General Shinseki at the DNC

Last week it was the Republican Convention.  This week it is the Democrats’ turn.  I have to admit that I have not exactly kept myself glued to the television watching these events.  After all, these conventions are not really what they used to be.  There are no floor fights, there are no credential challenges, and they do not truly nominate candidates.  Instead, what they actually do is coronate a party headliner.  That is not to say that there are not important or at least entertaining speeches taking place.  Last night, Wednesday night at the Democratic event, was a good example

I am not talking about the speech by former President Bill Clinton.  He had a lot to say, and he is a great orator and cheerleader for his party.  But I missed it.  I did, however, listen to General Eric Shinkseki, wounded warrior and now Secretary of the Veterans Administration.  General Shinseki is noteworthy for a few things.  One, he is a Hawaiian of Japanese descent.  His father, in spite of discrimination against Japanese Americans during World War II, was also a veteran, having fought in the Second World War.  Second, General Shinseki, like Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel, John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, and many others, was among the Vietnam generation that continued to serve this nation.  General Shinseki was wounded, as noted earlier, having lost part of his leg in Vietnam.  Third, he rose to the rank of four-star general.  That in itself is noteworthy.  In spite of the fact that we sure seem to hear of many four stars, there truly are not that many people who have achieved this rank

Finally, General Shinseki is notable for something else.  That is that he was treated with inexcusable disrespect by President Bush’s first Secretary of Defense, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld.  He was publicly ridiculed by Mr. Rumsfeld’s Deputy Secretary, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz.  And what did General Shinseki's do to merit their disdain?  In 2003, under direct questioning during Congressional testimony, General Shinseki said that several hundred thousand boots on the ground would be required to effectively control post-war Iraq.  Mr. Wolfowitz retorted the next day that General Shinseki, who had devoted his life and his serious intellect to the conduct of war, was “wildly off the mark.”  Wildly off the mark.  That is what Paul Wolfowitz said in 2003.  Wildly off the mark.  It is now 2012.  In Iraq, after the departure of all U.S. forces, the nation of Iraq is anything but stable.  It is rife with sectional and sectarian violence.  It is a target for Iranian extremists.  One of the reasons that is so is that the Bush Administration’s war effort was led by people like Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, who seemed to think that a civilian government with some Iraqi version of Thomas Jefferson was going to rise out of the ashes to bring the country into the family of democracies. 

            The Bush war plan was not the plan that military planners had on the shelf.  Just about everyone knows that now.  Just about everyone knows that the plans worked up by serious planners at United States Central Command were rejected by Mr. Rumsfeld.  There was no need to plan for reconstruction.  There was no need to plan for a realistic transition.  All we needed was to go in, break a bunch of stuff, stir things up, and then, as if by magic, democracy would happen.  It is like “seagull management.”  Swoop in, make a bunch of noise, crap all over the beach, and then fly away.  Of course, General Shinseki was aware of the Rumsfeld “plan” (if you want to call it that), and he knew it was silly.  He said as much, though in much more diplomatic terms than I am using here.

For his honesty as a professional military man, General Shinseki was fired as Army Chief of Staff and forced to retire by Mr. Rumsfeld and his ideologue cronies.  And we all know General Shinseki proved to be correct in his assessment.  The Bush Administration's tragic-comic failures in the area of foreign policy and President Bush's view that all he had to do was perform some kind of macho posturing for success came home to roost.  President Bush refused to listen to people who actually knew something about the subject (namely retired generals and national security experts) who told him the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and would cost the Nation dearly in blood and fortune.  The Obama election of 2008 owes far less to Obama's "Hope and Change" mantra than it does to the hideous failures of the Bush Years.   President Bush will go down in history as the only president who tried to finance a major war with a tax cut.  He will also go down in history as the president who hired an insufferable egotist for Secretary of Defense who thought brusquely dismissing the advice of knowledgeable people somehow passes for leadership.

If you have read this far, thank you.  Upon review, I deleted the final paragraphs I had written.  They came across as some sort of political endorsement, and I did not intend that.  What I intended to say is this:  Presidents and Congress must take seriously the consequences when we decide to go to war.  When we do decide to go to war, we must commit to doing the job.  When we commit to doing the job completely, we must ask the American People for their sacrifice.  That sacrifice includes raising adequate taxes to get the job done.  So I will not speak for General Shinseki.  But I am fairly certain he knew all that in 2003, and I want to thank him for his service.