On the side, Chuck Spinney runs a great web site called Defense and the National Interest, which is -- or should be -- required reading for anyone who wants to try to penetrate the dense cloud of oily smoke (reeking of corruption) that the defense establishment tries to cloak itself in.
Chuck has a friend, another defense analyst with the pseudonymous title of Dr. Werther, who occasionally contributes essays to the DNI site, mostly dealing with matters of "grand strategy" -- the political, ideological and moral concepts that underpin (or should underpin) a nation's foreign policy.
Wow. Seven great points. None of these things will happen with Bush in office; I doubt some of them will ever happen. Still, a great look at the problem, and some great proposals. --Demetrios
1. Clean house at the Pentagon. We'll probably see Rumsfeld resign fairly soon. But he'll be replaced by a younger, dumber version of himself. Wolfowitz will either be "reassigned" to a position where he has basically the same duties, or, like Rumsfeld, will simply be replaced by a Heritage stand-in. Bush will have to ditch these guys soon; but there are young AEI and Heritage turks waiting in the wings. So the Bushies can do what Bushies do: say they fixed the problem when they just wrapped it up in shiny paper and put a bow on it.
2. Rescind the reconstruction contracts of Halliburton, Bechtel and the other corporate welfare clients. They can't do this; Dick Cheney's reason for being on this earth would cease to exist; he would simply disappear, leaving a huge problem with the space-time continuum that Bush would have to explain in a prime-time press conference. Again, there's the Bushie's old friend "redefining the problem." Simply change what you call the contracts. Call them "Victory Cheese." Say, "Any American who doesn't support Victory Cheese is objectively pro-Saddam."
3. Give GEN Sanchez an ultimatum: "Kill Saddam Hussein by 31 December 2003 or you are commanding a radar site on Adak." The Bushies get too much value from having the swarthy bogeymen alive and at-large. They lead by fear, so that the resolution of fear so soon before election day is antithetical to their strategy. Make the ultimatum "between 1 October and 31 October 2004" and you may have something.
4. Set a date of 31 December for withdrawal. Probably, at this point, the Bushies would love to have American troops out of Iraq by 31 December. What the hell were they thinking? (And I ask this question having followed this debate on a daily basis since they first started marketing Iraq, as I recall, in early 2002). They won't be able to, though; no one could. Having done the stoopid thing, we are locked in for a while. It's one of the realities of doing stoopid things; stoopid things are not forgiving, stoopid things don't understand when you want to change your mind. Besides, without American troops providing security for Halliburton and Bechtel, where will we find our Victory Cheese?
5. Repair the damage to our military personnel. Nice. But $10k for the enlisted and only "the thanks of a grateful Nation, suitable for framing" for the executives (generals)? Sounds great, but that's just not how Bushies work. Invert that pyramid, soldier!
6. Appoint a special prosecutor. If a Democratic president had done 1/250th of the stoopid things that Bush has done since he got into office, the Republicans would have impeached him by now, and I'd be cheering them on. It'll never happen to a Republican president with a Republican congress. Today's Republican office-holders don't actually care about the principles they claim to hold enough to make that kind of a move.
7. Begin the greatest untangling operation since Watergate. Well, something like what he describes goes on in blogland everyday. Historians will surely do it. But he wants Congress to do it. I doubt this will ever happen, no matter the party in power. However, his description of the nexus of power is chilling: the connection between the think tanks, their "defense" contractor contributors, public relations firms like Hill & Knowlton or the Benador Group, foreign agents of influence, and the Federal Government. In particular, the right- wing think tanks are empowered by the Bush presidency, and have provided much of the ideological (sic) basis for it. Republican congresscritters still (though perhaps not for long) dreaming of Bush coattails can't go after right-wing bread and butter.
But I do think the other items on Dr. Werther's list should be the absolute, non- negotiable demands of any Senator or Representative thinking about voting for Shrub's $87 billion bail out.
And if that fails, I think his suggestions should be one of the first pieces of paper laid on President Dean's desk after he takes office.
