The Rummy Memo

[Abdul Alhazred]

From James Lileks' The Bleat:

Thr Rummy Memo

sample

The Rummy memo flap is depressing on a number of levels. Oh, in one respect, it’s heartening; you could take it to mean "okay, we’ve conquered Afghanistan and Iraq; is there anything else we should be doing? - a sentiment which would have seemed quite reassuring to some after 9/11. (And horrifying to others, who hoped that having been knocked flat by a sucker punch, we would crawl back to our corner, spit into the bucket, and request permission from the French and German judges to declare the bout a draw.) It’s not an "admission of failure," as Daschle put it - hell, the administration could put Osama’s head on a stick in the Rose Garden, and Daschle would call it an admission of failure that they hadn’t located the torso.

<blockquote>
For you non-USA folks -- Tom Daschle is the senate minority leader, Democrat from South Dakota.
</blockquote>

I think Lileks is right about this.

Please click the link and read the first section excerpted above before replying. Then let us contend.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

From James Lileks' The Bleat:

Thr Rummy Memo



<blockquote>
For you non-USA folks -- Tom Daschle is the senate minority leader, Democrat from South Dakota.
</blockquote>

I think Lileks is right about tihs.

Please click the link and read the first section excerpted above before replying. Then let us contend.

Fix your link and I'll think about it.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

Re: Re: The Rummy Memo

Fix your link and I'll think about it.

Beg pardon. Fixed. Click again on the link on the first post.

The snippet is just a teaser, so there's nothing to dicuss without the link.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Well, Lileks says that something needs to be done urgently, but not what. And this is the problem. It seems, by implication in Likeks's case, and outright in Rumsfeld's case, that no-one realises what sort of 'war' they're up against. Lileks's comparison to the US reaction against Japan in 1941 is interesting. That war was a war against a nation, with a specific geographical boundary. It was easy, once the problem was identified, to create a solution: build a big army and blow the hell out of it.

The US has used this method of combat pretty much unchanged ever since. Vietnam should have been a warning that this method was not going to work forever, but the warning wasn't heeded. Probably because too much of a paradigm shift was called for in America's leadership- on military as well as government levels.

Now we have the 'war on terror'. Here's an interesting statement in Rumsfeld's memo:

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Rumsfeld has a short memory. The US killed many more Vietnamese for every US soldier lost. Yet they still had to pull out of Vietnam. The lesson should have been, you cannot quantify progress in a war. Just because you are killing doesn't mean you are winning, especially if your enemy only becomes more resentful with every death.

This rational thinking is also letting the US down in the war on terror. The first thing Bush did when the smoke died down after 9-11 was target a country. He didn't seem to realise (or rather, his advisors didn't seem to realise: there's a lot Bush doesn't seem to realise) that terrorists don't stick to geographic boundaries. They don't wear uniforms, they don't have 'headquarters', they don't use factories or ammo dumps. You cannot conduct a war against 'terror' like you conduct a war against another country. But Bush's administration didn't seem to understand that. It was a case of, "We're hit! Which country do we go after?"

This is why I'm not really with Lileks. We know something needs to be done, and urgently, but what, or how? How can you do something in 16 months when there is no real precedent for it?

 

[Gem]

I agree Mr. Manifesto. This can't be quantified.

First off, we aren't fight terror, as this is a tactic. It's like saying "War against Death" or "War against Poverty." You can't fight a phenomena of human nature. You can try to kill fewer people, make the poor richer, but you can't totally eradicate it like an Iraqi tank going up against M1A1 Abrams in open terrain.

What the USA is really fighting are organizations that use terror tactics against the USA and its allies. The problem is that there are no fronts with a traceable line like in previous wars. This is also what happened in Viet Nam, there was no front line. (In fact, during the Tet offensive, the army's moral was high, because they KNEW what they were doing, they had objectives, etc.) They then proceeded to pulverize the attacking force.

I don't want to sound crazy by drawing comparisons between the WoT and Nam, but I will to make my point. The War on Terror has a very hard time making distinction between ally and foe. How do you know this man is not strapped with bombs and ready to blow himself up when his car stops next to you at the checkpoint? Viet Nam had the same thing, as the US soldiers couldn't always figure out ally from foe. Unlike the Iraqi tank in the open desert, you KNOW it's the enemy. This is why the Gulf War 2 took only one month, because the USA is expert in mobile warfare.

And sometimes even your so called allies don't help much. Saudi Arabia, anyone? Or the Malaysian leader talking about a Jewish conspiracy, calling not for violence, but economic/political pressures. The whole russian/chenya (is that how it's spelled?) affair. Before 9/11, the US was critical of the Russian army's tactics. Now they're being put in the "Fighting Terrorists" list.

You're not lacking a yard stick, you're lacking an effective doctorine of fighting terrorism, and I haven't seen one yet.

Gem

 

[dsm]

Why is a John Lennon song playing in the back of my mind:

All we are saying is give peace a chance...

 

[aerocontrols]

I agree Mr. Manifesto. This can't be quantified.

First off, we aren't fight terror, as this is a tactic. It's like saying "War against Death" or "War against Poverty." You can't fight a phenomena of human nature. You can try to kill fewer people, make the poor richer, but you can't totally eradicate it like an Iraqi tank going up against M1A1 Abrams in open terrain.

Piracy on the high seas was a tactic. It's not a serious threat anymore, because certain nations of the world first repudiated it, then went after the states that supported pirates, and finally developed a workable approach to ensure that it stayed rare.

Tactics can be fought.

MattJ

 

[Gem]

Piracy on the high seas was a tactic. It's not a serious threat anymore, because certain nations of the world first repudiated it, then went after the states that supported pirates, and finally developed a workable approach to ensure that it stayed rare.

Tactics can be fought.

Good point there.

I'm just curious as to why certain countries would support pirates. It doesn't send any political message that suicide bombing does.

Gem

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

Good point there.

I'm just curious as to why certain countries would support pirates. It doesn't send any political message that suicide bombing does.

Gem

Back in the day, if supported by a government, it wasn't piracy, it was privateering.

The point of either was booty.

Being a privateer was more desirable than being a pirate because one could sell one's booty at a civilized port. As it was considered then.

There was no "point". That was just the system.

To Mr. Manifesto: You have made many interesting points. I will need some time to think before answering. But I will answer. Patience.

 

[aerocontrols]

Good point there.

I'm just curious as to why certain countries would support pirates. It doesn't send any political message that suicide bombing does.

Gem

The English hired privateers to assault the Spanish, or the French, and vice versa. Supporting pirates (privateers) was about weakening an enemy for the European states. Eventually, European states repudiated the practice.

The death-knell of piracy was the Barbary Wars, when the brand-new nation of the United States found its ships no longer under the protection of the British flag. (Or the French, whose protection we relied on during the revolutionary war) Most European states bribed and threatened the Barbary pirates to leave them alone.

Eventually, as a result of several 'Wars on Piracy', (my term) the Barbary Coast states were forced to give up the practice. Nowadays there is almost no state sponsorship of piracy, and its a lot less common than it used to be.

If a War on Terrorism can reduce terrorism as much as piracy was reduced, it would be a phenomenal success.

MattJ

 

[a_unique_person]

Piracy on the high seas was a tactic. It's not a serious threat anymore, because certain nations of the world first repudiated it, then went after the states that supported pirates, and finally developed a workable approach to ensure that it stayed rare.

Tactics can be fought.

MattJ

Piracy on the high seas is still a very serious issue.

 

[aerocontrols]

Piracy on the high seas is still a very serious issue.

Hi, AUP:

Are you going to answer my questions this time?

MattJ

 

[a_unique_person]

Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I think you are not aware of the issue in Asia, paricularly off the coasts of countries like the Phillipines, (the "Muslim" rebels who have been much in the news lately are also pirates), China and Indonesia. These countries have ineffective police forces and high level corruption. Whole ships are stolen, even oil tankers.

 

[aerocontrols]

Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I think you are not aware of the issue in Asia, paricularly off the coasts of countries like the Phillipines, (the "Muslim" rebels who have been much in the news lately are also pirates), China and Indonesia. These countries have ineffective police forces and high level corruption. Whole ships are stolen, even oil tankers.

Actually, I am aware. It's not only north of Australia that has a problem, there is also piracy going on in Africa. In your area of the world, ships go hundreds of miles out of their way just to make sure that they remain within range of the US Navy. Despite this, the vast majority of shipping in the world never gets near a pirate vessel that can threaten it.

Once upon a time, however, every ship that sailed out of sight of land had to be armed to the teeth, and many of these would turn to piracy if they located a tempting target. In short, it would be fantastic if we could reduce terrorism as much as piracy has been reduced. (yeah, I know... I keep saying it, you're going to keep ignoring it.)

Your refusal to answer my questions and instead insinuate that I am ignorant of the facts is noted.

MattJ

 

[a_unique_person]

Your refusal to answer my questions and instead insinuate that I am ignorant of the facts is noted.

MattJ

I would not try to insinuate you are ignorant. Ignorance for me is those people in the Kyrgyzstan thread. I just didn't know if you were aware of this situation to our north.

 

[c0rbin]

Tactics can be fought.

One must work smarter, not always harder.

 

[aerocontrols]

I would not try to insinuate you are ignorant. Ignorance for me is those people in the Kyrgyzstan thread. I just didn't know if you were aware of this situation to our north.

You didn't ask me if I was aware. You insinuated that I was not. For those with difficulty reading, the particular words were

I think you are not aware

Your further avoidance of the issue of the effectiveness of the various wars on piracy is amusing. Will you reply yet again without addressing it?

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Why is a John Lennon song playing in the back of my mind:

All we are saying is give peace a chance...

(click pic for link)

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

Well, Lileks says that something needs to be done urgently, but not what. And this is the problem. It seems, by implication in Likeks's case, and outright in Rumsfeld's case, that no-one realises what sort of 'war' they're up against. Lileks's comparison to the US reaction against Japan in 1941 is interesting. That war was a war against a nation, with a specific geographical boundary. It was easy, once the problem was identified, to create a solution: build a big army and blow the hell out of it.

I agree with you that 1941 is an inept analogy. Hawaii wasn't even a part of the USA proper at the time, for one thing. Now we're talking about New York City and Washington DC.

The US has used this method of combat pretty much unchanged ever since. Vietnam should have been a warning that this method was not going to work forever, but the warning wasn't heeded. Probably because too much of a paradigm shift was called for in America's leadership- on military as well as government levels.

Now we have the 'war on terror'. Here's an interesting statement in Rumsfeld's memo:

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuadiing more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Rumsfeld has a short memory. The US killed many more Vietnamese for every US soldier lost. Yet they still had to pull out of Vietnam. The lesson should have been, you cannot quantify progress in a war. Just because you are killing doesn't mean you are winning, especially if your enemy only becomes more resentful with every death.

Viet Nam was a 'quagmire' the pundits say. But it was just as long a war for the winners as for the losers. And who really won that war? Certainly not the USA, but Viet Nam's main source of revenue is hiring out slave labor to international capitalists.

As for casualties, in this war there were more American casualties in the "9-11" massacre than in the ensuing fighting. I say "the ensuing fighting" rather than "the war", because the war was already on before that day, we just didn't all know it.

The bad guys had already been killing us for a while, but fools that we were, we didn't treat it as if it were a war.

This rational thinking is also letting the US down in the war on terror. The first thing Bush did when the smoke died down after 9-11 was target a country. He didn't seem to realise (or rather, his advisors didn't seem to realise: there's a lot Bush doesn't seem to realise) that terrorists don't stick to geographic boundaries. They don't wear uniforms, they don't have 'headquarters', they don't use factories or ammo dumps. You cannot conduct a war against 'terror' like you conduct a war against another country. But Bush's administration didn't seem to understand that. It was a case of, "We're hit! Which country do we go after?"

Nevertheless, Afghanistan and Iraq were good targets under the circumstances. Who do we go after next and will GWB make the right decision?

Of course, I don't know. I'd like to see him go after Saudi Arabia, but that doesn't seem likely.

This is why I'm not really with Lileks. We know something needs to be done, and urgently, but what, or how? How can you do something in 16 months when there is no real precedent for it?

OK, after all that, I have a question for you.

What would you have us do?