The GOP vs. the U.S. Military: Part Seven - Privatization

Looking back across earlier portions of this series, we can see these dismal trends continuing in real time. For example, see a detailed look at the effort to transform the US military into a force for radical christianity.

And yet, is it possible that -- after shouting into silence for years -- I can see hope at last? Signs of quiet back-pressure from the grownups of the U.S. Officer Corps have been evident ever since the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement by the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. Now, with the departure of “Rumsfeld’s Parrot” -- Gen. Peter Pace -- from the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it appears that the top tier of at least one department may be back in the hands of professionals and adults. (Read an excellent article about this.)

Will this be anywhere near enough? Alas, not when the President might still, at any moment, dash off an order hurling a gung-ho US Air Force -- and those Naval attack squadrons that cannot resist by working-to-rule -- into a rash and lobotomized series of pinprick provocations against Iran.

To prevent this... and stop this administration’s relentless, top-down treason in all its forms... another set of professionals must stand up and do their part. The FBI. The men and women of the intelligence services. Civil servants in every department. It is time for them to decide whose side they are on. Invoking long dormant protocols (or innovating new ones) for what to do when the nation’s immune systems have been infected and taken over by a virulent disease at the very top.

The social and political equivalent of AIDS.

Only now... back to our series on what has been done to our military by the Bush Administration and by a transformed and mutated GOP.


Privatization: Only the Best for Contractors, and the Worst for our Troops

So far, this series has examined many ways that the Bush administration (and allies) betrayed the U.S. military -- especially the Army and Marines -- as part of a larger War Against Professionalism. (See Part Three: Destroying Military Readiness).

Along this desolate journey, we have crossed a landscape of eviscerated national reputation, allies driven off, enemies emboldened and - worst of all - service men and women treated like expendable pieces in a game, played by overcompensating, macho little boys. And it gets worse.


But WHY quash, destroy or demoralize all government professionals? Especially stripping our defenses and crippling the military?. Why would Team Bush do such things?

The short answer is -- accountability. Or rather, avoidance thereof. The one trait that is common among government scientists, the civil service, the intelligence and law enforcement communities, and the U.S. Officer Corps is that these large pools of highly skilled and dedicated people have been trained to see. They are the ones who might puzzle together patterns, reveal corruption, or refuse to allow unconstitutional usurpations of undue power. If your aim were to seize permanent power in the United States -- or simply to stay out of jail, after robbing the U.S. blind -- it would make perfect sense to concentrate on paralyzing the professionals. And to hide it all in clouds of secrecy.

I am not the only one tracking this overall trend. With a far better soapbox than I, syndicated columnist Paul Krugman has also been on target. He had this to say, a few weeks ago (9/28/07) in the New York Times:

“Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work. Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies.”

Unqualified... but also obedient, dogmatic and willing to bully the civil servants under them, distracting, or re-assigning or cauterizing the careers of those who -- in the course of their duties -- happen to look in forbidden directions.

But (again) why?

Advice from the Watergate era still has resonance. Follow the money. Last time, for example, we saw how President Bush has invoked a “national state of emergency,” for six years, with the principal effect that it lets him bypass normal, competitive bidding rules in the areas of Defense and Homeland Security. Emergency contracts have been granted to companies that are blatant Bush-Cheney consorts, with little or no subsequent supervision or oversight.

Let there be no mistake. The left has been proved just plain wrong in its reflex explanation, that the Iraq War “was about oil.” The real profit has come from those non-competitive contracts. From the war itself.


* The very, very, very worst examples.... that we know of

One recent book that exposes the seamy side of privatization (though dipping now and then into polemical excess) is Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War, by Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman.

I thought about writing my own summary, but the one on Amazon suffices: “In this shocking exposé, two government fraud experts reveal how private contractors have put the lives of countless American soldiers on the line while damaging our strategic interests and our image abroad. From the shameful war profiteering of companies like Halliburton/KBR to the sinister influence that corporate lobbyists have on American foreign policy, to the use of “emergency” declarations to evade normal contracting procedures, Dina Rasor and Robert H. Bauman paint a disturbing picture. Here they give the inside story on troops forced to subsist on little food and contaminated water, on officers afraid to lodge complaints because of Halliburton's political clout, on millions of dollars in contractors' bogus claims that are funded by American taxpayers, and privatized services that cost ten to thirty times as much as they did, when performed better by civil servants. Drawing on exclusive sources within government and the military, the authors show how greed and insider deals have conspired to undermine our fighting forces and threaten the security of our country.”

Phew. And you’ll find even more searing poignancy in some of the Amazon reader reviews! Take this excerpt:

“When I entered Baghdad in April 2003 and initially occupied Saddam's bombed out Ramadan palace to setup the new government, I was their as a civilian contractor. I was thrilled! I made more pay in 4 months as a contractor than in 4 years as a soldier. Months later, when I was called to service by my unit, I didn't respond to serve my country as a soldier because I was already in Baghdad. The army can't admit that's a problem, so they transferred me into the inactive reserves so I could stay in the war and make oodles of money. Again, I was thrilled! I stayed in Iraq and made so much money doing a job as good as a soldier with incompatible equipment impossible to interact with the army needs for 40x the military pay, that I bought a new house in Florida every other month. We didn't accomplish a damn thing as contractors. In fact, we broke more stuff than we brought and lost the rest but who cares? I wasn't responsible for it? The corporation was. Hell, I still have a bullet proof vest my corporation bought for me while soldiers were going into battle w/o body armor. I had the best! “

One powerful point in the book is how inefficient most Bush “privatizations” have been, especially in Iraq. The mythology, tenaciously clung-to by conservatives of all stripes, and not just neocons, has always been that corporate entities are universally more efficient that government ones. Study after study has shown that the real life facts are far more complicated, and often diametrically opposite to this article of faith. But when it comes to the privatization efforts of the Bush Administration, this hoary cliche is exposed as an utter travesty.

Bush’s own General Accounting Office (GAO) has declared -- that contractor-run services in Iraq average four to ten times as costly as the same services, when performed by soldiers or civil servants.

(A side note to ponder at leisure: whenever Democrats have de-regulated an industry -- e.g. banking, trucking, telecommunications, airlines, and the Internet -- the central effect was to increase competition. In fact, nearly all major DE-regulations during our lifetime have been promulgated by Democratic administrations, the exact opposite to popular conception.

(In contrast Whenever Republicans deregulate, it somehow always results in reduced competition, inefficiency and a subsequent, economy-rocking scandal. Clear examples include the Savings and Loan and cable industry “reforms”of the 1980s, supervised by George H. W. Bush, and Energy Industry “reforms” passed under George W. Bush. But none of these hold a candle against the half a trillion dollars that has gone into non-competitive, cost-plus Iraq War contracts, granted to Bush family friends.)

Meanwhile, on September 26, 2007, the GAO released a report revealing that the DOD and the VA are taking no better care of the wounded troops now than they were when the Washington Post broke the story about Walter Reed hospital, two years ago. MRAP armored (mine resistant) replacements for the humvee are tragically late, in the latest case of undersupplying the troops. And Iraqi civilians fume because delivery of basic services -- such as electricity and clean water and trash pickup, aren’t any better, after mountains of cash poured into infrastructure projects that get nothing done, making many yearn for well-ordered times before 2003.

And... oh... there was that missing billion dollars. In cash. That Bush officials simply “lost” in Iraq. By the side of a road. No heads rolled over that.

Can one even compare this to the so-called scandals under Bill Clinton? The difference in scale so boggles the mind that it may explain why Republicans could feel outrage at “Whitewater”, then simply blink in dull incomprehension over Neocon-era thievery. After all, you can imagine what you, personally, would do with $80,000. But a billion? In lost cash? The mind reels. It turns away.


* Even Worse -- Getting the Taxpayers to Subsidize the Creation of Private Armies for the Rich.

Of course, none of this more than touches upon the darkest aspect of the trend, described in Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

“Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the firm's quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US. Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.”

I have been fuming over Blackwater Security Services, ever since this burgeoning mercenary enforcement company sent private troops to intimidate local cops and to illegally patrol public bridges, during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, violently preventing poor folks in New Orleans from crossing into rich enclaves, even when their only goal was to pass through, seeking safety and transportation on the other side. *

While this trend is frightening in at least a dozen ways that go far beyond the topic of this series. Our primary focus remains mainly on how privatization of force has affected the military.

Consider this: even extreme libertarians, like Ayn Rand, have always conceded that governments should retain “a monopoly on the use of coercion and force.” Yes, many rabid libertarians despise the modern state and rail against excessive bureaucracy. They wish the military would simply guard our borders. Courts should simply enforce contracts and punish bullies who use coercion privately. Indeed, within those ideal limits, libertarians hold with the social compact that founded America -- that private force is a dangerous vestige of the days of mercenary condottieri and rule by feudal lords.

Oh, it is easy to see where Blackwater fits into the grand scheme. Members of the US Officer Corps who seem pliable can be offered lucrative retirement jobs in a new force that does not answer to any of our accountable institutions, nor any of the rigorous procedures that have become core elements of character in our professional - and national - armed services.

As for why neocons are pushing this trend, as part of their larger-scale putsch, well, there is a long tradition. Caesar turned Roman legions into personal ones. The SA and SS could perform actions that the German Wehrmacht found unpalatable. And these predecessors, too, would up servicing the mighty while paid out of public coffers.

Still, one question especially bugs me. Put aside the Secret Masters of this program and the mercenaries themselves, and the fanatics. What about the old fashioned conservatives who still make up the bulk of the Republican Party? Have they no sense of imagination or shame? Do they ever, ever pause and ask themselves “what would I have done, if Bill Clinton had tried to pull even one percent of this stuff?”

Hypocrites who raged over Whitewater, but see nothing to worry about in Blackwater, have simply chosen sides for visceral reasons and will let their minds see nothing disturbing.

Above all, the “side” they have chosen is not us. America. Civilization. It is a partisan movement that’s been taken over by monsters.

==Continue to Part 8

 or return to Part 1 of this series

Final Shots... let's show them what we're made of...

I will be glad when this election is over... though it may take us a decade to get the mess cleaned up, budgets balanced, courts neutral again, the civil service and officer corps re-professionalized, our international reputation and popularity back up to levels that we'll need in order to restore alliances and trust and lead again... and so on...

I look forward to non-political postings and topics like the long-delayed series on "Theological Questions in an Age of Science." But still...

...these are the times that try men's souls... If Thomas Paine were alive today, he would recognize the urgency of fighting new aristocratic lords and cronies of the king, who would take away our rights and turn our great experiment into one more tedious pyramid of inherited privilege. Alas, he is NOT alive. So some of us must channel for him, guessing, imagining, knowing what he would say.

Here are some final comments and items and bullets. Use them well.

== The Iraq War ==

More on the stunning article in January’s Vanity Fair, in which Rummy’s Iraq war cheerleaders, “Cakewalk” Ken Adelman and Richard “Nix Blix” Perle, are falling all over themselves to knife the Pentagon boss who (they say) betrayed all of their fond hopes for a supremely competent Pax Americana, militantly spreading utopian values around this benighted world. Scaling new heights in the annals of Now They Tell Us, the two men blame the “dysfunctional” Bush team for the “disaster” in Iraq and say that if they had known then what we all know now (and what some of us knew then), they never would have pushed to invade Iraq.

Bright dingbats. Writhing rationalizers. But they are welcome. After all, they are here when we (civilization) need them. Their reasons for standing up may be infantile and whiney... but they are here, now, standing up.

Toward the end of this election-eve posting, I will cite another voice from the right who is stepping up... well, partly, in a nervous dance that does not get full points, but at least may help you talk to that wavering conservative who is still on your last minute arm-twist list. See below who I’m talking about; but first, some brief points.

Speaking of neocon dopiness, put the lie to “nobody expected to need more troops!” Professionals and adults expected it, all right. And yet, to me it is distilled (as I’ve said before) by the plight of the U.S. THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION. During the initial invasion of Iraq, those heroes did the work of an entire armored corps, saving Donald Rumsfeld’s hash, so that he could caper and crow and proclaim “Mission Accomplished.” Their reward? Relentless deployments in a purgatory of danger and ingratitude. Push this in the face of goppers who screeched at Clinton for putting too-few tanks in Somalia, resulting in 10 (that’s t-e-n) extra US troops lost there. That was bad. THIS is orders of magnitude worse.

== And more ==

Along similar lines, Russ Daggatt is really on: ”So let me get this straight. Shiite radical mullah Sadr, who heads the militia believed to be holding a US serviceman, is a key supporter of the Iraqi prime minister who orders the US military to back off from its search for the US serviceman believed to be held by Sadr's forces. And the US complies?!!? And nobody on the right complains? Can you imagine if this happened under the watch of, say, Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter? The entire right-wing noise machine would be going ballistic! (Even more than when John Kerry flubs a joke.)”

"President Bush demanded that Kerry apologize. Can you imagine that -- Bush demanding an apology for someone stumbling over his words? ... Kerry should have tried the Bush strategy: say so many stupid things, no one cares anymore." --Jay Leno

In addition... Bechtel, the giant engineering company, is leaving Iraq. Its mission — to rebuild power, water and sewage plants — wasn’t accomplished: Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq’s population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of taxpayers’ money and having lost the lives of 52 employees, has come to the end of its last government contract. (And, mind you, they are absolute pros compared to Haliburton!)

Paul Krugman comments: As for how this could have happened, that’s easy: major contractors believed, correctly, that their political connections insulated them from accountability. Halliburton and other companies with huge Iraq contracts were basically in the same position as Donald Rumsfeld: they were so closely identified with President Bush and, especially, Vice President Cheney that firing or even disciplining them would have been seen as an admission of personal failure on the part of top elected officials. As a result, the administration and its allies in Congress fought accountability all the way. Now, Congress has passed a bill whose provisions include the complete elimination of the Inspectorate whose job it is to shine light on contract abuse....

You can see why a Democratic takeover of the House provokes terror: suddenly, committee chairmen with subpoena power would be in a position to investigate where all the Iraq money went. Ooooooh. But then, there are those pardons.

Back to Daggatt: So, two days before the election they sentence Saddam. By contrast, what have the Republicans pushed off until after the election? 

See the following:
The National Intelligence Estimate on the Iraq War.
The Jim Baker Iraq Study Group report.
The Mark Foley Ethics Committee investigation report.

Also, the IRS is postponing notification of back taxes to Katrina victims until after the election.

And the Agriculture Department's "Hunger Report" (usually released in October) has also been pushed back until after the election.

Man, if they are holding back the BAD NEWS until after the election, we're really in trouble.

== Stand up for Civilization ==

All right, back to that teaser from the beginning of the posting.

Last time I spoke unfavorably of how some other intellectuals of the right have failed us by obstinately refusing to recognize their duty to stand up, when their nation and civilization needs them. (Indeed, to save their conservative movement from spiralling into hell.) One of those I’ve mentioned was George Will, who oscillates frenetically, between sage and rationalizing apologist. Recently, Will took a turn toward the former, when he wrote in a New York Times book review (10/06):

“Brooke Allen, an author and critic who has distilled her annoyance into “Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers.” It is a wonderfully high-spirited and informative polemic that, as polemics often do, occasionally goes too far. Her thesis is that the six most important founders — Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton — subscribed, in different ways, to the watery and undemanding Enlightenment faith called deism. That doctrine appealed to rationalists by being explanatory but not inciting: it made the universe intelligible without arousing dangerous zeal.”

Here are some more excerpts from this piece by Will, who is apparently, like Bob Woodward, trying to redeem himself as the Old Union and the Enlightenment rebel against the monstrosity that conservatism has become,

“Eighteenth-century deists believed there was a God but, tellingly, they frequently preferred synonyms for him — “Almighty Being” or “Divine Author” (Washington) or “a Superior Agent” (Jefferson). Having set the universe in motion like a clockmaker, Providence might reward and punish, perhaps in the hereafter, but does not intervene promiscuously in human affairs. (Washington did see “the hand of Providence” in the result of the Revolutionary War.) Deists rejected the Incarnation, hence the divinity of Jesus. “Christian deist” is an oxymoron.

“What Allen calls Washington’s “famous gift of silence” was particularly employed regarding religion. But his behavior spoke. He would not kneel to pray, and when his pastor rebuked him for setting a bad example by leaving services before communion, Washington mended his ways in his austere manner: he stayed away from church on communion Sundays. He acknowledged Christianity’s “benign influence” on society, but no ministers were present and no prayers were uttered as he died a Stoic’s death.

“...In 1781, the Articles of Confederation acknowledged “the Great Governor of the World,” but six years later the Constitution made no mention of God. When Hamilton was asked why, he jauntily said, “We forgot.” Ten years after the Constitutional Convention, the Senate unanimously ratified a treaty with Islamic Tripoli that declared the United States government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

... “Christianity, particularly its post-Reformation ferments, fostered attitudes and aptitudes associated with popular government. Protestantism’s emphasis on the individual’s direct, unmediated relationship with God, and the primacy of individual conscience and choice, subverted conventions of hierarchical societies in which deference was expected from the many toward the few. But beyond that, America’s founding owes much more to John Locke than to Jesus.”

== Hypocrisy reigns ==

And, finally, as long as we’re on the topic of sanctimonious hypocrisy... alas... there are downsides even to giggle news. While it seems righteous and right for the self-righteous to get comeuppance -- and specifically, for the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Pastor Ted Haggard, to be revealed having had a three-year relationship with a male prostitute that include the use of crystal meth -- in fact, Pastor Ted has been among the leaders in the evangelical movement in drawing attention to the climate crisis. So even when we win... we lose.

Ah well. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy is too rich to let go. Dare your friends to compare this to Monica-gate... at any level, and by any criterion, whatsoever. Watch the contortions ensue!

On second thought... maybe we should stop trying to convert “sincere conservatives” at this point. If they haven’t yet realized what’s going on... that it is time to take great-grandpa’s blue uniform out of the trunk and put it on, while singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”... then they have already decided which country and century they want to live in. And it ain’t America. And it ain’t the future.

Turn your efforts to get-out-the-vote. Check on your friends till they find your nagging irksome. Prod the angry cynics off their lazy duffs and drag them to the polls.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The only thing we have is fear."

George W. Bush

People. We have done better.

We can do better.

Let’s.

An Issue to Help Conservatives Decide to Do The Right Thing

Folks, you can expect these missives to come almost daily, till the election. It is, after all, the little that I can do... in the fight for our civilization’s life.

The worst sin of the Democrats - failing to protect the US Officer Corps:

You’ve heard it from me before. But this is the Best ammo to use in confronting those sincere, Goldwater Republicans, who know that something horrible has happened to their movement, but who need an excuse to change their lifelong habits on election day. It hits home even more strongly than hammering on, say, today’s GOP spendthrift budget-busting or string of outrageous scandals.

Moreover, alas, it is a crime that the Democrats have been too wussy to raise as a foremost issue. So you must do it yourself.

I often bemoan (in sinful pride) that I was among the very first to publicly decry this administration’s relentless and viciously oppressive war against the United States Officer Corps. Against the brilliant and dedicated men and women who - following the tradition of George Marshall - have honed skill and discipline while forsaking immature ambition, abandoning the age-old warrior testosterone and bluster in favor of professionalism, becoming the third best-educated clade in our entire civilization.

Under-appreciated and ignored by the left, while they are being harried and bullied by the right, they are the very people who stand between us and a very, very cold wind.

But there are exceptions, of course. You can guess that the promotion rosters have been filled, lately, with the kind of men who will turn away from Marshallian maturity and instead help usher in the era of Nehemiah Scudder. If they possibly can. For example, recently: the top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Exceptions like these will grow ever more common and terrifying, if we citizens do not stand up and take notice. (And then, when that happens, will liberals suddenly turn around and embrace the Second Amendment? Hm?)

Again, this is about protecting a treasure that millions of Americans do not even know they have. These men and women have focused on accountability and mature professionalism to a degree that most civilians cannot begin to grasp. Their depth and caliber of intelligence, perception and dedication. It will take a lot of hard work for the neo-feudalists to cull the Officer Corps down -- pushing down past Marshall and all the way past the Cincinnatus example of Washington -- before finally returning the military to its ancient and traditional role in most other civilizations. That of lickspittle attack dogs.

A long, hard task. But, clearly, if history is any guide, it is possible. Especially if you bear in mind the other end of this program: an ongoing campaign by more than a hundred fanatical members of Congress to stock our military academies with cadets who are religious zealots, more loyal to a fanatical agenda (looking eagerly toward an imminent and much-desired end-of-the-world) than they are faithful to either progress or the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, it is possible...

... or is it?

See: Revolt of the Generals by Richard J. Whalen [from the October 16, 2006 issue of The Nation]

“A revolt is brewing among our retired Army and Marine generals. This rebellion -- quiet and nonconfrontational, but remarkable nonetheless -- comes not because their beloved forces are bearing the brunt of ground combat in Iraq but because the retirees see the US adventure in Mesopotamia as another Vietnam-like, strategically failed war, and they blame the errant, arrogant civilian leadership at the Pentagon. The dissenters include two generals who led combat troops in Iraq: Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division (the "Big Red One"). These men recently sacrificed their careers by retiring and joining the public protest.

“In late September Batiste, along with two other retired senior officers, spoke out about these failures at a Washington Democratic policy hearing, with Batiste saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "not a competent wartime leader" who made "dismal strategic decisions" that "resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies and the good people of Iraq." Rumsfeld, he said, "dismissed honest dissent" and "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war."

“This kind of protest among senior military retirees during wartime is unprecedented in American history--and it is also deeply worrisome. The retired officers opposing the war and demanding Rumsfeld's ouster represent a new political force, and therefore a potentially powerful factor in the future of our democracy. The former generals' growing lobby could acquire a unique veto power in the future by publicly opposing reckless civilian warmaking in advance.
...

“The dissenting retired generals are bent on making Iraq this nation's last strategically failed war--that is, one doggedly waged by civilian officials largely to avoid personal accountability for their bad decisions. A failed war causes mounting human and other costs, damaging or entirely destroying the national interest it was supposed to serve.”
“Retired Lieut. Gen. William Odom calls the Iraq War "the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States" and draws a grim parallel with the Vietnam War. He says that US strategy in Iraq, as in Vietnam, has served almost exclusively the interests of our enemies.”

...”The military's senior active-duty leadership will not openly revolt. "We're not the French generals in Algeria," says Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. "But we damned well know that the Iraq War we've won militarily is being lost politically." The well-read retired Marine Lieut. Gen. Gregory Newbold wrote in a Time magazine essay: "I retired from the military four months before the March 2003 invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy." Newbold calls the Iraq War "unnecessary" and says the civilians who launched the war acted with "a casualness and swagger" that are "the special province" of those who have never smelled death on a battlefield.”

... “Says retired two-star General Eaton: "The repeated rotations of Army Reservists and National Guardsmen are hollowing out the US ground forces. This whole thing in Iraq is going to fall off a cliff.... Yet we have a moral obligation to see this thing [the Iraqi occupation] through. If we fail, it will cause America grave problems for several decades to come."

... “We have "paid" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by borrowing heavily from foreign dollar-holders, such as China, that are awash in trade surpluses, and have left debt service to future US generations.

A key argument in the ex-generals' indictment is this undeniable fact: Our armed forces are too small to police and reorder the world and intervene almost blindly, as we have in Iraq. That invasion acted out the world-changing daydreams of pro-Israel neoconservative policy intellectuals like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others who gained warmaking power and influence atop the Pentagon but who evidently never asked themselves, Suppose we're wrong?

What happens then? Sober, realistic Israelis privately fear the neocons' "friendship," and where it has led America, more than any Arab enemies. In the inevitable post-Iraq War tsunami of US political recrimination, such Israelis foresee Christian Zionist evangelicals, whose lobbying muscle in Congress was decisive in the run-up to the Iraq War, attempting to scapegoat the high-profile neocons and endangering Israel's all-important security ties to the United States.”

                                                            ===    ===    ===

Strong stuff. Nor do I agree with absolutely everything.

Many of you know that I firmly separate the Afghanistan intervention -- which was planned in detail by Clinton-Clark, not by Rumsfeld -- from Rummy’s own loony imbroglio in Iraq. Afghanistan (at least in its first year) seems to have been much more like our Balkans Campaign -- efficient, effective, professional and very easy on costs (lives, dollars and prestige with allies.) Still, that only makes Whalen’s point stronger.

An added thought. Whalen's article points out that Israel was never a "winner" out of the neocons' mad adventurism. Now it is clear to anyone with three neurons to rub together (and who doesn’t live in the Carolinas) that the real winners in the last six years have been Iran and the Saudi Royal House...

...whose proteges fill this administration so perfectly that it is the statistical scandal awaiting some reporter's careful analysis. (Find one top administration security appointee who has not taken copious amounts of petro$ in consultancies etc. I defy you to find more than one or two. Colin Powell is the only exception I know of, after two years asking this question.)

Unfortunately, it will take a reporter. Because America’s counter-intelligence agents are probably cowed, keeping their heads down, dominated by bosses who were virtually appointed by a hostile foreign power, unable to lift their eyes enough to track blatant patterns that would have set off a million alarms, if a similar fraction of our highest security officials had been appointed (or at least approved) by the Soviet KGB.

THE SYNDROME OF THE “ESSENTIAL MAN”

How likely is it that any human is well-qualified to judge his own status as an “essential man”?

It is true that history shows some examples of fellows who resisted all external pressures to step down, knowing with brilliant sureness that they had a vital and historic mission. Almost certainly Abraham Lincoln was right, when he took this stance. Arguably, FDR. And yet, knowing humans as we do – especially their most dismal habit of self-serving delusion, should we not have the reflex of holding this kind of self-appraisal in… well… suspicion?

Should not one of the traits of an honest and mature man be to recognize this delusional habit, and worry about it? The way that George Washington did, when he resigned paramount power – several times – and set the Great Example?

Sure, a certain bullheaded determination is essential in politics. But there are ways to compensate. To ensure accountability. To (above all) provide that your institution and constituents get the benefit of the doubt, and not you. The nation and not the leader. When overwhelming evidence suggests that maybe a guy should go… shouldn’t he go?

You see the same classic syndrome across the entire CEO caste, driving up compensation/pay/stock-option rates toward the moon, as chummy fellow members of the caste vote each other outrageous pay scales, justified on what basis?

Why, it seems always to be a variant on (surprise!) the old Essential Man thing!

So let’s veer aside for a moment and ponder this version of the syndrome. The CEO variation.

Start with basics. These guys believe in capitalism, right?

All right, then. The core assumption of capitalism – and I believe this too - is that high rates of return will normally attract new talent to a field! Right? Imbalances and shortages should be self-correcting.

Specifically, if a shortage of good managerial talent stimulates high market prices for managerial talent, then, within short order, new managerial talent should commence to train itself, ramp-up, then compete (presumably fairly) and innovate until there is so much of it around that the shortage is eased. Whereupon, anomalously high premiums will no longer have to be paid.

In other words, the predicted curve is that a brief period of elevated CEO pay should soon give way to a talent migration that causes a surfeit, even a glut of skilled executives, easing the shortage and causing pay rates to drop.

Isn’t that the fundamental premise? Isn’t that the absolutely basic article of capitalistic-freemarket faith?

But it is not what we’ve observed. Not at all. Instead, the pattern across the last two decades has almost perfectly matched what you see when insatiable demand meets an absolutely limited supply. Like the limited supply of Da Vinci paintings, or Stradivarius violins. Or seven foot centers who can both rebound and pass accurately from mid-court.

Members of the CEO caste seem to be saying “we are actually mutants, like pro basketball players. No matter how much we are paid, the pool of skilled corporate administrators will remain fixed and small.  Market incentives – even astronomical ones - will never augment supply. All companies can do is bid up CEO pay in order to hire the few mutant managers away from each other, just like sports teams!”

Well? Is that not EXACTLY the logic implicit in the CEO compensation spiral, as we see it endlessly accelerating skyward? The justification for taking billions away from research, from reinvestment, from worker benefits and from dividends for smalltime stockholders? So that top managers can move around like football free agents, playing rapid musical chairs and games of golden parachute?

Hm. Interesting proposition. Mutants. Like Sports stars. (In which case, are we best served coming up with some kind of league-wide reserve clause, hm? Don’t some of these same guys own sports teams and cry for caps? For cost controls? Oh, but then let’s also leave off the whole youth factor. They seem also to be saying that in this field, unlike any other across all of human endeavor, youthful brilliance is entirely irrelevant. Hm. And double hm.)

Alas, there is a problem. In sports, there are explicit performance metrics that can be applied, in order to determine who are the top fifty or so mutant-level -- and thus irreplaceable -- athletes in a given sport. But in business, tremendous effort is made to obscure and obfuscate every performance metric. Correlations with stockholder return or rates of innovation or long term company health are vague, at best. The one correlation that seems always to affect pay is how well you manage to pack the Board with your pals. And that is a dead giveaway. Because truly superior men would be ashamed of having to use tricks like those. They would refuse.

Here’s an example offered by financial expert John Mauldin: “John Walter joined AT&T, but after nine short months he was out of a job. The complaint was that Walter "lacked intellectual leadership." Walter got $26 million for that little stint in a severance package. That's what you call really beating time. Of course, a few of us might have another word for it -- and for AT&T.”

And yet, let’s reiterate the irony -- these same guys sing the praises of capitalism as a perfect mechanism for swiftly correcting imbalances of supply and demand! It always works, they say. Well, except where you just gotta have mutants. Amazing.

Just for the record, I most definitely believe in competitive markets and have said so countless times. Indeed, my aim during this aside is to point out a hypocritical betrayal of markets by those who most vocally claim to be defending them. In fact, there is a business correlate with the kind of price curve that we have seen in the area of CEO compensation. You’ll see a similar curve in a market for a commodity has been cornered so that production is controlled by a small, collusive group, in order to create artificial scarcity. Think diamonds.

And no better example is served (as we return full circle to the earlier topic) than the situation we observe with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The man who oversaw our humiliation in not one, but two catastrophic Asian land wars, who supported Saddam for decades, till the maniac slipped his leash, who participated in the incredible Blunder of 1991, who later perceived Saddam bulging with hair-trigger WMDs, who suppressed military counsel about troop levels, who confidently predicted we would be greeted by the Iraqi people with “kisses and flowers,” who sanctioned torture, who declared “mission accomplished” while predicting a short happy transition to peace and democracy in Iraq, who oversaw the worst decline in our state of readiness in generations and has alienated most of the Officer Corps and most of our allies…

…now appears to be claiming (without offering a scintilla of evidence) that he is such a superior manager of our nation’s defense that there are no possible replacements. None at all. Not even from the pool of experienced and well-respected conservatives. (e.g. some retired general?) (Er, some other retired general?)

Look, there are many ways to look at these things, but I always try to ask… ”what are you REALLY SAYING?”

And what this “essential man” seems to be saying is “you must continue to put up with all my failures, arrogance, bullying and unending chain of mistakes. Because my political faction cannot find anyone else to bring forward. Nobody else who might – while lacking my heavy burden of liabilities – actually do a better job.”

It’s all the same dreary rationalization – and hearkens to the pattern that really destroyed markets in most cultures, for 4,000 years.

A market for a commodity has been cornered and production controlled, in order to create artificial scarcity. But this market – for managerial talent – must be opened and freed, if our civilization is to prosper.

See also: The Contradiction of Capital Markets

              and Deep Cheating and the CEO Cartel

 ==The Generals' Revolt==

Some of you have commented upon Donald Rumsfeld’s response to the Generals’ Revolt, in which he firmly dismissed any possibility of resigning the office of Secretary of Defense. He admits that there have been problems and miscalculations and failures – many – worthy of deep criticism. Yet, he insists that his leadership remains badly needed.

Instead of joining the back-and-forth hatefest at its superficial (and least interesting) level, let’s dig a bit. Inherent in everything that Rumsefled is saying appears to be one core assumption -- that there aren’t any other qualified conservatives – untarnished by scandal and failure – who are capable of doing his job.

In other words, despite taking responsibility for AbuGhraib and failed intelligence and mangled war planning and losing the confidence of the Officer Corps, he remains the “essential man.” Impossible to replace, even by another, similar conservative.

Notice how I expressed it. Of course, many of us would like to see neocon leadership replaced at the top of our republic. This movement has acted as if they had a “mandate” to utterly transform America, despite having “won” disputed and at-best profoundly narrow electoral victories. A troglodytic and roughshod era of rationalization and contemptuous dismissal of all dissenting thought.

See: The Real Culture War: Defining the Background


and NeoConservatism, Islam and Ideology: The Real Culture War

But I am not going there right now. Instead, let us perform another of our patented thought experiments.

Let us assume, for a moment, that DR and his movement do have a “mandate.” A blank check from the American people to pursue a general line of policy called “neoconservatism” – including all of the adventurism and romantic Platonism that comes part and parcel with the Straussian worldview.

Even if his movement had such a mandate, that is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Rumsfeld should resign. For what he is actually claiming is that he – himself – is not replaceable even by some other neocon who has a top defense background and is politically compatible!

In other words, his own movement has such a paucity of talent that it cannot step in with another highly qualified person who can pursue conservative policies WHILE soothing the trainwreck of morale within the Pentagon and across America at large.

Let’s take a moment to delve into the implications of this dogged stand. Whether we call it “stalwart and determined” or “obstinately power-grubbing,” there are even deeper levels that merit exploration.