Let's remember who fought and died in Iraq this Memorial Day, but also the wisdom and judgment ignored by those who set those men and women up for this needless dying and destruction.
The Weinberger Doctrine
In a classic speech on Nov. 28, 1984, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger declared six major tests to be applied when considering the use of US combat forces abroad. This prudent doctrine, developed after Vietnam, was followed by Bush 41 in the prosecution of the 1991 Gulf War. It was totally ignored by George W. Bush and his neoconservative handlers in the prosecution of his disastrous Iraqi adventure.
1. The United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.
2. If we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. ...
3. If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. ...
4. The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed- their size, composition, and disposition- must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then so must our combat requirements. ...
5. Before the US commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. ... We cannot fight a battle with the Congress at home while asking our troops to win a war overseas, or, as in the case of Vietnam, in effect asking our troops not to win, but just to be there.
6. The commitment of US forces to combat should be a last resort.
Good points, B'Michael. But that is soooooo pre-9/11 thinking!!
/snark/
Too bad Bush doesnt think a single one of those apply to him.
Posted by: sparky | May 27, 2006 at 02:26 PM
Interesting. I haven't seen that before. I bet Shrub thinks he followed all those rules . . .
the people were behind him at first thanks to subservient mainstream media; Rumsfeld thought he had enough troops - silly man; clear objective? - to win; vital interest? wmd's (aka oil), not to mention the late-blooming "regime change;" What could be clearer?!
Posted by: joanie | May 27, 2006 at 03:00 PM
Funny how the Bushies managed to stand this conservative Republican doctrine on its head.
Posted by: Unkl Witz | May 27, 2006 at 07:25 PM
What's also funny is how many of you people were slamming this selfsame doctrine during the Reagan and Bush Sr presidencies. Today you see how wise it is, and you pretend that you grasped its wisdom back then. I'm glad you have come to your senses, but I'm sorry it had to take the foolish actions of this basket case of a president to bring you to the light.
Posted by: Oly | May 27, 2006 at 11:17 PM
How does commending a list of conditions automatically justify all wars? I was not in favor of the Gulf War because Kuwait was illegally draining off Iraqi oil . . . I thought that was an incident to be worked out between the two countries and the Kuwaitis (sp?) might have been more willing to negotiate with Saddam if we had stayed out of the fray. But, again, our politics is determined by our oil-rich friends. Also, April Glasby (?? if I remember correctly) gave Saddam the go ahead to do it. . .
I think you need to go back and get the facts.
Posted by: joanie | May 27, 2006 at 11:39 PM
Caspar the friendly ghost,
he couldn't be bad or mean.
He'll romp and play,
sing and dance all day,
the friendliest ghost you've seen.
Posted by: Lazy Murrow | May 28, 2006 at 03:18 AM
Joanie asks "How does commending a list of conditions automatically justify all wars?"
My reply is that it doesn't do anything of the sort. But it did justify the first Gulf War. A persuasive case was made that our economy's reliance on oil, and the fact that a regime controlling all the oil of two - and potentially three - of the largest producers on the planet (for such was our justifiable fear that Saddam would go on to seize the oilfields of northeaster Saudi Arabia, as he would have been capable of doing had we not intervened) ensured that an armed response would meet that key first condition.
Our present situation in Iraq, however, doesn't come within a million miles of qualifying for legitimacy under the conditions of the so-called Weinberger Doctrine.
Posted by: Oly | May 28, 2006 at 09:59 AM
I guess "oil" justifies all. Were you against this war from the beginnning? Since Iraq is sitting on the biggest oil fields in the Middle East, what's the difference? Had Kuwait not been stealing Iraqi oil, it wouldn't have been an issue between them.
Saddam knew very well the US would not allow such a take-over of oil fields which is why he ran it past Glasby to begin with. But, the Gulf War was more or less successful . . . so it seems to have fit your criteria. And we certainly gained the added benefit of eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. That was a good thing.
I agree that the Iraq War is a mess.
Posted by: joanie | May 28, 2006 at 11:41 AM
Oly, I'm listening to James Carroll who has written HOUSE OF WAR and he just commented about the first Iraq war saying that Sec'y of Defense Cheney wanted it but that Powell, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff - the generals - was against it. Powell thought Saddam could be contained by other means. So, we now have two wars dictated by the same man . . . interesting, isn't it?
Thanks goodness, Bush Sr. listened to better advisors - Scowcroft? - and did not go on into Baghdad.
Posted by: joanie | May 28, 2006 at 02:15 PM
Sorry to hear that two of three of a CBS news crew were killed in Iraq this morning...more waste of lives, more families who will never be the same...
Posted by: sparky | May 29, 2006 at 09:54 AM
I'm surprised CBS still has a presence there. I heard most media was out of there because it was so dangerous.
Posted by: joanie | May 29, 2006 at 11:16 AM
"Saddam knew very well the U.S. would not allow such a takeover of oil fields..."
What could we have done if he had gone ahead and conquered the entire Arabian Peninsula in the fall of 1990? Our military options - particularly the deployment of ground forces - would have been pretty limited, as the only decent staging areas would have been Turkey (the southeast of which is very mountainous and not suitable for the large-scale use of tanks) and the landing ships of the Fifth Fleet.
To answer your question about my opposition to the present campaign, Joanie, I opposed it as it was presented to us by the Bushies - as part of our wider war against Al Qaeda. We did not respond to Pearl Harbor, after all, by invading Bolivia. Iraq was an irrelevancy. Nor was Baathist control of Saudi oil - or Kuwaiti oil, or UAE oil - at stake this time.
Posted by: Oly | May 29, 2006 at 12:41 PM
Still, you do not give credit to Powell's resistance to the first Gulf war? Is it possible he knew of the concerns you raise and still thought war should not be the first resort? We are so at the mercy of media . . . Saddam knew he could never oppose our will. That's why he ran it by Glasby at the beginning. He thought he got a go ahead.
I respect your knowledge of troop limitations and ground strategy but think you give Saddam way too much credit . . .
WE are the superpower, Saddam knew our capabilities. It is a stretch to think he could take over all Middle East oil fields or that we would let him.
Also, you neglect to comment on the fact that Kuwait was stealing his oil . . . what was there in his actions that made you think his goal was more than stopping that theft? Did you know Kuwait was stealing oil?
Posted by: joanie | May 29, 2006 at 01:21 PM
Iraq could have taken Saudi Arabia after a brief stop in Kuwait; our military brass were wondering why he didn't. Once in Saudi, he could have negotiated the slant drilling issue along with the war debt he owed Saudi and Kuwait from the Iran conflict.
Posted by: Mark | May 29, 2006 at 06:58 PM
Mark says: "Iraq could have taken Saudi Arabia after a brief stop in Kuwait; our military brass were wondering why he didn't."
The question is what WE could have done differently. War was not the only answer. (see above)
Regarding "our military brass wondering why he didn't" - what military brass? Isn't Powell "military brass?" Why would military brass wonder about something that he didn't have the opportunity to do? I don't get that.
Lot of what ifs in your post. . . You must know something that Powell didn't know - share it with us because I am curious. Thanks.
Posted by: joanie | May 29, 2006 at 09:12 PM
"The Weinberger Doctrine"
Hey, it was fun while it lasted!
Posted by: Will | May 29, 2006 at 10:59 PM
Regardless of Kuwaiti perfidy, either actual or alleged, prior to August 1990, Saddam could not have been allowed to control that much oil.
As Mark points out, Saddam owed both the Kuwaitis and the Saudis very big bucks for loans they made to him during his war with Iran. Why would a guy with his well-known mix of pathologies have held back from liquidating those debts with invasions of both countries? (He was happy enough to initiate that war with Iran by attempting to conquer and annex the oil-rich Iranian southwest, so the idea of naked conquest was not one he had ever shrunk from.) I am not persuaded that he would have been terribly worried about our possible response to an Iraqi sweep into Saudi, as his blithe refusal to withdraw from Kuwait in the face of our open buildup in the region between September '90 and January '91 would seem to have demonstrated a certain measure of confidence. He had enough sense - barely - to recognize the difficulties we would have faced in moving a huge, armor-heavy field army to southeastern Turkey, and he knew that until that army was in place, the imposition of "our will" would have been limited either to air strikes - which, again, Saddam manifestly demonstrated didn't offer adequate deterrent value - or to threats, or to negotiations of some sort. And as attempting to negotiate with a cold-blooded totalitarian who is operating from a position of strength is practically by definition an exercise in gross futility, I would suggest that there was no viable non-military solution to that problem.
Exactly what "other means" did Gen. Powell envision as being preferable to the route we took? He was purely a military man at the time, not a diplomat; hence his advice to the administration would have been - or at least ought to have been - limited to the military sphere. Did he counsel an attempt at a diplomatic solution? He would have been overstepping his bounds if he had.
Posted by: Oly | May 29, 2006 at 11:05 PM
I love your reasoning. If someone - a military man especially - suggests something other than all-out war, he's overstepping his bounds! (LOL) Yeah, that's exactly the kind of reasoning that works with this administration!
Sorry to be so cruel! But, do you realize what you just said?
Well, in both wars, the politician (Cheney) got his way so I guess whether it was the only way or not is a moot point. (Still laughing, sorry!)
Posted by: joanie | May 29, 2006 at 11:21 PM
There's an editorial in the NY Times regarding legislation that could change the way the internet works entirely, basically privatizing it. If you have to register to get it, do it. The NY Times is worth the registration hassle and they are user-friendly.
"Why the Democratic Ethic of the World Wide Web May Be About to End"
". . . Last year, the chief executive of what is now AT&T sent shock waves through cyberspace when he asked why Web sites should be able to "use my pipes free." Internet service providers would like to be able to charge Web sites for access to their customers. Web sites that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.
A tiered Internet poses a threat at many levels. Service providers could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics they dislike. Even if they did not discriminate on the basis of content, access fees would automatically marginalize smaller, poorer Web sites."
This is so important that Robert Reich has been traveling around talking about it. Corporations have a very slick campaign going on under the radar screen.
Posted by: joanie | May 29, 2006 at 11:57 PM
Not to belabor the point, but the job of a military advisor is to give military advice. It is not to give political advice, or diplomatic advice, or advice on the president's golf swing. It really is not a Joint Chiefs chairman's place to suggest that we negotiate with a foreign leader instead of make war on him, any more than it is the place of the Undersecretary of State for Stretch Limo Maintenance to suggest the proper method for cleaning out an insurgent nest in Fallujah. The Joint Chiefs are there to tell the president what his military options are, and which of those options can be accomplished with the available resources.
That may not strike you as a proper utilization of an advisory team, but it is the norm in DC and has been so for ages.
Posted by: Oly | May 30, 2006 at 10:48 PM
Sorry, I think war is more than politics. Apparently, Powell thought his status allowed him some insight and wasn't afraid to share it. Hopefully, he knows the protocol. So, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Posted by: joanie | May 30, 2006 at 11:24 PM
BTW, Oly, your other examples are nonsense and do nothing to further your argument. Better had you left them out. :)
Posted by: joanie | May 31, 2006 at 12:07 AM
Joanie, I'm not sure what you mean by my "other examples". I do prefer my nonsense to be pointed out to me in greater detail. Please do me the favor.
Posted by: Oly | May 31, 2006 at 05:47 PM
". . . advice on the president's golf swing."
". . . Undersecretary of State for Stretch Limo Maintenance to suggest the proper method for cleaning out an insurgent nest in Fallujah."
Nonsense.
Posted by: joanie | May 31, 2006 at 06:11 PM
Ahh, so you are not familiar with the ancient rhetorical device of employing sardonic metaphors to punctuate a point. In other words, you are one of those people who take every word they read literally.
I will file that sad fact in the proper folder for future reference.
Posted by: Oly | June 01, 2006 at 06:51 AM
It's called sarcasm - pseudo intellectuality is beneath me. Sorry.
Posted by: joanie | June 01, 2006 at 08:03 AM