One of the best analysis and analogies I have seen.
TR
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06092/678571-108.stm
Jack Kelly: National security, Democratic style
A strategy in which slogans triumph over substance
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The mood in Washington has been sour lately, so many were grateful when the Democrats in Congress provided a little levity Wednesday by issuing their national security strategy.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
On Feb. 3, the Defense Department issued its quadrennial report on defense strategy. It was 92 pages long. The Democrats' plan -- "Real Security: The Democratic Plan to Protect America and Restore Our Leadership in the World" -- is six pages long. Half of these repeat in Spanish what was said in English. And there is a cover page in each language. So the actual "plan" is just two pages long, presented in bullet points in large type, with plenty of white space between them. Party elders must have burned the midnight oil for months to produce this opus.
The first pledge Democrats make is to "Rebuild a state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary."
This would be a welcome change from past Democratic practice. A majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress voted against the B-2 bomber, the Patriot missile, the M-1 tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, ballistic missile defense and virtually every other weapon system that brought us victory in the Cold War, the Gulf war and the march on Baghdad.
The plan doesn't say by how much Democrats would like to increase the size of our military. But after the press conference at which the plan was unveiled, an aide said Democrats would add 140,000 troops to the active forces and National Guard.
Again, this would be a welcome departure from past Democratic practice. When President Clinton took office, there were 17 divisions in the active U.S. Army. When he left office, there were only 10.
But since an aide also told reporters the plan doesn't commit Democrats "to any specific increase in defense spending," it is unclear how Democrats plan to pay for a larger, better equipped military. Perhaps Teresa Heinz Kerry could make a donation?
In the section on the War on Terror, Democrats pledge to "eliminate Osama bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al-Qaida, finish the job in Afghanistan and end the threat posed by the Taliban."
Since eliminating Osama bin Laden isn't exactly a radical departure from the policy President Bush is pursuing, Democratic stress on this objective suggests they think they could be more successful in obtaining it than the president so far has been. But the Democratic "plan" provides no hint of what Democrats would do differently to catch bin Laden.
Perhaps what Democrats have in mind is to build a time machine, and go back to February 1996, when Sudan, where bin Laden was then residing, offered to turn him over to the United States, and the Clinton administration refused to take him. Where's H.G. Wells when you need him?
Democrats pledge to "double the size of our Special Forces." This indicates Democrats don't have a clue about what it takes to make a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL. The average idiot knows what would happen to the quality of play in the NFL if it were expanded overnight from 32 to 64 teams. Democrats have yet to figure this out.
Democrats pledge to "increase our human intelligence capabilities." Again, this would be a welcome departure from past Democratic practices. A robust human intelligence capability was all but obliterated during the Carter administration. Our humint capabilities were partially rebuilt by CIA Director William Casey under Reagan, only to be sandbagged again in the Clinton administration.
President Clinton met more often with Monica Lewinsky than with his CIA directors, one of whom was caught mishandling classified information. And perhaps Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., could explain how shutting down the NSA intercept program will improve intelligence gathering?
The Democratic "plan" consists of slogans, not substance. Most simply restate what is already U.S. policy as if it were a dramatic new insight. What little is new is idiotic.
Hassan Abbasi is the national security adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad. Mr. Abbasi thinks George W. Bush is an aberration, said Amir Taheri in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.
"For the past several weeks Mr. Abbasi has been addressing crowds of [Iranian officers] with a simple theme: The U.S. does not have the stomach for a long conflict and will soon revert to its traditional policy of 'running away,' leaving Afghanistan and Iraq ... to be reshaped by Iran and its regional allies," Mr. Taheri said.
Nothing in the Democrats' "national security strategy" suggests Mr. Abbasi is wrong.
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