Jack Murtha did everybody a favor last week. His assertion that the solution to the US problems in Iraq was to leave was so over the top that it forced the DC political community to step back from the abyss and avoid a pell-mell route not seen in metro DC since Capitol swells ran over each other from Manassas to Georgetown in freight and flight after Bull Run. The apparent collective collapse of DC community’s consensus and political nerve has been building for months. Time, facts and fate have all conspired to erode the people’s faith in their political leadership. House Rs made sure with their legislative maneuvers Friday (Murtha's ideas were voted down 403-3) that the cut-and-run crowd could win only 3 votes on the record! (Editor's aside: Despite this show vote Friday, the confidence in leadership has been falling with some justification. News reports focus on the negative, problems and anxieties and human tragedies. The good news efforts are meek. And some of the rhetoric and behavior of political leaders in DC in recent months will be remembered in history for its outlandish perfidy. These guys are every bit as odious as the Copperheads of the Civil War.) Pols from both R and D were facing elections in ‘06 with their earlier coalition playbooks in tatters and without an agreement on a path to victory. When Bush 43 finally began to speak up in defense of US policy last Friday, the collection of war experts with hyperactivity disorder on Capitol Hill couldn’t contain themselves. First the Senate weighed in with an astonishingly ill conceived piece of legislative mischief, putting into words what everybody knew to be true (the US needed to start drawing down its troop levels in Iraq), but had the best chance of being implemented only if it was left unstated. (Note to Sen Biden: that was the plan, Stan!)
Then Murtha, a cranky House cardinal, who has appropriations dollar power over his colleagues, blew his top. Murtha’s been building to this for some months. In fact, his statements a year ago had all the elements of a devoted friend of uniformed services and their care, but a very reluctant warrior on Iraq. Give Murtha his props: he's a decorated Marine combat vet, D pal of military approps and veterans affairs; a man’s man type guy from west Pa. who believes in old fashioned pork politics and loyalty to the corps. But Murtha may have been losing a step lately. His nasty and demagogic crack about Cheney’s multiple deferments revealed a too-heavy, uncertain hand. Still, he was a kind of Marine whose bravery and skills were more than adequate to storm and take the beach, but, like any Marine he didn’t have the heft or depth or fire power to hold the beach for good. Reinforcements would be required. Murtha might have the chops to shoot off his mouth and get people’s attention, but his illogical statement did not outline an operational plan that any general officer would approve. He could take the beach in Media-ville for a day or so, but he could not hold it. In fact, the emotional and political power of Murtha’s document is overwhelmed by its intellectual and policy incoherence. This statement was the Congressional equivalent of the cut-and-run rants advocated by International Answer, Peace Action and Michael Moore. Quillnews observations: There are a few lessons to be learned from this round of political mud wrestling.
- Rumsfeld's regime is over: If there is one thing that Murtha’s break down last week revealed it is the lack of trust by the senior uniformed services in the war fighting regime and leadership of SecDef Rumsfeld. Murtha has the ear of these uniformed officers and their senior civilian managers, and his expression of rebellion is a serious event that any CEO like Bush needs to recognize and to address. A well-trained CEO like Bush 43 should not be surprised. Rumsfeld is a “pacesetting” executive and, after five years at the Defense Department, his personal style, his operational demands on subordinates, and the flaws in his policies have finally resulted in Rumsfeld losing control of his own executive team and the DoD support community represented and advocated by Murtha. Quillnews predication: After a successful Dec 15 election in Iraq, Rumsfeld will leave DoD in early '06 and a new military leadership team will implement the next phase of US military presence in Iraq in ’06 and beyond, completely changing the poisoned dynamics of the defense policy debate for the next phase in The Post Sept 11 War. Much of this is merely leadership fatigue. In fact, Rumsfeld's regime will be remembered for its stunning successes, its breath in defense policy and operational reform and in his personal brilliance and selfless public service. Rumsfeld has been among the most consequencial national security and war leaders in history. But the government's political and administrative process must recover from the failures of the intelligence sector in its WMD predictions, and from the mismanagement and misfortunes of the early post-Saddam phase of the Iraq campaign - whose architect was Rumsfeld. Future course? Think McCain's plan of more force, for longer. Long term: the US is there to stay and will have a joint force agreement with the democratic government of Iraq that will equal any committment made in South Korea or NATO.
- Engagement on the war’s “new battlefield” is essential to freedom’s survival: Bush 43 rhetorical offensive advocating US war policy, goals and objectives must continue. But the new battlefield of this new war against stateless Islamic fascists requires new battle tactics. Military firepower and victory in the field are not enough. If the last year proves anything to Bush as a war leader, it is that he has a duty to organize the government’s war-making assets to engage political and rhetorical arguments at all levels, from Iraq fire team to command HQ to DoD to the State Department, to ensure that the military’s point of view – using facts, images, rhetoric – and the war's rational is given a just hearing in the public square so it can be understood and supported or rejected by the people on the merits. The people of the US and their government can no loner rely on the for-profit corporate communications institutions of the MSM, and the flawed professional corps of journalists and professional communicators who inhabit their ranks, to be the sole arbitrers of what is and what isn't told in the public square. The government through its uniformed and civilian public servants has a duty to expose all lies and distortions immediately, illuminate the facts of the matter and develop and distribute and enough video, image and text information to explain and justify the war operations to ensure the airtime, space and ink to present the war's case to the people on their own behalf. This not only allows the people to hear the military story of the efforts and sacrifices of the heroic volunteers in their service, it will deny our enemies and opponents the Media-ville airtime, space and ink they can use against against us in the public square. These are elementary communications operational tactics and strategy and the Bush 43 team’s failure to operate like an serious modern communications organization in Media-ville this past year has nearly destroyed his presidency and lost the public's support for what otherwise has been a hard, but successful Iraq campaign.
The solution to the big lie is more news: The D’s “big lie” strategy was a short-term success in eating into Bush 43’s support because of the administration’s communication’s incompetence, but more importantly because the Bush 43 team has been paralyzed by their own corporate work processes that favor too-long top down planning and operational control and group loyalty despite poor performance. (Editor’s aside: Why was Karen Hughes given the State Dept public diplomacy job and promptly allowed to not show up for work for 9 months during a war?) Bush 43, his executive team, and their managers either aren’t flexible enough to adapt and adjust, to pivot and shoot when necessary and as the dynamic business they are in -- politics during wartime - demands. Either that or they are dangerously stupid as executives and do not understand the first thing about surviving in the corporate and controlled communications environment of the MSM - something the private sector has done for years. At the same time, the US has not developed an adequate capacity to counter jihadist propaganda. In this environment, domestic D propagandists, like any student of the dark communications arts knows, could further erode Bush’s political standing during this period of drift if they merely shouted the lies their deluded, ill-informed, or deranged followers and paymasters believed. Shame on them for their short term big lie campaign. Still, the Ds have overplayed their hand. The big lie technique works only in a dictatorship. In a democracy, opponents can strike back. The facts do emerge - eventually; the people when armed with all the facts and after due consideration get it right. Bush 43’s team finally got it into gear last week.
Time for Iraqi leadership to step up: Aside from the curious wonder at the political pyrotechnics in DC last week, there is one lesson that the leaders of the new Iraq need to understand from all the rough and tumble of a democratic people trying to solve a problem. Saddam has been out for nearly three years. The internal Iraq political processes have been working themselves out. The people have shown bravery and courage. But the political leaders of the new Iraq must get their act together to have the people vote Dec 15 and then organize a new government to control their own country and its riches and their future promptly. It is time for the Iraqi forces to find and destroy the enemies who wish to keep them enslaved. The US will stand ready to help this process along. Americans are generous; its volunteers are brave and will sacrifice and die to ensure freedom and liberty. American will die for their beliefs. But they don’t want to be played for suckers. It is hard to beat the assessment of Sen. Warner, R of Va., and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee who tried to put the best light on last week’s senate action: "[this is a] strong message to Iraqi people and the Iraqi government that you have got to come to grip with your internal problems. It's a signal to the Iraqis that we mean business."
- Time for US leadership to step up: The political classes in DC have been in hyperspace in recent months over the breakdown of the Bush team's leadership aura, and the GOP hegemony his reelection a year ago had seemed to portend. Much of this was inevitable. But DC leaders, the political and professional management and their patrons in the private sectors who fund the campaigns of American politics, need to focus on the main issue here: The people of the US are in a war for survival and will not tolerate anything short of victory. The Post Sept 11 War is not a limited war like Korea or Vietnam. US enemies in this war will not negotiate a peace, or behave anew if we adjust this behavior or that. Our enemies seek the destruction of our country, our civilization and our way of life. This is a real war of arms and ideas, within a dysfuctional social culture and within one of the world's great religions. And the free people of the US will not lose this war, nor see their liberty and freedom consumed by its course. The American people get it. Don't be fooled by the delusional or those in denial. Don't let the few social science cultists who manipulate or dominate the MSM persuade you into thinking that their editorial judgment and parochial professional, personal or partisan agendas represent the thinking of the American people. The people will never forget the Sept 11 attack nor yield to its perpetrators. And no matter what form this fight takes over the next years or decades, it will not matter what political party or any economic, social or public policy agenda is at risk at any given moment. The people of the US will destroy this enemy, secure their future freedom and will destroy any who get in the way. The sooner the political leaders of the US accomodate themselves to this reality, the sooner this war will end and our domestic political food fights can resume their rightful role as entertaining discussions on how to create value and wealth and spread the blessings of life and freedom. (Further reading: AS, WSJ, WSJ2, Rumsfeld, Cheney, PL, Video, Murtha, Murtha in '04, CQ, Bloomberg, WS, VDH, RCPM, RCPM2, IP/JK, McCain, TB, MG, SH, No End But Victory) (Post script: Clinton in '98, now WSJ, MM, Google, WS) (Update: OC/RCP, NW/Fineman, Time/Klein, Barone, Peters/NYP) Part 11
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