The View from Right Field

Thoughts on Watching Gerald Ford's Funeral – Dick Cheney

One thing you have to like about Dick Cheney (or at least, one thing I like about Dick Cheney) is that it is pretty clear he just does not care what other people think (especially the self-appointed elite of the mainstream media). He is going to do and say what he thinks is right, and if they don’t like it, that’s their problem.

[Update (1/3/07):  Dick Cheney's comments on Gerald Ford and his pardon of Richard Nixon can be found here and here.]

– Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was the creation of his enemies. (See, inter alia, the Hiss case, the Checkers speech, and the fraud in the 1960 election.)

– George W. Bush

If you do not like George W. Bush, consider the fact that without the campaign finance laws we have, he would not be President. The requirements and difficulty of financing a race for President are such that it is very difficult to run unless you have name recognition and a ready source of funding. George W. Bush had both of these because of his father. Without them he would have never been considered a presidential candidate. With them, nobody, given the rules and restrictions that apply to running for President, had a chance to beat him for the Republican nomination. – – And no, the solution is not more laws. The solution is fewer restrictions so that more, and better, candidates can run.

Why Can't They Just Admit We Have Good Soldiers, We Need More of Them, and We Need to Pay Them More For What They Do?

An article in Monday’s Chicago Tribune presented all of the arguments, both practical and philosophical, against President Bush’s proposal to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. It was a well-done op-ed article – except that it appeared on the first page as a news article.

Because it was a news article, the authors could not explicitly state their own views. However, that does not mean it was not an argument against Bush’s proposals. It just means that instead of stating their opinions directly, the authors stated them through selective use of experts and studies.

Let’s look at their arguments. First, they quote the standard estimate that 10,000 more troops would cost $1.2 billion more a year, which is obviously considered hugely expensive since the article is entitled "Larger military a costly proposal." Of course, they do not compare that number to anything else, like the entire federal budget ($2.7 trillion for 2006), the Defense Department budget ($419 billion {probably more} for 2006) or even the City of Chicago’s budget ($5.7 billion for 2007).

Second, they claim that, according to the National Priorities Project, the number of new soldiers with high school degrees has dropped. Of course, they do not tell us that the National Priorities Project is an antiwar group. (To see what I mean, take a look at their website, which is here.) Also, the authors do not tell us that, while the percentage of enlistees with high school degrees is down, it is still higher than at other times in the past or that the percentage for those entering the military with a high school degree is higher than the average for that age group as a whole. (See here.)

Third, they quote the National Priorities Project again as saying that, based on a review of the zip codes from which recruits are coming, the economic disparity among those serving is growing. Even assuming this is true (they do not tell us, for example, about the number of recruits coming from the poorest zip codes), it is just as true that the wealthy are missing out on the benefits and honor of service. Just as the students at Oxford overwhelmingly stated, shortly before World War II, that they would not fight for King or country, maybe this says more about the wealthy than about those who do serve.

Fourth, the authors say that Charles Rangel has proposed a draft to address these economic disparity concerns. That is nonsense. Rangel is proposing a draft because he opposes to Iraq war, and he is hoping that, somehow, having a draft would increase opposition to the war.

Fifth, Charles Moskos, a military sociologist and professor emeritus from Northwestern University, is quoted as saying: "They call this an all-volunteer military. But in the United States we are paying people to die for us." We are also paying people to deliver the mail in weather bad enough most of us would rather stay inside and to teach in schools in neighborhoods most of us would never go. We pay people to fight fires for us and to protect us from crime, knowing that there is a statistical certainty some of them will die each year. Is Professor Moskos saying that we should not pay the people in the military? Are they supposed to do it for free? Was he willing to teach for free? The article does not say.

Sixth, Professor Moskos is also quoted as saying that a draft is cheaper than an all-volunteer military. Actually, it is not clear that, after considering all of the extra training costs and turnover involved with a large number of draftees serving for short periods of time, a draft would be less expensive than the all-volunteer army in terms of combat effectiveness per dollar.

But beyond that, I want to pay the people in the military. I do not want to force our soldiers to work for free or for wages so low that liberals would object if Wal-mart were paying them. The men and women in our military are good people serving honorably, and one way I want to thank them is to pay them fairly for the job they are doing. I have no objection to paying $1.2 billion for 10,000 extra soldiers. In fact, I would pay more. If having 10,000 or 50,000 more soldiers makes the job a little easier for those in the military now, I am all for it. I cannot think of a better use for my tax dollars than to pay these good people.

“Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”

"Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please?

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.’

"That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Iraq: A Plan, Not Just a Surge

My first response to President Bush’s call to increase the size of the Army and the Marines Corps is: What took you so long? The answer may be that it had to wait until Don Rumsfeld left. Secretary Rumsfeld was a proponent of a small, light, fast military. While that can work for offensives against regular armies (see the invasion of Iraq), it does not work for the follow-up against counterinsurgents and nontraditional forces (see Iraq after the invasion). Rumsfeld was right to force the Army to learn to fight the next war, but he was wrong if he thought it would never have to also fight the last war. We need to be able to do both, and for the latter, we need a bigger military.

The Army says that 10,000 additional soldiers would cost $1.2 billion a year. I have no problem with that. I would have no problem if it cost more than that. I object to bridges to nowhere and tax breaks for corporations and all of the other pork that Congress doles out, but I do not object to paying and equipping our soldiers. There is nothing I would rather spend my tax dollars on than the men and women in our military.

However, supporting an increase in the size of our military is not the same as supporting a short-term increase in the number of troops in Iraq. While President Bush has not said what he is going to propose for Iraq, there is a lot of speculation he will increase the number of troops in Iraq, perhaps as a temporary surge to support a big offensive against the insurgency.

The problem with this is that I do not think it will work. I doubt the insurgency (or civil war or whatever you want to call it) can be defeated with the kinds of strategies and tactics we are using now. If attacked, the insurgents will just fade away and come back to fight again on another day in another place. The insurgents cannot be defeated in one big battle or one big operation. The key has to be providing security for the people of Iraq, and this is a long-term project that needs different tactics.

For example, William Westmoreland‘s search and destroy tactics did not work in Vietnam, but Creighton Abram’s "one war concept" was working. As General Abrams explained to Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., Commander in Chief, Pacific:

"[T]he one war concept puts equal emphasis on military operations, improvement of RVNAF [Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces] and pacification – all of which are interrelated so that the better we do in one, the more our chance of progress in the others." *

One journalist said, referring to Abrams emphasis on disrupting the enemy’s supplies, "Where Westmoreland was a search-and-destroy and count-the-bodies man, Abrams proved to be an interdict-and-weigh-the-rice man." According to Abrams, the appropriate measure of success was not body count but population security:

"‘The body count does not have much to do with the outcome of the war. Some of the things I do think important are that we preempt or defeat the enemy’s major military operations and eliminate or render ineffective the major portion of his guerrillas and his infrastructure – the political, administrative and para-military structure on which his whole movement depends.’"

What Abrams was talking about was disrupting the enemy’s supplies and cutting the enemy off from the sources of support (usually involuntary support) in the local population by providing safety and security for the local people.

It seems to me we may need some variation of General Abram’s concepts in Iraq today. In the Wall Street Journal article also noted here, a major who served as a company commander in Baghdad said that "[j]unior officers know that success in these wars is about a lot more than killing the enemy. It depends on providing security for the people, finding friends and fixing infrastructure," but "[a] lot of senior officers just don't get it."

The new draft counterinsurgency doctrine mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article sounds a lot like what Creighton Abrams did in Vietnam. But is it being followed? The report in the Wall Street Journal is not encouraging, just as the idea of sending more troops for a short term surge is not encouraging. A short term surge indicates a mindset looking more at big battles and body counts than what we need to be doing, which is "providing security, finding friends, and fixing infrastructure."

I agree with those who say we must not lose in Iraq. I also agree with those who say we should not surge without a purpose. The key to both of these is making sure that we get our strategies and tactics right – and realizing that, even once we get our strategies and tactics right, it is going to take time to complete the job. Short terms surges and big operations are not going to get the job done. It is going to take slow, hard work.

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* For these quotations and more on Abrams’ tactics in Vietnam, see A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam, by Lewis Sorley, especially chapters 2 and 3.

Free Speech Takes Another Hit

On December 13 the Federal Election Commission fined MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, as well two other groups, for violating Federal election laws in connection with their activities during the 2004 Presidential election. The FEC said that these groups should have registered as, and operated under the laws governing, political action committees. Doing this would have limited the ability of these groups to raise money because of the restrictions on the size of contributions that PACs can accept. The Swift Boat Veterans were fined $299,500, MoveOn.org was fined $150,000, and League of Conservation Voters 527 and 527II were fined $180,000.

I do not know whether these fines and the FEC’s interpretation of the federal election laws are right, but I do know they ought to be wrong. In fact, these fines show just how far election "reform" laws are going in restricting speech.

Restrictions on contributions are often justified on the grounds of stopping corruption or the appearance of corruption. But what corruption is being stopped here? MoveOn.org just wanted to stop George Bush from getting re-elected. The Swift Boat Veterans did not want John Kerry to be President.

Neither of these groups wanted an earmark or tax break. Neither of them bribed congressmen. They did not make contributions to officeholders or their challengers, and they did not coordinate their activities with various candidates. All they wanted to do was to speak about a person running for President, and the FEC decided it was illegal.

I do not agree with MoveOn.org. While I liked some of what the Swift Boat Veterans said (especially about John Kerry’s statements to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971), I did not like other things they said (such as their attacks on how he got his Purple Hearts). But regardless of whether I agreed with what these groups said or not, I would not want to prevent them from talking.

The fact is that the Swift Boat Veterans started by holding a press conference and passing out press releases. But the media ignored them. They could not get heard, so they decided to write a book and raise money for TV commercials. That was the only way they could make their voice heard. But the FEC now says what they did was illegal.

That is scary because, if the FEC is right, then those voices, those views, will not be heard in the next election. People who just want to exercise their right to free speech in the election of a President will be denied their right to speak.

What makes it even scarier is that I do not know who out there will protect free speech. Both political parties have already supported efforts to limit the rights of 527 groups. Fortunately, they did it at different times, so the new restrictions never passed, but if the pro-regulation forces in both parties get together, new restrictions will pass. And even without new laws, the FEC is increasing its regulation in this area – and many elected officials are saying it should be doing even more.

Bradley Smith, former chairman of the FEC, and strong proponent of free speech, got it right when he said:

"No doubt many Americans think that the Swift Boat Veterans were terrible, smearing the reputation of an honorable Vietnam War veteran. And no doubt many Americans think that MoveOn.org was terrible, making misleading and unfounded charges that undermined American unity in time of war. That is what political speech often does. No doubt King George III considered that Thomas Jefferson fellow an irresponsible pamphleteer."

Free speech is under real attack today. We cannot rely on our elected officials to protect it. Too many of them do not like being criticized. If free speech is going to be kept safe, we, the people, are going to have to do it ourselves.

Iraq Tactics

Instead of debating whether we need more troops in Iraq or we should start withdrawing our troops right now, or something in between, I think the more important question is making sure that the troops we do have in Iraq are used properly.

As I said here, a mistake that too many of our political leaders make is to say, when it comes to military matters, that they will do what the generals say. The problem is that generals are not always right. Some generals are right, and some generals are wrong – and it changes over time. Therefore, when the President’s military advisors’ ideas do not work, the President needs to get those advisers to try something different or he needs to get new advisers.

Iraq, at least since Saddam Hussein was overthrown, has been a difficult and unusual battlefield. This is a new style of warfare. It is not the type of warfare that our soldiers were originally trained for or that their leaders have experience in. This means the President cannot just accept whatever the generals tell him. The generals may not know what works.

Instead of just talking to retired generals (like the Iraq Study Group did) or even current generals, who may be too far from the actual battlefield to know what is really happening, I think we need to be looking at what our soldiers are learning in Iraq right now. We need to talk to the men and women who are actually out there doing the fighting. They can tell us what is working and what is not working.

An article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, "Despite Its $168 Billion Budget, The Army Faces a Cash Crunch," makes this point:

"Today's younger officers, whose defining experiences have been in Iraq and Afghanistan, see the world differently. The gulf was clear last month in their reaction to the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Many senior officers quietly celebrated his departure. Like the retired generals who earlier this year called for Mr. Rumsfeld to be fired, they placed the blame for the Army's failures in Iraq largely on his shoulders.

Junior officers were more indifferent. They tended to view Mr. Rumsfeld as ‘part of a larger problem that hasn't been solved yet,’ says Kalev Sepp, a former Special Forces officer who worked extensively in Iraq. Among many of these officers, there is great frustration not just with the defense secretary but also with the generals who serve above them.

‘Junior officers know that success in these wars is about a lot more than killing the enemy. It depends on providing security for the people, finding friends and fixing infrastructure,’ says Maj. John Prior, who served as a company commander in Baghdad. ‘A lot of senior officers just don't get it.’

While the Army's new draft counterinsurgency doctrine sounds these same themes, senior commanders in Iraq have been slow to embrace them. The doctrine says troops must live among the Iraqi people, on small bases run by junior leaders. But since 2004, commanders have consolidated U.S. troops on 55 large fortified bases, down from about 110 a year ago.

The new doctrine says that when battling an insurgency, reconstruction dollars are as important as ammunition. In recent months, though, more restrictions have been placed on how junior leaders can spend money in their sectors. ‘What's funny is that all politics and services are local, so the [junior] commanders need the greatest flexibility’ said Brig. Gen. Ed Cardon, who returned from Iraq this year, in an interview compiled by the Army for its oral-history archives. ‘Why don't we just trust the commander who said he spent $100?’

Some question how quickly the Army will be able to shift its thinking. ‘All our organizations are designed around the least important line of operations in these fights -- combat operations,’ says Col. Yingling. ‘If you spend your whole career in tanks, you tend to see the solution to every problem as a tank.’"

I do not know what tactics we should be using in Iraq, but it certainly seems the ones we have been using are not working. While all of the attention is going to discussions of troop levels and possible withdrawals, it seems to me that getting the tactics right is at least as important as, and may be more important than, getting the troop levels right. If the troops are not using the right tactics, or at least something reasonably close, we are not going to achieve our goals in Iraq no matter how many troops we send.

The Iraq Study Group

A few thoughts on the Iraq Study Group.

First, the impressive thing about the congressman whose idea ultimately became the Iraq Study Group is that, when he went to Iraq, he did not just go on the guided tours the military gives. As I understand it, he went to Iraq three times. Twice he and an aide went out on their own. They did not tell people who they were. They just went around by themselves. When they did that, the congressman did not like what he saw. Things were a lot different than he was being told in the official briefings. So he came up with the idea of a fresh look at what was happening in Iraq.

But the Iraq Study Group did not do what the congressman did. They only spent four days in Iraq, and only one of the ten members spent any time outside of Baghdad. That is not enough.

Second, while the members of the Iraq Study Group are all distinguished citizens, I wonder what expertise people like Sandra Day O’Connor and Vernon Jordan brought to the panel. They needed people with real expertise, not just famous people.

Also, while the Iraq Study Group has an advisory panel with four retired generals and a retired admiral, where were the people with real experience? They needed to have people with experience in the kind of warfare we are fighting in Iraq. They needed to talk with people with experience in Iraq today. Not retired generals, but captains and lieutenants and enlisted personnel, the men and women out in the field now, the men and women actually doing the fighting. I bet they would have had some really good ideas.

Third, one of the main recommendations of the panel was that the United States needs to talk to Iran and Syria to try to solve the problems in Iraq. James Baker was quoted as saying that of course you talk to your enemies. It may be fine to talk to your enemies, but it is foolish to expect your enemies to help you out of a problem. Why would anybody think Iran is going to help the United States get out of Iraq on any basis other than a South Vietnam-like evacuation? My guess is that Iran likes the way things are going in Iraq right now and would love to see it get even worse for the United States.

This recommendation to negotiate is based on the idea that, if reasonable people will just talk, things can be worked out. It is what the liberals and the antiwar people said about Vietnam. Just negotiate, and you can work it out. We did negotiate, but it did not work out. Why? Because the North Vietnamese thought differently than we did. They did not want peace; they did not want to let the people of South Vietnam decide for themselves. They wanted to win. Finally, enough B-52s convinced North Vietnamese to negotiate, but only a little. Once they had a chance, they reneged on their agreement with us, and we reneged on our promise to the South Vietnamese.

Fourth, we are told we can help solve the Iraqi situation by solving the Israeli-Palestinian situation. The problem is, that while the Iraq Study Group says everybody needs to accept Israel’s right to exist, Hamas won’t agree to that. They said it again yesterday. The Palestinians have had chances to get a state of their own (maybe not what they wanted, but at least a start) in exchange for accepting Israel’s right to exist, and they have refused. Why the Iraq Study Group thinks they will agree now is beyond me.

Finally, the Iraq Study Group said we must have a policy that unites America. This may be the most unrealistic recommendation of all. If they think there is any policy that will get people like Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin to support President Bush, they are kidding themselves and the American people.

The Iraq Study Group was a great idea. We needed a fresh look at our policies in Iraq. Unfortunately, the Iraq Study Group did not give us the fresh look we needed.

Conservative or Liberal?

Conservative or liberal? One’s reaction to a recent court decision will give a pretty good indication of whether one is a liberal or a conservative (at least a traditional, limited government conservative).

In the case of American Council of the Blind v. Paulson, a federal district court judge in Washington. D.C., held that "the Treasury Department’s failure to design, produce and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired individuals violates section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act" (which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in government programs).

The judge wrote: "Of more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations. More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denominations, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired." Government attorneys argued that requiring the Treasury Department to change the size of bills or to add some special feel to different bills would make it harder to combat counterfeiting.

So, what is the liberal or conservative test? It is this: A liberal would say that this is a good decision. We need to make it easier for visually impaired people to use paper currency. We should have done this a long time ago.

A conservative, on the other hand, would say that it is not a mater of whether the decision is right or wrong. The important thing is who should make the decision. If there is a question about changing the shape and color and size of our currency, the answer should come from one of the political branches, either the executive or the legislature. The courts have no special competence on such questions. They should be decided by one of the elected branches, not the courts

So, liberal or conservative? The liberal is happy because he thinks the decision is right. The conservative opposes the decision, not because he thinks it is wrong, but because it is made by the wrong person.

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Cubs fans remember how Greg, the blind fan in Bleachers Bums, handled this problem:

"MELODY: How did you do that [Greg just identified a five dollar bill]? I mean, is it made differently or something from the others?
DECKER: See Abraham Lincoln here? On his nose he’s got these little zits. He can feel that. He can feel his beard too. Blind guys got very sensitive touch.
GREG: Washington has curly hair.
DECKER: There you go. And what about Hamilton?
GREG: Hamilton has an earring.
DECKER: Hamilton has an earring?
GREG: It’s on the other side. You can’t see it."

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[Update (12/9/06): The Chicago Tribune published an editorial on this decision today. You can find it here. They basically just summarized the judge’s decision and supported it. They did not address the question I did; i.e., whether the courts are the proper branch of government to make such a decision.]