The Hermits And Governor Bill

The Geek has been conflicted over the question of whether or not Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico deserves the highly coveted "Bugs Bunny, What A Maroon! Award."  Finally, after more than a bit of dithering he has decided the outgoing (praise be to whoever) Governor Bill had not quite made the high bar of supreme idiocy demanded for the high honor.  He did come close, however.  You can decide if the Geek was right or not.

The fat faced one time US Ambassador to the UN and almost Obama cabinet member has long been Pyongyang's favored American interlocutor surpassing even Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.  The Hermits have accorded this position to Governor Bill (as he has been affectionately (?) known for his two terms here in New Mexico) because he is a reliable conveyor belt of the desired image and message.  Once again he has done his duty.

According to Bill's view the leadership of North Korea is far more "pragmatic" than the state controlled media.  This is an interesting take on the affair given that not a word is put out by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) without having been vetted and approved, if not written by, the factotums occupying the highest levels of power.  Even Governor Bill should realize that there is no daylight between the belligerent rhetoric of KCNA and the Hermits At The Top.

Governor Bill had barely unpacked his bags back in Santa Fe when the Hermit In Charge of the Military was blasting South Korea and assuring any Southern "aggression" would result in a "sacred" or, alternate translation, "holy" war of defense.  Kim Yong-chun is hardly the "North Korean media," governor.

Minister Kim's remarks as well as their amplification in the KCNA and other Hermit owned and operated media came at the end of the large three day live-fire maneuvers thirty miles from the DMZ.  This military exercise was not only the trigger for Minister Kim's bellicose declarations, it was also the motivator for Bill Richardson's call for Southern "restraint."

It is more than passingly strange that the high profile diplomatic "troubleshooter," whose trip to the Land of the Hermits was approved by the Obama administration, can demand restraint from the South while acknowledging that even the Hermits realize they may have gone a bit too far by "shooting those civilians on that island."  He "hopes" that the Hermits may now pull back a bit and avers that he has some new initiatives on arms control from the Hermits.

As the governor outlined, the "new" initiatives the result is one of "deja vue all over again."  The combination of inspections, an offer to sell fuel rods to the South, and let's-come-reason-together combine to be an offer to sell the US and South Korea the same old dead horse one more time.  To employ an analogy from US history, the offer is Pyongyang's version of the failed LBJ approach to North Vietnam of "progressive squeeze and talk."

The attack(s) of the past several months have been the "squeeze" portion of the exercise, the "initiatives" offered to Governor Bill are the "talk" part of the game.  As background noise, the North continues to wave the saber and make dark hints of yet one more test of a nuclear device--"See we can squeeze harder."

Governor Bill credited the Hermits with showing admirable restraint during the recently concluded military exercises.  He may even think his presence in country during the period may have contributed to the pacific nature of the Hermits.  If so, he shouldn't break his arm patting himself on the back.

A far more credible reason for Northern restraint is that China finally got the message and leaned on Pyongyang.  The thinking here is that the recent high level US delegation to Beijing advised the Trolls that the next time Pyongyang kicked the hornets' nest, Washington would do nothing to soften or stop a South Korean response.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not President Obama has the testicular fortitude necessary for this warning, the fact on the ground which makes the argument persuasive is simply that the US would not be able to counsel restraint in the face of another Northern attack.  Any holding back would be political suicide for the present South Korean government.  Any hesitation would result in not only electoral backlash but demonstrations in the street and even the possibility of a military coup.

Even the (Clueless) Guy in the Oval must be aware of the downside resident in any Southern hesitancy if attacked in the near future.  The Trolls of Beijing and the Boys in the Kremlin are undoubtedly aware of what might happen in the aftermath of one more military provocation by the Hermits.  So, with or without any specific word from the US diplomats, the message and its consequences would be evident in the Forbidden City.

Pace, Governor Bill, but your latest bid to be the Greatest Peacemaker of the Decade is not going to put you number one in line for the next Nobel Peace Prize.  You have served your role as a transmission belt of old, worn out Northern demarches, but these will prove no more the route to detente in the Korean peninsula than their predecessors.  Get a grip on it!

To reward North Korea for its latest extortion attempt is as self-defeating as is any giving in to any extortionate power.  The Hermits want much.  They will give nothing of significance.  That is the word of experience, the lesson of history.

Keeping to the policy which demands a real, verifiable move to denuclearization as a prerequisite for restarting the Six Power Talks--or any other diplomatic exchange--is the best way to go.  Indeed, it is the only way to go.  The administration is to be commended for having done so to date.  It will deserve even more if it stays the course and hangs tough even in the presence of Governor Bill's latest package.

Considering the totality of the circumstances including the transfer of North Korean centrifuge technology to Iran, there is no alternative to staring the Hermits down, even at the risk of inadvertent, unsought war in the Peninsula.  As night falls there can be no denying the fact that North Korea is the number one foreign policy troublemaker.  Compared to it the challenges presented by Venezuela or even Iran are as trifles.

It's Easy, Too Easy To Be Against A War

Bill Richardson is to be credited with one plus in his run for the White House. He is completely, absolutely opposed to keeping any troops in Iraq beyond the normal Embassy security force of US Marines. No waffling. No yes-but's. No equivocation.

This sets him apart from his first tier rivals. Senators Clinton and Obama are not committed to a zero tolerance policy. Neither is ex-Senator Edwards.

Apparently a firm, unmistakable position is attractive to bloggers. Three front porch dogs of the blogosphere have signed on to the Richardson Zero Troops In Iraq policy. While they did not endorse Richardson, the thumbs up to his central message is tantamount to endorsement. See http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/bloggers-endorse-leadership-in-richardson-ad/.

The Geek is not one of the front porch dogs of blogging. Heck, he isn't really allowed onto the back porch. Even so, he is willing to risk his infinitesimal reputation on the assertion that the Geek, unlike the Big Three Bloggers and Governor Richardson, is willing to reject the easy course of decrying the ongoing war in Iraq.

History shows that realism in foreign policy is never easy. It involves making difficult choices from the base of an accurate understanding of both national interest and the threats or opportunities confronting national interest. Realism in foreign policy requires the utmost of intellectual and moral courage. It demands that an individual see the world as it is, not as he either wishes it to be or fears it might be. Additionally, realism in foreign affairs challenges the individual to act upon his understanding regardless of any negative effects upon his personal fortunes or career.

The current administration demonstrated its lack of realism in foreign affairs six and a half years ago with the invasion of Iraq. The pack of neocon ninnies in the bowels of the Pentagon and White House showed that they collectively could not face the world as it actually was and made decisions based upon a witch's brew of fear, neocon ideology, and hallucination.

The gripless crew threw away American credibility and the world's trust and sympathy, which had accrued over preceding years and in the aftermath of the Islamist attacks of 9/11. The deep thinkers of the Right forced a war upon us which was neither necessary nor relevant to the actual conflict with Islamism and its practictioners of terror tactics.

The time to have had a zero troops in Iraq policy was the day before the first missiles struck Iraqi targets. Before the first Made in the USA boot hit the sands of Iraq. Six and a half years ago the time came and quickly passed for opposition to the war and a demand that the troops, all the troops, come home.

Once the US invaded, once the conventional forces of Iraq were defeated, once the multi-party insurgency commenced, it was too late to back out. To leave now, to leave prematurely will assure that the only non-losers in the Iraq cockpit will be the Islamists, including those of the mullahocracy.

Wait one! The Geek knows he has beaten that horse before. He will refrain from hitting that target again. At least in this post.

The Geek is not in favor of war. He most assuredly is against the one in Iraq. At the same time, a realistic view of the world today, including the emergence and continued growth of Islamism as a potent and hostile ideology, does not permit the feel-good luxury of telling Iraq, "Get thee behind me." It does not allow the politically appealing and emotionally satisfying "Zero Troops in Iraq" notion advocated by Governor Richardson and his Big Time Bloggers supporters.

There are two very bad ideas bruited about currently. One is the Bring the Boys and Girls Home scheme. The other is the Blast Iran Back to the Stone Age weirdness.

Wars, history shows, should never be entered into lightly. If you don't believe that, check out the blithe way European statesmen let loose the cannons of August 1914 or the eagerness with which members of the House and Senate pushed for a war in Vietnam back in 1965.

Once war is commenced, it should never be abandoned easily. By the criteria of evident success, cost-benefit ratio, or unpopularity with We the People, the American War of Independence would have been abandoned shortly after the British took New York City. By those criteria the North would have given the South its independence in 1863. Even the Korean War, arguably the most important hot zone of the Cold War, would have been cast off within the first ninety days of US involvement or, failing that, during the long period of trench stalemate in 1952 and 1953.

Wars are fought to bring about a better state of peace. Indeed, it is antipodal understandings of what constitutes a better state of peace that calls war into existence. From the American perspective, considering only American interests, both short and longer-term, a better state of peace consists of credibly drawing a line over which the forces of Islamism cannot cross.

That was the real function of the Korean War. The better state of peace which came in the wake of the Korean Armistice was not peace undefiled. It was not such a good state of peace that the troops, all the troops could come home for once and for all.

The Korean Armistice ushered in an era of good-enough-peace. It assured another two generations of Cold War. It allowed for a misguided war in Vietnam. It also provided the basis for the effective containment of Soviet ambitions. It laid the foundation for the dying of the Marxist-Leninist faith.

In short, the Korean War, unpopular as it was with We the People and seemingly inconclusive as its end might have been, brought about a better state of peace, which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Governor Richardson and his supporters, blogger and otherwise, are to be commended for taking a firm stance on Iraq. Unfortunately, their stance is as wrong as grilled watermelon.

Leaving Iraq too soon would be like having left Korea before the Armistice. It is to abandon the necessity of drawing a line. It is to forsake the goal of successfully countering Islamism. It is to lose faith in us and our future.

Gov. Bill Richardson Is Second Tier--And Should Go Lower!

Governor Bill, as we New Mexicans affectionately--or not--call our governor is still off and running for president. As the Geek has written before, the man is not well qualified on the basis of his past jobs in foreign policy implementation for the presidency. As was once said of the French Marshall, Joffre, "He has forgotten nothing--and learned nothing."

The Geek watched the clip of an interview Governor Bill gave to AP in which the paunchy and not particularly articulate candidate gave his views on what he would do regarding Iraq, Afghanistan and the US military. http://player.clipsyndicate.com/view/130/399429. It's a hoot. Compared to the guv, John Edwards and Barrak Obama are strategic geniuses.

(Attention, please. This is not a mere personal rant. The Geek promises there is real substance. It comes at the tail end of the post.)

Richardson proposes to pull all US forces out of Iraq. He would leave a small "contingency" force of "Special Forces" in Kuwait, "where they are needed." He does not explicate the reasons why this contingency deployment is needed in Kuwait more than some other country in the Arabian Peninsula. Perhaps it is because Richardson's advisers don't know the name of any other potential host in the region.

The Governor would send some of the withdrawn forces to Afghanistan. The number is uncertain but he says it would be "Whatever the military believes is necessary." It should be mentioned that the deep thinking Richardson and his team give no explanation as to why Afghanistan is more important to US interests than Iraq. Nor does he explain why it is so unnecessary or so remote to longer term American interests that we not finish cleaning up the mess we made in Iraq.

In an obvious bid to make himself look strong on American defense, the Governor states that he would mount a "recruiting drive" to "rebuild the "Army and Marines." He would also seek the purchase of new equipment.

Such obvious political pap needs (and deserves) no comment.

Suffice it to say that there is no apparent need to "rebuild" the ground combat forces of the US. The performance of the troops in the field has been good within the limits of current doctrine and command philosophy. What the governor might want to consider is that should the US prematurely withdraw from Iraq, the US might just need a considerable expansion of its ground combat capacities since there would be a better than excellent chance we would be facing an expanded threat from emboldened Islamists.

Bill Richardson, like the Geek, is a product of the Vietnam generation. Richardson evidently learned the wrong lesson from the Vietnam debacle. He learned that the US should never use force either in support of diplomacy or as the ultimate extension of diplomacy.

A military exists for the purposes of direct physical defense of critical national interests. Beyond that, it exists as the backer and extender of diplomacy. If Richardson actually was the diplomatic heavy hitter he so obviously thinks he is, then he would be aware of these twin, historically defined realities.

He would also be aware that, while the term "appeasement" was massively, and incorrectly overused to justify our failed effort in Vietnam, it is still a relevant term. While not the intent, the effect of a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be the attempted appeasement of the Islamists in that country and elsewhere.

If Richardson was, as he thinks he is, the greatest gift to diplomacy since Talleyrand, he would know that appeasement is the international form of blackmail. The more that is given, the more that is demanded.

Get a grip, Governor Bill!

Gov. Bill Richardson is Out to Lunch

The Geek is a slow man to anger, but the governor of his home state has frankly rankled his butt. The Geek is particularly rankled because the Governor's latest off-the-tracks position on Iraq and the "war on terrorism" distracts the Geek from pursuing a subject of far greater personal interest, and, he opines, far greater importance to understanding what is happening in the Mideast.

In case you have missed it, Governor Bill wants the US to get out of Iraq ASAP and redeploy our troops to Afghanistan with the goal of squashing al Qaeda like a grape. He recommends replacing the increasingly effective US combat forces by an all Muslim force drawn from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Tunisia among others.

Now I realize that peyote grows abundantly in the southern desert areas of our state and that pot grows aplenty wherever there is water enough, but, at least years ago when I first met the ambitious young politico, Richardson, he didn't strike me as the type to indulge. Now I've got to wonder.

The Gov is fond of bringing up his experience with negotiating with the North Koreans regarding their A-bomb research and development activities back during the Clinton years and using this as the spring board for favoring diplomacy in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the use of military force. He darn near breaks his arm patting himself on the back for the alleged success of his diplomatic efforts with the North Koreans.

Get a grip, Bill!

Your diplomacy took place in a context. Since you are either forgetful or don't wish to bother your auditors with the facts, here they are. North Korea was faced by three negotiating parties with a significant nuclear capacity: the Peoples' Republic of China, Russia, and the US. The other two involved states, South Korea and Japan, have a nearly off-the-shelf capacity to go nuclear within months. Then there was the simple fact that North Korea was both broke and filled with starving peasants. The North Koreans needed beaucoup assistance, beaucoup fast.

In short, Gov, your brilliant diplomacy was made possible by the rampart of overwhelming force backing you and the desperate straits of your North Korean interlocutor--not your smooth words and polished manner.

Now back to the main event.

The Geek agrees, as he has stated ad nauseum in this blog, that invading Iraq was a world class blunder. But, now that the vile deed has been done, to back out before there is a reasonable simulacrum of an effective government and security force in Iraq, before there is a better state of peace, we have to stay. We have to stay and have our people die in order that the blunder we committed might be made right.

To do otherwise, as the Geek has written, will assure that there is no way that the Islamist terrorists, be they affiliated with al Qaeda or not, can be defeated.

Right now, as Major General Mixon, commander of the Multi-National Division North, stated last month, we need "more boots on the ground."

The same is true in Afghanistan. More boots on the ground are necessary if Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are to be beaten into a reasonably submissive posture. The Brits have taken notice of this and are contemplating sending more troops to their area of operations in the south of that miserable geographic expression. (The Geek cannot in good conscience say either "nation" or "country." Afghanistan is too much of a shambles for either word to apply.)

Now with respect to your harebrained scheme of an all-Muslim peace imposition force. That notion (The Geek won't dignify it with the word, "idea.") boggles the mind.

Not only do Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan have sufficient problems with their own Islamists, Syria (along with Iran) is the equivalent of the cliched fox asked to guard the hen house. Beyond those minor considerations, none of the Islamic countries you have mentioned in any of your policy pronouncements possess the doctrine, force structures, command and control mechanisms or experience relevant to the demands of counterinsurgency.

While the results might not be quite as disastrous as those associated with all-African multi-national peace imposition and keeping efforts in collapsed states in Africa, the Geek would not be willing to bet the ranch on the proposition.

Governor Richardson, however, is willing to bet our nation's future as well as that of a goodly chunk of the world on the idea that multi-party war in a collapsed state will both bring about a better state of peace for Iraq and win the "war on terrorism."

With thinking like that, the Geek is surprised that New Mexico has survived the Governor's years in office. (OOPS! Come to think of it, those years ain't over yet. The clock ticks on.)

Who Is Their Dealer?

If the report on Free Market News Network and Wired Blog http://blog.wired.com is correct, everything the Geek has suspected about the "planning" capacities of the Bush Pentagon and White House concerning the day after defeating the conventional forces in Iraq is true.

The gripless group in the Defense Department ranging from SecDef Rumsfield through his toadies such as Wolfewitz and Doug Feith (my personal favorite for Stupid Guy of the Century award) and apparently including the uniformed service chiefs really, really, but really believed that once we had "taken down" the regime, all we would have to do is a little bit of tidying up before withdrawing a few months later.

What in hell was wrong with these people??

Were they really that terminally out to lunch? Hadn't they read the intelligence estimates? If not; why not? Did they get calluses on their lips from reading something longer than a press release? Didn't understand the big words like "insurgency?"

Whatever the reason, including untreated megalomania, the "commander guy" and his merry crew of willfully gripless associates took the US, the Iraqis and the world over the edge of the wrong war in the wrong place with the wrong enemy at the wrong time.

As the great survivor and diplomat, Talleyrand, once said to Napoleon, "It is worse than a crime. It is a blunder." The Geek seconds that sentiment.

It was a blunder for two reasons.

Number one: It was avoidable. Nobody needed to read one of those Burn Before Reading high security documents. All anyone had to do was glance, that's right, glance at a basic text of Iraqi history. Just the last century or two would be enough. You don't have to go back to Ur, although that wouldn't have hurt. (Shame on the Geek. He should remember the problem with blistered lips from too much reading.)

It would have helped to go back over the news files for the period of the economic sanctions and the Oil For Food program. The journalists at least got a grip on the pervasive corruption and internal fractionation which infested Iraq after the First Gulf War.

Putting the looted empty shell reality of Iraq into the context of the lack of social or political coherence would have shown anyone with an IQ in more than single digits that "taking down" the regime would be an open invitation for armed political unrest. That's the polite term for the multi-party insurgency we have on our collective hands right now.

The second reason the Geek calls the decision to invade Iraq without adequate consideration of its aftermath both a crime and a blunder is simply this. Now that we are in the US cannot, repeat cannot afford the consequences both short and long term of leaving before we and our Iraqi clients have secured a better state of peace.

Simply satisfying our emotions as Bill Richardson, Governor of my home state and Democratic Presidential wannabe, would have us do by quickly packing up and departing being sure to "leave no troops behind" is a self-destructive answer for reasons previously outlined.

Staying without a good, useful, historically rooted plan isn't the answer either. That will result in more deaths, more physical casualties and far more psychiatric casualties in this, the most dangerous and stressful war ever fought by Americans.

There are some answers. Some solutions for the mess handed us by the gripless, brain dead worthies the Geek has mentioned. Some are being worked out in the field right now by Americans with both brains and guts.

More on that later.