"Metrics" is one of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's obsessions. In October 2003, he sent a memo to his deputies and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff: "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror." Rumsfeld demanded precise measurements of progress, including the "ideological." By the "war on terror" he meant Iraq as well as Afghanistan. A study was commissioned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a military think tank. In utterly neutral terms, the IDA report detailed a grim picture at odds with the Bush administration's rosy scenarios. Not only has Rumsfeld suppressed the report, but the Pentagon has yet to acknowledge it.
In the invasion of Iraq, Rumsfeld applied his doctrine of using a light combat force against the advice of the senior military. General Eric Shinseki, commander of the army, was publicly ridiculed for suggesting that a larger force would be required. But it was assumed by Rumsfeld and the neocons that there would be no long occupation because democracy would spontaneously flower.
ILLUSTRATION YUSHA
In April last year the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College produced a report on the metrics of the Rumsfeld doctrine: Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation. It concluded that the swift victory over Saddam was achieved by overwhelming technological superiority and Iraqi weakness, and therefore using operation Iraqi Freedom as "evidence" for Rumsfeld's "transformation proposals could be a mistake." The Pentagon has refused to release the study.
"Intellectual terrorism" prevails through the defense establishment, a leading military strategist at one of the war colleges, who deals in calm, measured expertise of a nonpartisan nature, told me. Even the respected defense research institute, the Rand Corp, is being "cut out of the loop," denied contracts for studies because the "metrics" are at odds with Rumsfeld.
US President George W. Bush clings to good news and happy talk, such as the number of school openings in Iraq. Those with gloomy assessments are not permitted to appear before him. The president orders no meetings on options based on worst-case scenarios. Military strategists and officers are systematically ignored. Suppression of contrary "metrics" is done in his name and spirit. Bush makes his decisions from a self-imposed bunker, a situation room of the mind, where ideological fantasies substitute for reality.
"I think elections will be such a hopeful experience for the Iraqi people ... And I look at the elections as a ... as a ... you know, as a ... as ... as a historical marker for our Iraq policy," Bush said last week.
His statement was prompted by Brent Scowcroft, his father's national security adviser and alter ego. Fired as chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Scowcroft aired his views at a lunch sponsored by a Washington think tank. The Iraq election, he said, has "deep potential for deepening the conflict," acting as an impetus to "civil war." He reflected sadly that being a "realist" has become a "pejorative." "A road map is helpful if you know where you are," he said.
Scowcroft was joined by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, who spelled out the minimal metrics for winning the Iraq war -- 500,000 troops, US$500 billion, a military draft and a wartime tax, and then it would take at least 10 years.
Unwillingness to pay this price while staying on the current path would be a sign of "decadence."
Bush speaks of the Iraqi election as though it is the climax of democracy. But by failing to provide for a Sunni presence in the new government -- proportional representation would easily have accomplished this -- it is as ill-conceived a blunder as invading with a light force, disbanding the Iraqi army, attacking Fallujah, halting the attack and finally destroying the city in order to save it, Vietnam-style.
According to former CPA official Larry Diamond: "One British official lamented to me, the `CPA [officials] didn't want anything to happen that they didn't control.'"
Bush, meanwhile, works on his second inaugural address, to be delivered this week, where his speechwriters can be counted on to produce a bravura speech filled with high-flown patriotism and evangelical codewords, a paean to can-do optimism. "They're not code words; they're our culture," speechwriter Michael Gerson said.
This rhetoric summons purity
of heart ("written in the human heart"), divine blessing ("God is not neutral"), and the power of faith ("there's power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people").
As Bush draws the sword of righteousness against the forces of darkness, the enemy being evil itself ("evildoers ... axis of evil"), he ascends on messianic imagery. "Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?" he said in his first inaugural, quoting a letter written by a Virginian friend to Thomas Jefferson during the American revolution. "This story goes on," said Bush. "And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm."
That verse is in the book of Nahum. It contains no "angel," but the Lord, "a jealous and avenging God ... full of wrath ... The Lord is long suffering, and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty; The Lord, in the whirlwind and in the storm is His way, And the clouds are the dust of His feet ... Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and rapine ... Thy crowned are as the locusts, And thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers..."
These metrics continue for several more verses: "There is no assuaging of thy hurt; Thy wound is grievous..."
Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to former US President Bill Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com.
Having lived through former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s tumultuous and scandal-ridden administration, the last place I had expected to come face-to-face with “Mr Brexit” was in a hotel ballroom in Taipei. Should I have been so surprised? Over the past few years, Taiwan has unfortunately become the destination of choice for washed-up Western politicians to turn up long after their political careers have ended, making grandiose speeches in exchange for extraordinarily large paychecks far exceeding the annual salary of all but the wealthiest of Taiwan’s business tycoons. Taiwan’s pursuit of bygone politicians with little to no influence in their home
In a recent essay, “How Taiwan Lost Trump,” a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, Christian Whiton, accuses Taiwan of diplomatic incompetence — claiming Taipei failed to reach out to Trump, botched trade negotiations and mishandled its defense posture. Whiton’s narrative overlooks a fundamental truth: Taiwan was never in a position to “win” Trump’s favor in the first place. The playing field was asymmetrical from the outset, dominated by a transactional US president on one side and the looming threat of Chinese coercion on the other. From the outset of his second term, which began in January, Trump reaffirmed his
It is difficult not to agree with a few points stated by Christian Whiton in his article, “How Taiwan Lost Trump,” and yet the main idea is flawed. I am a Polish journalist who considers Taiwan her second home. I am conservative, and I might disagree with some social changes being promoted in Taiwan right now, especially the push for progressiveness backed by leftists from the West — we need to clean up our mess before blaming the Taiwanese. However, I would never think that those issues should dominate the West’s judgement of Taiwan’s geopolitical importance. The question is not whether
In 2025, it is easy to believe that Taiwan has always played a central role in various assessments of global national interests. But that is a mistaken belief. Taiwan’s position in the world and the international support it presently enjoys are relatively new and remain highly vulnerable to challenges from China. In the early 2000s, the George W. Bush Administration had plans to elevate bilateral relations and to boost Taiwan’s defense. It designated Taiwan as a non-NATO ally, and in 2001 made available to Taiwan a significant package of arms to enhance the island’s defenses including the submarines it long sought.
RSS