No. Pearl Harbor was presented in two different places, and the first piece of analysis was the threshold of how big a shock America needed to get on a war footing. America is still not on a war footing the way it was after WW II, and if you note some of General Batiste's remarks, bitter in tone, about his return from Iraq in 2005 and how "America isn't at war, the Army is" you might just get a sniff of a clue as to where the perceptual error is that you keep insisting upon.
2 points. 1stly, the US is militarising space, transforming cyberspace into a defense mechanism, undergoing a global redeployment of troops, transforming the DoD, increasing military budgets, had the patriot act, the military commissions act and more, all under the aegis of the War on Terror. Please tell me given all this, how the US is not on a war footing.
2ndly, and importantly for you, you might want to differentiate between design and execution. It is not the executon we are concerned about, rather the execution. This is the main point, and as I have mentioned many times, issues of execution are rather irrelevent.
The policy may have been that way had the WOT stayed in Afghanistan, but having switched courses to Iraq, the policy that included transforming the military has hit an immense snag. The Iraq War has been an obstacle to the planned transformation.
No, read the document:
In the Persian Gulf region, the
presence of American forces, along with
British and French units, has become a semipermanent
fact of life. Though the
immediate mission of those forces is to
enforce the no-fly zones over northern and
southern Iraq, they represent the long-term
commitment of the United States and its
major allies to a region of vital importance.
Indeed, the United
States has for
decades sought to
play a more
permanent role in
Gulf regional
security. While
the unresolved
conflict with Iraq
provides the
immediate
justification, the
need for a
substantial
American force
presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of
the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Overall U.S. military force
structure must be rationalized to accommodate
the fact that the presence of these forces
in far-flung outposts or on patrol overseas
may be as important as their theaterwarfighting
missions, especially in Europe.
The requirements of Balkans stabilization,
NATO expansion (including Partnership for
Peace) and other missions within the theater
render it unrealistic to expect U.S. forces in
Europe to be readily available for other
crises, as formal Pentagon planning
presumes. The continuing challenges from
Iraq also make it unwise to draw down
forces in the Gulf dramatically. Securing
the American perimeter today – and
tomorrow – will necessitate shifts in U.S.
overseas operations.
After eight years of no-fly-zone
operations, there is little reason to anticipate
that the U.S. air presence in the region
should diminish significantly as long as
Saddam Hussein remains in power.
From an
American perspective, the value of such
bases (in Saudi/the Persian Gulf) would endure even should Saddampass from the scene. Over the long term,
Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S.
interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even
should U.S.-Iranian relations improve,
retaining forward-based forces in the region
would still be an essential element in U.S.
security strategy given the longstanding
American interests in the region.
Just a few. Now tell me how an invasion/overthrow/war in Iraq was not part of the transformation/deemed propitious to the transformation.
In presenting the next defense budget, yes.
Which would have been easier to pursue in a war environment. I dont think that this is a controversial point.
No, this is your core error, and apparent dishonesty,
Please dont cast such aspersions.
unless my still not quenched, and very cynical, suspiscions on LIHOP are right. There just isn't enough evidence to support those suspiscions, only some possible threads that don't make much of a weave.
Ok. Well then tell me why they would want such world changing, peace love and happiness bringing changes to occur over decades, rather than mths/years; or why any sane person would want such, all else being equal.
No, I suspect, don't state, that the terrorist activity, and potential for an attack on the US (don't forget, some rag heads went after the WTC in 1993,
rag heads? I would hope you are not meaning that term in a racist sense...
it's not as though terror attacks on America were anything new, FFS) might have been assessed, and counter terror efforts allowed to atrophy a bit until an attack occurred. This suspiscion is a stretch, and is only thinly supported by Clarke and Scheuer, and some FBI feedback (which can also be explained in part by "dodging blame actions") on pre 9-11 decisions in the counter terror policies that frustrated their efforts.
Atrophy to what purpose? To stimulate anti-terror efforts? By invading Iraq? And if you have such suspicions, then why do you not feel there should be an investigation into such? Your suspicions, if true, would lead to the Bush admin being put in front of a firing squad, as with any CT.
As for "an independent investigation: "who is going to talk that hasn't already? What possible motive could anyone "on the inside" have to talk now? I don't see the point. Perhaps some more generals will retire and say some things I don't expect to hear. The recent comments by Major eneral Tabuga on Gitmo and Abu Ghraib were quite candid, though not unexpected.
People did talk. Clarke talked. Tenet talked. e,g, Tenet talked about 1mentions of the OBL threat per every 4 PDBs while Bush was in office. Nothing was done in this regard. This is an example of the ability to call people to account simply on the basis of what we already have. An indepedent investigation would take such elements seriously, and investigate them.
No, I am a cynical son of a gun was on the pointy end of American policy for 20+ years, and who has seen any number of questionable choices made by the suits in DC. See Reagan in Beirut, Kosovo, Somalia.
It is eight years later, and it hasn't happened to any extent. The tank is still around, twelve CVBG's still around, and so on.
as above, differentiate between execution and design.
Now you are playing word games, but hell, so was Bush with his War on Terror gambit, so you are even. You suck as bad as he does. Happy now?
But this is just incredibly empty headed, I'm sorry.
The point about the war on Terror is that it can never end. That is my defining the "word game" that has been created by the Bush admin. Nothing else.
This should not have been hard to understand.
Only as long as the GOP/neocons can keep
The White House
A majority in Congress
No, since it can be renewed any time they have either
There is ample precedent for ending a rotten war. Ever heard of Viet Nam?
Lol, I'm not talking about a rotten war, I'm talking about a war that cannot conceivably end.
That's what they did, explicitly.
???
No, they explicity called it the "War on Terror".
PNAC departed from any "war on terror" the day the troops crossed the LD into Iraq from Kuwait. Any rhetoric conflating the two is immensely foolish, and intellectually dishonest. Yours and Bush's.
Oh please. You are starting to get a bit over excited i think. Stick to the facts and stop the childish aspersions, if you want to debate like an adult.
The war in Iraq is part of the WOT, according to the neo cons. I take it you do not dispute this.
Their statement was in how the transformation was to begin, within the next QDR. That's in the text, mj.
hence the importance of such an event occurring before Oct 2001
Your words, not theirs. What they most wanted was to reverse the declining trend, and position the decision makers to have a tool available to use to influence events in the Middle East, and elsewhere. That was a logical follow up to 12 years of build up, from 1991 through 2003, of infrastructure and basing in the Persian Gulf. See the US Army's On Point, the first third of the book, for an excellent treatment of the consistency of American Persian Gulf defense policy from 1991 to 2003.
and what better way to do it than to say, "We're at war, do what we say, else you will all be nuked".
They didn't need a war to spur a change to end strength of that small a magnitude in 2001-2005. that one percent would be achieved by the end of the first term, if not sooner.
execution, not design
Nope. WOT was undertaken in Afghanistan, whose operational method is very different from Iraq, and was summarily abandoned upon the commencement of the Iraq War. All that remained was bad rhetoric.
The Iraq war is, in the eyes of the neo cons, an integral part of the WOT. If you are serious, you will not dispute this.
I guess you don't understand terrorism then. It is the tool of the weak and unable to (in legitimate means) act political faction.
act political faction?
It is used by those who feel the need to exploit it. This would apply both to weak groups, and governments.
Tell me, under your definition, if a government blows up a civilian plane, or aids in it, hits is not terrorism, so what is it? Take the 74 bombing of the Cubana de Aviacion flight as an example.
That you cherry pick PH because it fits your bias.
???
No, PH is used as an analogy. Analogies have different contexts. This is pretty damn simple!
PNAC's aim, in that document, was to reverse the decline in defense spending, and correct a hollow force in the making. This did not need a war to do, but needed a 3.5% GDP DoD budget to do, given the decay under Clinton.
They also wanted to defend US strategic interests, e.g. oil and gas:
But serious attention, careful
thought, and the willingness to devote
adequate resources to maintaining
America’s military strength can make the
world safer and American strategic interests
more secure now and in the future.
U.S. defense planning
has been an empty and increasingly
self-referential exercise, often dominated by
bureaucratic and budgetary rather than
strategic interests.
Just because we are after the event does not make the PH reference evidence of what you claim it is. You seem to confuse coincidence, cause, and correlation.
Haha.. no, please read more carefully. I am simply stating that it illustrates that a new PH was in their eyes propitious to policy, since under war conditions, military transformation is easier to push through. This is the most
elementary of common sense.
Had the WoT effort stayed with Afghanistan, and further discrete actions purely against terror and extra national groups, I'd agree with you, as that effort would have matched perfectly the transformation themes Rummy brought into the Pentagon with him. I lived with this crap, mj, as part of my work.
as above re: iraq
As it was, the decision to go into Iraq undermined the transformation plan, or at least broke it badly.
haha, no.
Given what you have convinced yourself of, I am not sure I care to spend the time to dig up 7 years of Pentagon programatic changes. Death to Comanche was a major one, but Comanche was part of the transformation of Force XXI!
(Not sure why I bother, really.)
as u wish
Opportunism is as good an explanation, with no need to infer any other motive.
What the hell are you talking about?? Opportunism? This was
before 911 happened, where is the opportunism?
Nope. The point is that the Iraq War was a departure from the transformation.
as above...
No. 9-11 provided an opportunity, public sentiment was harnessed, and then thrown away into Iraq.
Right. Stop and think for a second. The new PH provided an opportunity. Hence it was propitious to policy. Now why do you then say that in the PNAC doc, the envisioning of a new PH would not have been propitious to policy. This isnt very serious i dont think.
No. The changes were going to come in the QDR, and Rummy was supposed to take the bull by the horns and force the Pentagon out of their paradigms. Had the war been kept at the modest resource level, 20-30,000 troops in Afghanistan, this would have been manageable, and Afghanistan a good test bed for some of the exotic ideas Rummy had. Going to Iraq screwed the entire transformation. Again, Rummy's first 120 days as Sec Def sent a bit of a shock through DoD. The word trickling down to the field was "it's gonna change, get to work."
again, as above
Yes, that is was RAD was written for.
Oh boy.... RAD didnt say "We need to cause a new PH". But it states what all people with common sense know, that if such changes occur catalysed by a new PH, they will happen soon, rather than over several decades. Further, in a war environment, they should happen much easier, and roadblock and other issues should be easier to deal with. Why they, or any sane person, would not want this to happen, is something that would take a hell of a lot of explaining, I'm afraid.
