Mark-
The PNAC section of your LC guide is lying in tatters on
p3 of the Conspiracy Facts thread. You have been exhorted many many times to address it sensibly, if, that is, you do indeed take your own comments seriously. As can be seen on the thread, you have been unable to do so. Given that you are such an intrepid seeker of the truth, will you tell us why this is? If you have indeed extricated yourself from the mire of your own stupid conclusions, it might be best to not let your colleagues here continue wallowing in it.
I will wait.
Hi
Some of your rubbish was shredded in this post.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2682478&postcount=89
As for your analysis of PNAC, I find some of your embedded assumptions to be smothered in
post hoc rationalization. I read the PNAC piece in early 2001. In 2003, I read Kagan's "On Paradise and Power" and was struck by how he correctly pointed to the loss of political will in NATO. PNAC's capstone document was written in 1998, and as I read it, was aimed at President Clinton, and a direct criticism of his foreign policy, particularly Clinton's having played away a winning hand he had been dealt in the form of the US Military he inherited upon his innauguration.
mjd 1982 said:
Now, since some have pointed out that this has been "debunked ad nauseam", I'm going to take the PNAC section of Gravy's Loose Change Guide, and go through it. I am aware that you have discussed it at points, but with little clarity, it would seem. So.
Gravy said:
I have yet to come across a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who DID NOT use this quote as "evidence" that the terrorist attacks were an "inside job" by the neo-cons in the U.S. government. However, the PNAC quote is about the typically slow growth of military technology, abetted by budget cuts in defense R&D.
Problems already. Firstly, the quote is not about slow growth in technology. The transformation addressed is quite clear to ascertain- that of technology and operational concepts. This is evident from:
PNAC snippet 1 said:
The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new
technologies and operational concepts and an instance of potential transformation cited.
PNAC snippet 2 said:
A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.
A clear example of a transformational strategy that is not merely technological in nature. Thus, the term "transformation" refers not only to technologies, but also to operational concepts- global posture, transformation of the DoD, using cyberspace as a defense tool- which have been the subject of much of the document.
At core, you miss a key strategic point. After The Wall came down, a significant political movement in the US arose to "stop being the world's policeman" and "accrue the peace dividend." This brought the US Army down from 17 divisions to 12, for example, cut the US Navy down to 300+ from 500+ combatants, reduced the number of ACC Wings to 20, etc. What the PNAC guys were ragging on about was that the base force, Powells's Bottom's Up Review product, had been discarded, and that the old "Two Major Regional Contingency" force posturing (One in Korea, on in the Mid East) had been eroded to "Win one, hold one" with the allies in the "hold" strategy rather nervous about how long hold would have to go on since they relied on big brother US to help them win. Hold is not a winning strategy, it is a delaying strategy. The CONUS based, globally projected strategy much talked about in the Aspin, Perry, Cohen Sec Def days had a small problem: the strat lift to accomplish it wasn't on hand. LMSR, LPD 17, and C-17 were all in trouble in the mid 1990's, and underfunded, as was Comanche for about a decade before it got cut. It is worth noting that General Shinseki, when he took over as Chief of Staff under Clinton, was a man bound and determined to break the US Army from its love affair with the tank in favor of a lighter armored vehicle, partly to make the US Army more deployable From A CONUS Base.
The Clinton cuts beyond the base force, to 10 divisions from 12, to 12 CVBG's with <300 ships, and other reductions in force were seen as a signal to Korea that we weren't sincere about defending them IAW current Op Plans that were, as of that writing, agreed. Taking the PNAC analysis as viewed through a paper towel tube is an intellecutally dishonest method of analyzing the paper.
Gravy said:
It is in no way a plan or suggestion for a "new Pearl Harbor."
It states that for such a transformation, crucial, to occur within a timeframe shorter than decades, a new Pearl Harbour would need to happen. Given that for such to happen within years/months, rather than decades is propitious, especially bearing in mind the aims of the "Projects for the new american century", then we can equally conclude that they deem a new PH propitious to policy.
No, we cannot. We can conclude nothing of the sort. IT shows rather a profound understanding of US military civilian patterns, and the grow/shrink cycles that have gone on since the days of the Revolution, in terms of the military establishment, as well as the powerful Jacksonian strain of American populism who don't want to mess in foreign affairs without powerful reasons. The statemens as written is a clear headed analysis of the political trends in the US. This has been interpreted POST HOC, over and over, as a mission statement pointed to creating a Second Perl Harbor. It requires an agenda to make that interpretation. To say that PNAC's architects leaped at the opportunity that 9-11 created is very true, but that does not prove, other than via the
post hoc, ergo prompter hoc fallacy, that PNAC created all of the conditions, through action, that led to the events of that day. LIHOP? Maybe. LIHDTI (Due To Indifference) Perhaps.
gravy said:
Is it plausible that these "conspirators" would publicly announce a plan to kill thousands of Americans?
This is pretty silly. The idea that "they wouldnt say it, so they didnt say it". is pretty worthless in discussion- it is there in black and white. If you can discredit its purported import, then go ahead. To state that it ipso facto could not happen, is pretty myopic in my opinion.
While Mark's point is not iron clad, it takes a real leap to infer that in 1998, Donald Rumsfeld was not interested in the US strategic interest, but in killing Americans for his own ends. Again, this is you reading something into the paper.
Gravy said:
According to CT logic, these "conspirators" are the smartest, most devious, most capable connivers the world has ever seen - but are incredbly stupid. This PNAC quote issue is a lot like the CTist emphasis on Larry Silverstein's "Pull it" quote. Right: whenever I commit a billion-dollar crime, I always tell the media I did it.
Wrong. These conspirators are the dumbest, most bungling bunch that could ever be imagined. 9/11 is pretty much as evident an inside job as can be reasonably expected. The calling card of the Bush admin is all over it. The PNAC doc is a prime example of such stupidity. People's dismissal of it is a prime example of why such stupidity can persist.
Wrong. The PNAC document is a prime example of a political position paper, written to advance a point and to embarass a sitting president, Clinton. Your characterization of it as a bungle, and your characterization of its authors as stupid is a simple
ad hom,
post hoc relative to 9-11, that has no basis, nor support. That doesn't make PNAC's position, nor its strategy right. It does make your assertion unsupported.
Gravy said:
What is the main thrust of the PNAC plan for military transformation? A nationwide missile defense shield, and dominance of outer-space for offensive and defensive purposes. That's right: "Star Wars."
I'm sorry, but this is only true with pretty slack reading of the document. The main thrust if their plan is outlines clearly in the "Key Finding" section at the start. I do not take too much stock in the total execution of these strategies, since they are reflective of execution rather than design, but I do want to go through them, since they do reflect quite accurately, the current "War on Terror"
PNAC snipet said:
ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for U.S. military forces:
• defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
This is a direct slam on the Clinton era retreat from "handle two MRC's and go to a "win hold win" strategy, since it was cheaper. (MRC = Major Regional Contingency: see Korea and Persian Gulf for one each, with Southeastern Turkey and Europe as less likely, but still big, MRC's.)
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in
critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;”
The RMA was all about the Silver Bullet idiots trying to wish away the human element in war, and to kill off the tank as an American prime weapons system, while the
Critical Regions was a reference to idiot missions like Somalia and FWIW, Bosnia, as nation building exercises. The constabulary duties are explicitly NOT peacekeeping duties. I was inside the belly of the beast when that issue was being kicked around in the mid 1990's.
To carry out these core missions, we need to provide sufficient force and budgetary
allocations.
A direct slam on Clinton's consistent budget cuts, which was creating a cracked to hollow force, due to how it mangled the manpower angle, and
kept driving up unit costs in critical programs like C-17, LPD-17, and Comanche by cutting the production runs.
So, let's look at these budgetary allocations. From 2001 to 2003, the defense budget increased by 33%- an unprecedented amount. This increase was pursued almost exclusively under the aegis of the War on Terror, which of course, is pursued under the aegis of the new PH.
1. Try the 1982-1984 Reagan era defense budget increases. Also, during 2001-2003, 9-11 happened and a whole bunch of unprogrammed increases showed up in support of the Afghanistan Operation. You presume that the intention was that from all along, but I will counter with the insider dope that in early 2000, and based on directives from the CNO as recently as 2004, the Rummy Plan before 9-11 was To Cut The Force Yet Again and focus on toys.
9-11 interrupted the RMA.
Read that again.
New toys bought, yes, manpower accounts reduced, YES. 8 CVBG's, down from 12, Crusader gone, and all that RMA bullspit that I won't go into here. Here we were, in a shooting war, up tempo CVBG deployments, and the CNO is being told to cut from 12 to 8 CVBG's. Pilot manpower was being cut, during a shooting war. Unprecedented, eh? I'll add "stupid," while I am at it.
In particular, the United States must: MAINTAIN NUCLEAR STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY, basing the U.S. nuclear deterrent upon a global, nuclear net assessment that weighs the full range of current and emerging threats, not merely the U.S.-Russia balance.
1982 said:
This was again, pursued via the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which states explicity the need for pursuing this in the new uncertain, post 9/11 world in which we live. Indeed:
Duh, recycled post-Cold-War-Multi-Polar-World-Rhetoric.
:
The second leg of the New Triad requires development and deployment of both active and passive defenses--a recognition that offensive capabilities alone may not deter aggression in the new security environment of the 21st century.
This was obvious before Bush took office, and was an extension of the BMDO's efforts throughout the 1990's to counter the theater, tactical and strategic Ballistic Missile threat thanks to Scud's in 1991 exposing a chink in our armor. I worked some BMD projects in NATO, mid 1990's, and can tell you that this passage is consistent with recognizing that the MAD policy and the two party MAD policies were completely untenable in a multi polar world. Even Clinton saw this.
The events of September 11, 2001 underscore this reality.
Not sure what you mean by that.
RESTORE THE PERSONNEL STRENGTH of today’s force to roughly the levels anticipated in
the “Base Force” outlined by the Bush Administration, an increase in active-duty strength
from 1.4 million to 1.6 million.
Given the American government's choice during Clinton's years not to withdraw from global events, but to stay "forward engaged" the PNAC guys recognized what those of us in the military saw the OPTEMPO doing to people: if you want to be deploying a lot, you have to pay for it. That means man to those levels.
This is not rocket science.
This number is increasing, from 1.41million to 1.43. This is a small change, but to add even 10,000 troops costs $1.2 bn, according to Richard Myers (would love to be posting URLs here btw)
Yeah. Of course, since Rummy took over, they were doing manpower cuts during a war, 2003-2004, in the Navy among other places.
REPOSITION U.S. FORCES to respond to 21st century strategic realities by shifting
permanently-based forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia, and by changing naval
deployment patterns to reflect growing U.S. strategic concerns in East Asia.
Again done via the 2002 Global Posture Review
This is rational, given that the pile of troops in Europe were hardly needed. Bring them home, or keep them over seas closer to where they might fight. The latter was chosen, due to how long it takes to deploy from CONUS if you don't fund a massive increase in strateic lift,
which neither Bush nor Clinton has done.
MODERNIZE CURRENT U.S. FORCES SELECTIVELY, proceeding with the F-22 program while
increasing purchases of lift, electronic support and other aircraft; expanding submarine
and surface combatant fleets; purchasing Comanche helicopters and medium-weight
ground vehicles for the Army, and the V-22 Osprey “tilt-rotor” aircraft for the Marine
Corps.
The Surface fleet has SHRUNK to below 300 ships since PNAC was written. The sub fleet has SHRUNK since 1998. Comanche is dead. Stryker is made, and V-22 survived. F-22 is alive and well, FWIW.
All done, I believe, save the Comanches
Nope.
CANCEL “ROADBLOCK” PROGRAMS such as the Joint Strike Fighter, CVX aircraft carrier,
and Crusader howitzer system that would absorb exorbitant amounts of Pentagon funding
while providing limited improvements to current capabilities. Savings from these canceled
programs should be used to spur the process of military transformation.
Not sure about the JSF, but done for the Crusader.
Crusader is dead, JSF is ALIVE AND WELL, and CVX, or at least CV follow on to the Nimitz class, is still around. DDX is running into trouble, again.
Quote:
DEVELOP AND DEPLOY GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSES to defend the American homeland and
American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world.
This was relaunched in 2002, and the Star Wars type systems are indeed being pursued, with the UK mooted as a possible base.
This program has been in place since mid 1990's, all Bush did was add funding, and keep it from dying as Comanche did.
CONTROL THE NEW “INTERNATIONAL COMMONS” OF SPACE AND “CYBERSPACE,” and pave
the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of
space control.
This has been done- check the “National Space Policy”, and the “National Strategy for Securing Cyberspace”.
These policies were not new, friend, and if you bother to check the professional literature of the mid and late 1990's, you will find that a lot of profound thought went into Network Warfare, Cyberwarfare, and Space Policy under Clinton's watch. I couldn't escape the never ending stream of rhetoric on the topic. I even got to brief a flag officer on how vulnerable his HQ was to an EMP weapon delivered by a large motor boat.
Note that these sorts of policies would have been very hard to justify without the WOT as theor pretext.
Where do you derive this from conclusion from? The RMA predates Bush arriving in DC, and all of this stuff was in work during the mid 1990's. You demonstrate that you don't know what you are talking about. You can't justify BMD with GWOT, you justify it due to Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, China, ETC,
all having ICBM's, and none of them being in the ABM treaty.
EXPLOIT THE “REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS” to insure the long-term superiority of
U.S. conventional forces. Establish a two-stage transformation process which maximizes the value of current weapons systems through the application of advanced technologies, and,
produces more profound improvements in military capabilities, encourages competition
between single services and joint-service experimentation efforts.
I think this has been dealt with above
Except that you don't seem to know what it means, nor its context. The RMA was the most over used soundbyte in DC that mean't "do more with less and rely on silver bullets and tech to solve your problems, we are shrinking the force." This crap was alive and well in the late 1990's, within the Clinton Defense Department. All Rummy did was make it more intense, and spend more on some of it, and then fight a war on the cheap while he was trying to cut the manpower bill.
INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING gradually to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross
domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.
A reaction to the over reductions of Clinton which came along side a threefold increase in deployments, Optempo, among reserves and the Operating Forces between 1993 and 1999.
Done, as intimated above, to the tune of ~$130bn from 01-03.
Partly in response to a war.
Gravy said:
That type of technology would not have stopped the attacks of 9/11. So what about those low-tech terrorists that we're at war with now? "Rebuilding America's Defenses"
Sorry, who are we at war with again?
Afghan and Iraqi Anti Coalition Forces, and whoever else BushCo can tag as "a terrorist."
In case you hadn’t realized, the War on Terror is not in fact a war on terror. Not even the Bush admin would be so stupid as to try and vanquish an abstract noun. Nor is it a War on Terrorism. A quick look at the massive terrorists being granted asylum by the US- Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Carlos Sanchez Berzain to name a few- debunks this idea. I don’t think that such a notion is intended to be taken seriously by serious people.
Don't find much to disagree with there.
The WOT is, as illustrated above, what was once called the “Rebuilding (of) America’s Defenses”, i.e. a serious of radical military measures aimed at furthering US hegemony.
No, the WOT is a response to 9-11, and thirty years of failed policy
vis a vis terrorists. Rebuilding America's defenses was a
peacetime strategy to recapitalize parts of the US Defense capability along Silver Bullet Lines. I spent enough time on flag officer staffs, and dealing with the effects of Silver Bullet thinking from 1995-2005 to see what was really going on, thanks, from the inside.
Now, if you wanted to increase defense spending in the areas that the PNAC recommends, what is the LAST thing you'd want to do? Answer: get involved in a ground war and subsequent occupation of a country where many citizens are fighting a guerilla-style campaign against you and against each other with AK-47s, RPGs, and IEDs made from cell phones and 10,000 tons of old artillery shells.As I am writing this, on May 6, 2006, the news has come on: 3 car bombs have gone off in Baghdad and one in Karbala, killing at least 30 Iraqis, including 10 soldiers, and several Italian and Romanian troops. In Basra, a British helicopter was shot down, killing its five crew members, and rescuers were bombarded with fire bombs and rocks. They opened fire on the rioting crowd, killing 4 Iraqis, including a child, and wounding 30. Yesterday, Porter Goss, the incompetent CIA chief, was forced to resign.
The fact that such spending and policies are indeed being justified by 9/11 simply makes the case all the more stark that 9/11 is being used as a pretext for military radicalisation, as outlined in RAD, no matter how incongruously. Such spending and programs have been launched, with the WOT as its aegis.
A response to a change in METT-T, on a strategic level, and certainly the taking of an opportunity to use emotional leverage from reaction to 9-11. THAT DOES NOT MAKE 9-11 an Inside Job, it makes it An Excuse.
The fact that these programs aren’t not being pursued, with more anti-terror policies in their stead- border control, more police, perhaps, again makes clear that the new PH was to be used as the catalyst for the rebuilding of america’s defenses, no matter what the disconnect.
You aren't even coherent here. The rebuilding of America's defenses was a counter to Clinton's dismantling them, the WoT is Using America's Military capability to do something. (Good or bad) The US Military Capability is being
used and eroded, NOT BUILT UP!
Gravy said:
The disaster in Iraq is the opposite of what the PNAC would want to happen to help effect the military transformation they desired in 2000. So why did those same people lie to us and use fear of terrorism as a pretext to invade Iraq? Because they thought replacing Saddam Hussein would be easy. They didn't listen to the generals, they ignored the intelligence reports, and they expected to be greeted with open arms by the Iraqi people after ousting Hussein. These are the people the CTists think are so clever that they can hide a massive conspiracy. They're the same neo-cons who are under investigation for their petty revenge against Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. They couldn't even handle THAT without screwing up.
1982 said:
PNAC wanted, with regards to Iraq 2 things- a permanent military base there (done), and Saddam overthrown with US control over oil (done). The rest isn’t so important. It is essential to realise that the war in Iraq is merely one in a lattice of policies forming the WOT. Almost everything laid out in the key findings has been pursued with 911 as the catalyst.
Where, in PNAC, does it say "Bases in Iraq?" We already had bases in
Saudi
Kuwait
UAE
Qatar
Bahrain
Oman
There we have several very confident, matter-of-fact statements about what how the U.S. should impose its military presence on the Mid East. So we established bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to protect our oil interests. But we failed to defend New York and Washington, D.C. against terrorists who were furious at the fact that we had bases in their back yard, and who declared a Jihad against the U.S. because of it.
Again, I’m sorry, but this just betrays a gross misunderstanding of the document. It is stating that we need a new PH- a mass terror attack on US soil, ingrained on the public’s consciousness- in order to catalyse hegemonic aims. Not that we need to prevent a new PH ever happening- this is in fact the opposite of what is said.
More
post hoc rubbish. PNAC's paper isn't saying that, in 1998.
You are saying it post 9-11. What PNAC analyzed was how hard it was to get Americans behind a foreign war, particularly with Viet Nam as a marker.
1. The doc states that the myriad of transformations needs to happen within one framework, i.e. under one banner. This is, clearly, the WOT. You think this is just a big coincidence not worth investigating?
No, it was clearly the RMA, in 1998, your
post hoc rubbish inserts WOT for RMA.
2. The doc also states that the defense policies it outlines need to be crystalised in the president’s mind by October 2001; the time of the QDR, thus implying that a new PH might have to happen by this date. Again, coincidence? I hope you would not think not.
Sorry, again no, Oct 2001 begins the First Budget Cycle in Peacetime that the Pres has as his own to shape the FYDP. His FY 2001 budget was written BY CLINTON. The FY2002 budget was his first.
Sorry about the length, but I hope you can appreciate the focus.
I don't disagree with some of your critiques of the policy, but your assumptions are neither necessary, nor valid, nor are they grounded in the context and time of the paper's writing. You also mistake analysis for statement of intent.
DR
Edited by chillzero:
Merged in from AAH thread
