Apologies for the crude title, but sorry, this is basically what the following op-ed amounts to. It would almost be funny if it wasn't so scary and enraging.
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense in charge of our largest, most humiliating, most costly and most devastating military defeat since Vietnam, appoints one of the most loathsome individuals to emerge from the sack of shit side of the aisle in decades, Newt Gingrich, to the Defense Policy Board, who then writes the following glowing (surprise surprise!) review of the culmination of the work that Rumsfeld has done since being appointed Secretary of Defense, the Quadrennial Defense Review, in an op-ed in Today's Washington Post.
Who could have imagined such a thing!
The title he chooses for this op-ed--without a shred of self-consciousness, embarrassment or irony--says it all: "A Leaner, Meaner Military". Yes, he's actually boasting about how "mean" our reshaped military now is--as if the old one wasn't seen as "mean" enough the world over (you want pictures of tortured prisoners to go with those freedom fries?).
And he can hardly contain his glee at what he calls "the major achievements of a remarkable Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)". Hardly a word about the stupendous failure that has been Iraq (not the military's, of course, but Rumsfeld's). He just wants to talk about the military's brand new toys and cool new reorg. The Powerpoint must have been a killer.
Too bad he forgot to include any mention of those great new armored Humvees and cool new body armor for our troops that are still sitting around stateside in state of the art warehouses.
A Leaner, Meaner Military
By Newt Gingrich
Saturday, March 4, 2006; Page A17
The Post's Feb. 13 editorial "Mr. Rumsfeld's Flawed Vision" managed to miss the major achievements of a remarkable Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). This was the most thorough and systematically managed review in Pentagon history. The review board, co-chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, spent half a year forcing changes in a complex bureaucratic system famous for its ability to hide and wait for the current civilian leadership to disappear so it can continue its old, comfortable ways. Only by sheer force of will has the senior leadership, under the direction of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, muscled through substantial and historic change in the Defense Department.
Looks like if folks like Gingrich have their way, we've only just begun to fight the Glorious GWB Gingrich Global War on Terror (GWOT)--newly re-renamed yet again, it seems, to "The Long War Against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam" (LWAIWI):
The Army has shifted from 11 unwieldy World War II-type divisions to 77 rapidly deployable brigades designed for modern war. This makes it more deployable, more usable and more effective. Army modernization is being extended by the creation of more Special Operations units and the Marine Corps is being turned into a more effective organization for what I call "the long war against the irreconcilable wing of Islam."
And he's got some special news that should really please our working men and women:
At the Pentagon, the creation of the National Security Personnel System -- which is being challenged in the courts -- is historic and vitally necessary to the effective use of resources for national security. The fact that it has been opposed by every labor union in the Defense Department is one indication of how thorough and far-reaching it is.
He's actually boasting that this is potentially in violation of the law and is opposed by every labor union in the DoD, as if that clearly proved how successful this plan is! My god, these people are literally from another world. They. Are. Not. Human!!!
But wait, there's more great news:
There are a number of steps that have to be taken to modernize the nondefense aspects of national security. As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner has noted, large segments of the civilian government are not doing their job and in some cases are not even showing up for their assignments. Rumsfeld is aware of these problems, but it is hard to imagine that he could challenge other departments in a public document such as the QDR.
So nice of you to offer examples with supporting evidence, oh glorious giver of truth, displayer of virtue and sacrificer of other peoples' lives!
He then goes on to give the true reason for our failure to secure the peace in Iraq, and then presents a truly convincing argument for why it would have been an absolutely horrible mistake to have sent in more troops to Iraq:
The Post wrongly asserts that "Mr. Rumsfeld essentially proposes to reinforce and perpetuate the greatest single mistake of his tenure, which was failing to deploy enough soldiers to win the wars the United States has taken on." In fact, there is no evidence that more troops would have accomplished anything more than what was accomplished in Afghanistan. The mistake in Iraq was not keeping the Iraqi regular army intact to assume the responsibility of policing in June 2003. Additional troops were not sent to Iraq for the very reason that military leaders did not want to create an even bigger footprint leading to greater alienation and hostility on the part of the Iraqi people.
Um, yeah, pretty much the consensus of all of your military advisers down at the Mustang Ranch, right Newt, being the great military strategist that you are and all? Worked pretty damn well for us, our troops, and the truly liberated and happy people of the Democratic Republic of Iraq, wouldn't you say?
And, if this last part doesn't scare the living shit out of you and make you want to live in a cave for the next 20 years, I don't know what will. He seems to almost look forward to the military engagements he mentions and predicts. Again, the man is simply not human. There is something seriously wrong with anyone who can write this shit for public consumption, and be damn proud of it. Man, would I like to have him lead the airport road convoy in Baghdad for a couple of weeks.
Rumsfeld's second tour of duty as defense secretary marks a period of dramatic change in which the United States has been simultaneously fighting a global war against Islamic extremists, conducting campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, making preparations to preempt North Korea and Iran if necessary, undertaking strategies to contain China over the next two decades, dramatically changing the structure and rhythm of the Army, and beginning a revolution in both special operations capabilities and unmanned vehicles. This is an extraordinary level of change, and the QDR is best seen as one more building block in this new architecture of 21st-century American security.
The writer, a former speaker of the House, serves on the Defense Policy Board, to which he was appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Now back to reality, here's that Washington Post editorial that Gingrich casually dismissed in his op-ed:
Mr. Rumsfeld's Flawed Vision
Monday, February 13, 2006; Page A20
DEFENSE SECRETARY Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose failures in Iraq and in prisoner detention should have led to his departure long ago, reportedly clung to his position in part to oversee the comprehensive defense review that the Pentagon conducts every four years. There might have been some merit to that: Mr. Rumsfeld has had more experience with U.S. defense issues than most modern defense secretaries and doesn't shrink from confrontation. Some hoped that he would decisively push the American military out of the outdated conventional war posture it was in on Sept. 11, 2001, and provide it with the means to deal with terrorism and the low-intensity conflicts that seem likely to dominate the coming years. But Mr. Rumsfeld's Quadrennial Defense Review, delivered last week in sync with the Pentagon's budget proposal for fiscal 2007, is a disappointment. While it envisions a partial adjustment of the armed forces to what it calls "the long war," it dodges almost all the hard decisions that Mr. Rumsfeld should have made.
...
It's easy to propose new spending for such missions. What Mr. Rumsfeld flinched from was tackling the bloated weapons programs left behind by the changing threat...Having fought bitterly with Congress over the cancellation of just two weapons systems during his five years at the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld seems to have abandoned any thought of trying again in an election year. Defense contractors, who had expected cuts, were giddy over the $84 billion for weapons included in the Pentagon's $439 billion budget for next year -- shares of Lockheed Martin Corp. rose smartly last week.
This profligacy merely bequeaths to Mr. Rumsfeld's successor tough decisions about weapons. One thing that military analysts agree on is that, even given the 40 percent increase in defense spending during the Bush administration -- including 7 percent for next year -- there will not be enough money to pay for the four dozen systems under development. Even worse, Mr. Rumsfeld postpones the day of reckoning in part by sticking to a stubborn refusal to increase the size of the Army. Though he no longer proposes a downsizing and is overseeing a brigade reorganization that should free up more troops for conflicts such as Iraq, the secretary's plan would hold the Army to the same size it was before Sept. 11, eliminating the temporary increase of 30,000 troops for Iraq forced by pressure from Congress. Mr. Rumsfeld essentially proposes to reinforce and perpetuate the greatest single mistake of his tenure, which was failing to deploy enough soldiers to win the wars the United States has taken on. Congress should not allow him to inflict this damage.
It's amazing how it's always the people who never served, never fought, never saw combat, never saw their buddies and innocent people blown away, who get the most excited over military capabilities and war, yell the loudest to send our men and women to war on a whim, and are the least upset when so many of them come home horribly wounded or in a box.
If anyone is shocked at this then I will personally shoot them on sight (and no visits from O'Falafel's private secret service in the middle of the night, please).