From the current multi-year effort, it appears Bush has mastered building chaos.
Major General Batiste was on Hardball on Monday.
BATISTE: I don`t think they did their homework. I don`t think they went and studied the past. I think we got into something with our eyes closed with blinders on. We were worried about taking down the regime, which is difficult work, but believe me, that pales in comparison to the hard work to build the peace to set Iraq up for self-reliance....
Studying history usually does help to ensure future success. Was any homework done at all? You bet there was.
MATTHEWS: You say we should have about had 380,000.
BATISTE: The Centcom plan, the central command plan, went back year after year after year and carefully developed this plan. This is not the plan that took us into the Gulf War in 1991. Totally different plan. A strategy that was well thought out, that took us through the phase of taking down the regime, all the way through the phase of building the peace.
MATTHEWS: It would have worked.
BATISTE: It would have worked. At least 380,000 coalition troops backed up by the preponderance of the Iraqi security forces that were stood down.
MATTHEWS: Who was in the room when Secretary Rumsfeld--who I get along with on this program whenever we get him on, we kid around. To me, I have never worked for him obviously, he`s a charmer. But I hear a lot of things from you about he`s not a charmer, right?
BATISTE: It has nothing to do with charm. It has everything to do with being contemptuous, dismissive and arrogant...
MATTHEWS: That`s not charming.
BATISTE: ...and sidelining honest dissent, and I take you back to the General Shinseki who for a year was sidelined and then unceremoniously retired.
MATTHEWS: And he said it would take 200,000 troops, and he got sacked for that basically.
BATISTE: He did.
So what really went wrong? I mean in addition to the usual claims we hear repeated again and again?
The CEO mentality. Contemptuous. Dismissive. Arrogant. Sidelining honest dissent. Insisting on doing more with less. Ignoring the `experts' and forcing a square peg into a round hole. Willing to risk what others have (life, money, jobs) for a chance for a quick `win', to claim `victory' while enjoying personal enrichment ($$$). But even if `victory' is more difficult or even impossible to achieve, the CEO knows there is rarely any demand for accountability and if there were, they already have their millions.
As we have seen, this CEO mentality is short sighted; focused on short term gain - political or monetary - often times with little regard for the long term consequences or the human costs. Doing it fast at the least cost is more important than doing it right.
So how do we build a nation? I'm not talking about Iraq, now. I'm talking about the United States.
Over the last 6 years we have seen declines in personal income, increases in poverty, increases in health care costs, declines in people with health insurance, increases in the deficit - the list goes on and on. Yet the CEO's are sitting pretty - except for the CEO Republicans. After years of short term fixes and favors to supporters from past elections, Republicans are now facing the consequences of their actions head-on. And they do not have a golden parachute.
It is time for a new Board of Directors to put this country back on track: to demand accountability; to look for long term solutions; to do the RIGHT thing, not the least cost short term alternative.
Building a nation requires having a long-term vision of how that nation should look. Most Americans seem to want to change course, meaning their vision of our nation is very different from where we are and where we seem to be headed. I guess what we really need is a new set of `Founding Fathers' to make their vision a reality.
I wrote this after the 2004 Election:
Democrats should be seen as the leaders of the future, not followers or obstructionist nay sayers.
The Party cannot come first. Winning for the party cannot be the objective - it must be winning for the people. Isn't that a Democratic Core Value?
The issues cannot be simplified to point/counter-point arguments but rather must involve promoting a long-term vision. Presenting numbers that can and will be argued back and forth does not work. It clouds the issues for those in the middle: instead of choosing and buying into a vision, they are faced with interpreting which set of numbers seems more credible or guessing as to the motivations behind the presented solutions.
True leaders do more than cite the shortcomings of others. I just don't see a vision right now in the Democratic Party that is composed of: here is the priority, here is what we want to do, and here is why we want to do it that way. What is the Democratic long-term solution and why should that be considered the best solution? The Democratic vision has to me more than just having a counter-proposal to a Republican initiative. This requires a new focus and commitment to finding long-term solutions to America's priorities, rather than quick fixes for short-term gains.
Are the Democrats up for that challenge? Are they ready to deliver us from the Bush/Republican nation un-building and the CEO mentality?
Here is what I consider a positive CEO mentality:
His belief that an individual is morally obligated to share the fruits of success with others resulted in significant contributions to society....Throughout his life, he was committed to the highest standards of quality, honesty, fairness and integrity. His imagination and drive, his ceaseless labor and his care and concern for others were an inspiration to all who worked with him....His personal convictions about the obligations of wealth and the quality of life in the town he founded have made the company, community and school a living legacy.
[They] were driven by philanthropic effectiveness, measured by the degree to which each individual was able to reach their full potential according to their own characteristics.
This CEO was Milton Hershey. This is the type of vision we need.
What is the Democratic vision for building our Nation?