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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

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To: unclewest who wrote (20738) 12/21/2003 7:00:25 AM From: LindyBill   Respond to of 793725   Ace in the hole puts Dems in quagmire December 21, 2003 BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Well, that Vietnam-style quagmire seems to be getting worse, doesn't it? Not content with their laughably unconvincing Bush Thanksgiving photo-op, last Sunday the administration stuck Dick Cheney in a ZZ Top beard and pathetically tried to pass it off as some kind of "good" "news." But assume, for the sake of argument, this is the real Saddam Hussein. What happens now depends on his state of mind. He may say nothing. Or it may be that, after eight months on the lam, bumping around in the back of donkey carts, sleeping in smelly hovels, short of sycophants, deprived of the company of his fellow psychopaths Odai and Qusai, his chums in Moscow and Paris refusing to accept any collect calls, pining for the metaphorical full Monica he used to get from visiting western shills like British lefty members of Parliament Tony Benn and George Galloway, after all that, he may be grateful for a chance to yak about this and that to various A-list interrogators. He knows surely that it's his last chance to play the big shot, before trial by his former subjects, and then jail and (I hope) execution. The evidence to date suggests that he either managed to squeeze a surprising number of filing cabinets down that spider hole with him or that, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, he's been singing like a canary. Either way, coalition forces have made some interesting arrests in recent days. Meanwhile, perhaps concerned that their old pal might get too chatty, the French, Germans and Russians have done an instant about-face on the matter of forgiving Iraq the massive debts its former tyrant ran up with his European buddies. A good week, I'd say, for cowboy "unilateralists." Certain columnists, whom modesty prevents me from mentioning by name, have painted an eerily accurate picture of his living conditions these last six months. Even so, there's something almost exquisitely apt in the circumstances of his capture, pulled up out of a hole he'd dug for himself. The Democrats, the French, the European media and the various other parties who've invested in the Bush-quagmire story have also dug a hole for themselves. Al Gore briefly emerged from his own pit of obscurity a couple of days before Saddam's capture to denounce the Iraqi operation: "My friends," he said, "this nation has never, in two centuries and more, made a worse foreign policy mistake." On the morning itself, the most pitiful of the "serious" candidates, Sen. John Kerry, couldn't resist digging himself in a little deeper: "This is not just about one man," he complained, urging that now would be an excellent opportunity to hand everything over to the U.N., the Hague, the Arab League, the Westchester County League of Women Voters and other respected bodies. Kerry doesn't get it: If it had been left to Kofi Annan, the French, Germans, Russians, Canadians, Arabs and all but two of the nine Democratic Presidential candidates, Saddam Hussein wouldn't be being inspected for lice by American medics, he'd still be sitting on his solid gold toilet in his palace reading about the latest massive anti-Bush demonstrations in Le Monde. The Iraqi people don't want to place their future in the hands of an "international community" that found it more convenient to allow Saddam to go on torturing them. As for this being "not just about one man," don't bet on it. In May, I was sitting in a restaurant in Ramadi just west of Baghdad, chewing the fat (very literally, alas) with various Iraqi chaps, all of a Sunni disposition. "Hey, things are gonna be great from now on, right, guys?" I said, by way of an icebreaker. They shrugged gloomily. "Where is Saddam?" said one, pointing at the BBC News on the TV in the corner. "Where is Saddam? He has money, he has friends. He will be back." In the months since, he's been all but irrelevant to any active coordination of the so-called "resistance." But the fact that he was still on the run, somewhere out there, meant that, in theory, he could be behind it, and that made it easier for the Baathist dead-enders and the imported terrorists to lean on communities in the Sunni Triangle for support and cover. The sight of Saddam looking like a department-store Santa who's been sleeping off a bender in a sewer for a week will deal a fatal blow to the Baathist thugs' ability to intimidate local populations. The insurgency will continue for a few weeks yet, but it will peter out, like the dictator, not with a bang but a whimper. As for the western naysayers, let me go back to what I wrote in July, after the killing of Odai and Qusai and the Democratic Party reaction: "If they're still droning on like this on the day Rummy's passing out souvenir vials of Saddam's DNA, they'll be heading for oblivion." Well, we're not yet at the souvenir DNA stage, but the inability of a serious political party to resist the siren songs of the Noam Chomsky/Michael Moore/Euro left is showing signs of becoming terminal. Madeleine Albright's suggestion this week that the administration was holding Osama some place in order to spring him on the American public at the most electorally advantageous time is only the latest manifestation of how the fringe nutters have infected the mainstream. "What happened this week," I wrote back on Odai Qusai Tuesday, "is a foretaste of what the party can expect in the next 15 months: reality will keep intruding, and if the Dems keep moving the goal posts ever more frantically pretty soon they'll be campaigning from Planet Zongo. This week, Tom Daschle insisted that Odai and Qusai were all very well, but where was the Big Guy? Why hadn't that slacker Bush caught him yet?" Next question, Tom? suntimes.com

To: unclewest who wrote (20738) 12/21/2003 9:23:09 AM From: LindyBill   Respond to of 793725   Clark's fading credibility By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist, 12/21/2003 WESLEY CLARK, the four-star general who commanded US forces in Europe during the Kosovo war, is running for president as an opponent of the war in Iraq. So what will he say, a questioner asks, when the Bush camp levels the obvious criticism: If General Clark had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power. "If General Clark had his way," the candidate instantly replies, "we'd have had Osama bin Laden dead or alive two years ago, and the world would have been a lot safer. And then we'd have used the United Nations to go after Saddam Hussein the right way." Coming from one of the other Democratic candidates, that might be dismissed as empty rhetoric. But Clark has had extensive experience in the Balkans and ought to know something about capturing international war criminals. After all, the two most-wanted men in the world before Sept. 11, 2001, were Radovan Karadzic, the former president of the Bosnian Serbs, and Ratko Mladic, the head of the Bosnian Serb army. They are widely considered responsible for the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II, including the "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnia and Croatia, the murderous siege of Sarajevo, the slaughter of 7,000 unarmed boys and men in Srebrenica, and the systematic rape of thousands of Bosnian women and girls. Karadzic and Mladic were indicted in 1995 by the UN war-crimes tribunal, but their barbarity was common knowledge well before that. As far back as 1992 they were publicly identified by then-Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger as war-crimes suspects. So how did Clark, who claims he would have "had Osama bin Laden dead or alive two years ago," collar the two Serb butchers? Well, actually -- he didn't. Karadzic and Mladic are still at large. And yet it probably is fair to say that Clark knows more about dealing with war criminals than the rest of the Democratic field. After all, none of the other candidates has ever horsed around with a mass murderer. Clark has. On Aug. 27, 1994, when he was a three-star general working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clark paid a visit to Mladic in Bosnia. In so doing, The Washington Post reported, he "ignored State Department warnings not to meet with Serb officials suspected of ordering deaths of civilians." Clark says he wanted to get Mladic's views for a policy paper he was writing and thought he had permission to do so. Either way, Clark did more than take notes. The two men drank wine and posed for jovial pictures that showed them merrily wearing each other's caps. Mladic plied Clark with other gifts, too -- a bottle of brandy and a pistol inscribed "From General Mladic." It was like "Ike going to Berlin while the Germans were besieging Leningrad," one disgusted commentator wrote, "and having schnapps with Hermann Goering." Today Clark acknowledges that cavorting with the infamous killer "wasn't the right thing to have done." He says that after Mladic and Karadzic were indicted, "I did try" to apprehend them. But having to work with allies -- the stabilization of Bosnia was a NATO operation -- made it difficult. "Karadzic was in the French sector," Clark explains, and seizing him would have "required a degree of cooperation with other powers that proved difficult . . . There remained rumors of some kind of French connection," he adds darkly, "rumors that have been denied vigorously by Paris." Whatever the French may or may not have done, the failure to catch Mladic and Karadzic underscores the drawbacks to internationalizing US foreign policy. Clark experienced similar frustration during the Kosovo war, when bombing targets had to be approved in advance by the 19 NATO governments. Yet Clark, bowing to the Democratic fetish for multilateralism, insists that the conduct of the war in Iraq be taken out of US hands and turned over to an international organization. "I would go to NATO," Clark says, "and I would tell John Abizaid, the [US] commander, `You're now working for NATO.' " And what would that change, exactly? Not much, Clark admits. "When you do NATO, it's the United States, anyway, that's doing it. I mean, NATO doesn't have an intelligence system. It relies almost exclusively on the United States." It is an incoherent position, and the more he tries to clarify it, the more he retreats into windy platitudes. "I think if the United States works in efficient multilateralism through NATO, we can move the world." Before he became a presidential candidate, Clark strongly supported the Iraq war resolution; since entering the race, he has tied himself into knots insisting that he actually opposed it. Before becoming a candidate, he described Saddam as a menace requiring urgent action -- "the clock is ticking," he said last year. Now Clark labors to explain why Saddam wasn't a burning issue -- "there was no ticking clock," he said last week. With each passing day, Candidate Clark sounds less and less like General Clark -- which is to say, less and less like the man so many Democrats were eager to support for president. Even for a commander who was first in his class at West Point, that doesn't seem like a strategy for victory. boston.com

To: unclewest who wrote (20738) 12/21/2003 10:23:45 AM From: LindyBill   Respond to of 793725   The Making of the American G.I. How patriotism, and a brutal lesson in Vietnam, shaped the modern U.S. warrior By John Keegan TIME Sir John Keegan is a distinguished military historian Posted Sunday, December 21, 2003; 7:45 a.m. EST There is something kiplingesque about the modern American warrior. He is a volunteer and a professional, as the long-serving regular of Rudyard Kipling's day was. He is a patriot; his modern British comrades, patriots themselves but shy of admitting it, express surprise at the American warrior's outspoken devotion to flag and homeland. He feels a personal relationship with his Commander in Chief, the President, as Kipling's archetypal soldier, Tommy Atkins, seems to have done with his Queen. Above all, like Tommy, he ships out. Ordered to a strange corner of the world, often at the ends of the earth, he packs his kit, says his farewells and departs. He does not ask how long he will be away or where he is going or why. If the President gives the word, that is enough. America's armed forces are becoming imperial without their country's becoming imperialist. There is an important difference. Empires take many forms. One is that of an entity that exercises power far from its base without assuming political authority. That promises to be the new American way. America has always been and remains profoundly anti-imperialist. Offered the opportunity to exercise direct power—in the Philippines, in China, in Vietnam—America's military representatives on the ground always sought to foster domestic rule on the American national model. Whatever mistakes American commanders have made, even in Vietnam, that of trying to usurp power has not been one of them. Americans are incurably democratic, often to their disadvantage. Hence the distinctive character of the American military. I first learned its flavor through my father, a soldier of the First World War. After that war, he served as a member of the army of occupation in defeated Germany. He made friends with doughboys. Their high-spirited and easygoing ways delighted him. When the G.I.s appeared in my corner of embattled Britain in 1943, I saw what had attracted him. G.I.s were ambassadors of their country: easy, outgoing, generous and above all, ready to make friends. So they did. Every unattached girl acquired an American boyfriend—60,000 G.I. brides went back to America in 1945. Then, overnight it seemed, the G.I.s disappeared. They had gone to D-day to begin the liberation of Europe. It was a campaign that put American soldiers side by side with British, not always with happy results. Many of the British were veterans of the battles against Rommel in the Western Desert. They considered themselves hardened campaigners and thought the G.I.s amateurs. The Americans expended vast quantities of ammunition to gain ground and expected air support in every attack. They were also much more generously equipped than the British, regarded luxuries as necessities and seemed to have money to burn. American privates were better paid than British junior officers. The G.I.s learned fast, but the British continued to regard the Americans as junior partners long after American divisions were teaching their German enemies lessons in mobility and maneuvers. It was the Americans who led the breakout from Normandy. It was American parachutists who seized all their objectives at Nijmegen and Eindhoven while the British parachutists were defeated at Arnheim in the same operation. "Combat snobbery" was a term used to define the British attitude; it also applied to America's new German allies when the Federal Republic joined nato in 1955. The German veterans who had fought in the great tank battles against the Russians on the eastern front made it plain that they doubted the ability of America's postwar army to check a Soviet offensive if the cold war ever became hot. The Germans, like the British before them, pointed to American reliance on firepower and air cover, an expectation of overgenerous supply of materials, as reasons to question the U.S. Army's capacity to meet the Soviet forces on equal terms. What they heard of America's performance in Vietnam, once that war began, reinforced their skepticism. The latter stages of the war in Vietnam marked a low point in the American services' fortunes. Opposition to the war at home isolated the armed forces, and the antiwar mood was transmitted to the theater of combat. A key group of Vietnam veterans, among them Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and Tommy Franks, became reformers. They recognized that combat units had been drip-fed individual replacements, instead of being sent whole units, and the reserves had not been mobilized. As a result, all units had too many men who had only just arrived or alternatively were soon to leave. They determined that such a situation should never recur. With the abolition of the draft and the inception of the all-volunteer services, they saw the opportunity to create units that could be trained to the highest level, as long as the high quality of the entrants was guaranteed. The solution was found in the plan to offer enlistees free college education at the completion of their term of service—and the services found no shortage of recruits. Thus were born the new American services, which since 1990 have fought five wars—in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq—with outstanding success. Even a superpower, however, is only as good as the forces through which it exercises that power. But Pax Americana, like Pax Britannica, is guaranteed by a body of servicemen and -women who have no equal elsewhere on the globe.

To: unclewest who wrote (20738) 12/21/2003 10:36:43 AM From: LindyBill   Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 793725   Should the Draft Be Reinstated? With U.S. forces stretched thin and many reservists on full-time duty, some urge a draft for reasons of fairness and practicality. Opponents say it's unnecessary and dangerous Posted Sunday, December 21, 2003; 7:45 a.m. EST CHARLES RANGEL Democratic Congressman from New York and Korean War vet Staying the course in Iraq means increasing our troop strength, and, not surprisingly, recruitment and re-enlistment levels are down. But proposed enlistment bonuses and other economic incentives will not make the military any more attractive to upper-middle-class young people. Increasingly we will be a nation in which the poor fight our wars while the affluent stay home. To correct the disparity among those who serve, South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings and I have proposed a new draft. All men and women ages 18 to 26 would be eligible for induction once they have completed high school. Those not needed in the military would perform civilian service. Enacting our plan would democratize our armed forces and return to the "citizen soldier" ideal that has served our nation so well. As a veteran, I strongly believe that fighting for our country must be fairly shared by all racial and economic groups. Nobody wants to go to war, but the burden of service cannot fall only on volunteers who, no matter how patriotic, are attracted to the military for financial reasons. We cannot continue to pretend it is fair that one segment of society makes all the sacrifices. DOUG BANDOW Former special assistant to President Reagan, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute America deploys the most powerful military on earth because its soldiers freely choose to serve. Today's military is picky. In 2003 more than 9 of 10 enlistees had a high school diploma. The military takes virtually no one who doesn't score in the top three of five categories of the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Equally important, the all-volunteer force (avf) is staffed by soldiers who want to be there. Draft advocates want "citizen soldiers." But 4 million young people turn 18 every year, while the military inducted 185,000 recruits in 2003. A system that took just 5% of those eligible would be highly arbitrary. The worst lie told by conscription advocates about the avf is that it is an underclass military. Overrepresentation of blacks is modest; Hispanics are actually underrepresented. While there may be few sons and daughters of Wall Street in uniform, the military is an overwhelmingly middle-class force. The most obvious reason to maintain the avf is practical: it's the best way to raise the world's finest military. What sets American society apart from totalitarian hellholes like Saddam Hussein's Iraq is its dedication to individual liberty. Conscription sacrifices the very values we are supposed to be defending. CHARLES MOSKOS Professor of sociology at Northwestern University and a former draftee Our country is facing new kinds of threats and needs a new kind of draft. Even before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, our military was severely overstretched in fulfilling its missions. But more important, we have done nothing serious about homeland defense in the war against terrorism. We need guards for our nuclear power plants, dams and public facilities. We have done little to create the necessary border patrollers, customs agents and cargo-ship inspectors. Short-term draftees, under professional supervision, could perform these duties admirably. It takes less than four months to train a military police officer—precisely the kind of role most needed in peacekeeping missions and guard duties. This would free up professional soldiers, and it would stop the unprecedented activation of reservists. Their multiple tours have led to demoralization and impending recruitment shortfalls. We must institute a three-tiered draft system in America, with 15-to-24-month tours of duty for citizens ages 18 to 26. In the new-style draft, conscripts could serve in the military, in homeland security or in a civilian-service program like AmeriCorps—and there is no reason women could not be drafted for the latter categories. ROBERT SCALES JR. Retired general, former commandant of the Army War College and historian A return to the draft is a very bad idea whose time passed with the world wars, Korea and Vietnam. These wars were tragically wasteful because in large measure they were fought with drafted soldiers. Drafted soldiers are far more likely to die in combat than long-service professionals. Military leaders know from painful experience that it takes years to produce a fully competent combat soldier. They also know that older soldiers live longer in combat. Drafting teenagers and committing them to combat within only a year of enlistment will create an Army of amateurs. Our Army in particular has a sad history of committing to battle men who are too young and inexperienced to have much hope of surviving against a hardened and skillful enemy. Drafted units can be kept together for only a short time and invariably march to war as random collections of strangers. Our soldiers performed so superbly in Iraq because they were seasoned. Good soldiers, like good wine, can be produced only with careful cultivation and patient aging. Unfortunately, amateur armies learn to fight only by fighting. Inevitably, the cost of that education is too horrific for the American people to bear. JAMES INHOFE Republican Senator from Oklahoma I think I'm the only member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who would reinstate the draft. There are huge social benefits that come from it. I can assure you I would not be in the U.S. Senate today if I had not gone through the draft. When I look at the problems of some of our kids in America nowadays and then I go visit the troops, I see what a great benefit it is to give people the opportunity to serve their country. I was drafted into the Army in January 1957 and served two years as an enlisted man. I gained a new outlook on life through the rigors of basic training. The military can have a more intense influence on soldiers when they are drafted and have no choice. I developed a sense of patriotism through the experience of serving my country. I'm not on a crusade, but I think today's youth could use more of that type of discipline. LOUIS CALDERA Former Secretary of the Army, 1998-2001, now president of the University of New Mexico Talk about reinstating the draft is more about nostalgia for a time when military service was perceived to be a near universal and often beneficial rite of passage for young men in our country than it is about keeping our military at full strength. Given the success of the all-volunteer force in manning today's smaller and more highly skilled military, a return to a large, general draft is neither necessary nor desirable for maintaining U.S. military effectiveness. Worries about whether the military can attract enough recruits are unfounded. Unless the U.S. is going to prohibit anyone from volunteering or being recruited and only swear in draftees, the number of slots that would need to be filled by a draft would be very small indeed. How fair would any draft be that asked only a few thousand high school graduates out of the millions of eligible men and women to serve each year? Attempts to reinstate the draft could tear the nation apart for zero gain—and possibly a net degradation in military effectiveness. Instead of honoring the diverse Americans serving in the ranks today, draft supporters devalue their patriotism and commitment. They fail to acknowledge that today's all-volunteer military recruits only motivated, trainable people who, by definition, have other options but who choose to stay in the military because they find satisfaction in serving their country. What draft supporters should be asking is, How can we challenge every young American to ask "Whose responsibility is it to serve if not mine?" time.com

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