, being a blogger, I have a really high opinion of myself and want everybody else to share that opinion).

North Korea or: Why Seven Nukes Are Worse Than One

There has been some disturbing news from North Korea:

A massive explosion on North Korea’s northern border with China generated an expansive mushroom cloud on an important commemorative anniversary of the Pyongyang government on Sept. 9. The blast came as concerns have been recently mounting in U.S. intelligence circles that North Korea was about to conduct a nuclear test.

Details of the blast remained sketchy, but the date of the blast — taking place on a day commemorating the 1948 founding of North Korea — had U.S., South Korea and Japanese officials scrambling to study satellite images of a clear picture of what might have caused the massive blast. North Korea is known to put great importance on historic dates, using such days to conduct high-profile military exercises and parades. On Sunday, U.S. officials would not rule out a potential nuclear test, but officials at Seoul’s Unification Ministry — its government agency that deals directly with the North Koreans — said the blast appeared to be “non-nuclear” in nature.

Colin Powell has since stated that the blast was not likely to be nuclear, but I don’t know how he could know either way, and it sounds to me like he’s merely trying to downplay the matter. Certainly, it’s way too early to jump to conclusions either way1, so go don’t go running to the store to buy duct tape or anything (Update 9/15/04: North Korea has now said that it wasn’t nuclear, and since it’s not like them to downplay this sorta thing, I see no reason not to believe them). But in the meantime, I’d like to reiterate a few points I made last year on the old Motley Fool Current Events board2.

Abu Ghraib

Well, by now you’ve either seen the photos or heard about the torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib (if not, you really should pay more attention to current events). The photos have created a firestorm of anti-American anger in the Arab world and have sparked calls for Donald Rumsfeld to resign.

And it now seems pretty clear that this was not an isolated incident, as the hard-core partisans were trying to spin it (including Bush, who obviously has a lot at stake). Yes, spin, because how would you even know whether it was isolated if you weren’t there? And if you didn’t know, why would you make such a claim unless you were intentionally trying to lessen the political damage? Blatant partisan spin (one of these days I’ll write up a rant on how stupid partisanship is, but for now, check out Antwon’s classic diatribe).

For anyone living under a rock and thus still trying to cling to the notion that this is an isolated incident, please read Hersh’s piece in The New Yorker:

A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community.

Systemic and illegal abuse were the words Taguba actually used, not systematic.

Fallout of the Spanish Bombings

I know I have yet to say anything about the train bombings in Spain and the resulting upset win in the elections by the Socialists. This is mostly because there’s a lot of good insights out there to be absorbed. I have to admit that foreign affairs and history are not really my strong suit, but I’m a quick study, so here’s what I have to offer. As always, I’m perfectly willing to be corrected.

Ignore the Spin

Both the conservatives and liberals knew how to spin this long before it happened. If there were no more terrorist attacks, liberals knew they’d say conservatives were overreacting, but if there was an attack, they’d just say the conservatives’ strategy wasn’t working. Conversely, the conservatives’ argument if there were no more terrorist attacks would simply be that it was because the strategy was working, but if there was an attack, it meant we needed to react even more forcefully.

So I advise completely ignoring any such simplistic arguments as partisan politics as usual. There’s more to analyze here. First, there was the whole question of whether the Spanish election results were what al-Qaeda intended. I personally don’t see much doubt anymore that it was, especially in light of the recent evidence. And yes, I also think Spain’s pulling out its troops from Iraq was important, although perhaps not in the obvious way.

Richard Perle Resigns

Hmm, nobody else seems to have picked up on this yet, but Richard Perle has resigned:

Richard Perle, a prominent adviser to the Bush administration known for his hawkish views on Iraq and other national security matters, has resigned from the Defense Policy Board, saying he wanted to avoid being a lightning rod for criticism of the administration during a presidential election year.

Perle submitted his resignation from the board — a bipartisan advisory group with no decision-making power — in a Feb. 18 letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

“We are now approaching a long presidential election campaign, in the course of which issues on which I have strong views will be widely discussed and debated,” Perle wrote. “I would not wish those views to be attributed to you or the president at any time, and especially not during a presidential campaign.”

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the resignation and said Rumsfeld has accepted it, thanking Perle for his long service on the board, which spanned 17 years. The resignation was first reported late yesterday by Knight Ridder.

The full text of his resignation letter is available here:

East vs. West in Capacity to Die

This doesn’t really have anything to do with any current events, but I’ve been meaning to mention this for a while, since it provides some useful background in analyzing foreign policy.

A while back, I stumbled upon this insightful article by Charles William Maynes, president of the Eurasia Foundation and former editor of Foreign Policy magazine. The article is quite long, but well worth reading. It covers the various issues surrounding the use of force by the United States after the Cold War, but I just want to highlight one minor point:

Nor does greater precision in delivery of weapons necessarily clear the way for a more ready resort to force. It is not at all certain that others calculate the costs of resistance as U.S. policymakers hope they will. As advanced countries have repeatedly learned, in a struggle between the technically sophisticated and unsophisticated, there is often a mismatch in political determination just as large as there is in technical capability. The West in general has a high capacity to kill but a low capacity to die. The equation is often reversed among the targets of the West’s wrath. America learned about the differences between capacity and determination in Vietnam, the French learned in Algeria, and the Russians in Afghanistan. And that is the overlooked lesson of U.S. involvement in Somalia.

Saddam's Capture

Okay, I originally planned this to be primarily a political blog, and I seem to be getting away from that a bit. Part of the problem is that I feel a lot of what I would comment on current events requires a good deal of background which I haven’t posted yet, and the other part is that I just can’t post several times a day like many political bloggers (so I hope none of you use me as your sole source of news! There are plenty of good political blogs that update much more frequently).

For example, Saddam’s capture (the link is only there to give this post context for future reference. You have to have already known about this unless, say, you’ve been living in a hole in Tikrit… well actually, then you’d probably have been the first to know about it, huh?). There isn’t much I would say that differs from what everybody else has already said. That this is a great development is obvious, although it might not feel like it for Democrats (which is why I dislike our two-party partisan politics so much — it makes many people on both sides miss the bigger picture).