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"instead of the traditional farewell remarks on past achievements, I will focus squarely on the future."

By AcademicElephant Posted in The White House — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

There was an unusual ceremony at the Pentagon yesterday as a full honor review celebrated outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--unusual in that it was a curious send-off for a cabinet secretary theoretically hounded from office by an unpopular war. But no heads were hung, and nothing was swept under the rug. On the contrary, every bell and whistle was sounded, and every flag was flown. The President, Vice-President and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sat on the dias with the Secretary, and seemed proud to be there. You might almost think that the man being honored and those honoring him hadn't read the editorial pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post for months. As a matter of fact, both papers seem somewhat mystified by the event; Jim Rutenberg notes in the Times that despite "all of its pomp, there was little talk at the ceremony about Mr. Rumsfeld’s famously combative style or the controversies he tended to provoke." Ann Scott Tyson in the Post tried to manufacture some friction on her own since Mr. Rumsfeld did not oblige by reporting that "[y]esterday, at least one official cited the perceived snub to Shinseki as the reason for not attending Rumsfeld's farewell." But even invoking General Shinseki was a small comfort in the face of such an event, and the reporters seem not quite sure what to make of the fact that the assembled luminaries would go out of their way to praise and indeed to thank such an individual. The answer to their conundrum may lie in a simple statement by a member of the Secretary's staff, who said of the unique ceremony:

Contrary to popular belief, Donald H. Rumsfeld is a well-respected member of our organization. Especially by those of us who have had our "boots on the ground."

Read on...

And that's the context, which extends beyond the Pentagon to include the larger Bush administration, that eludes the "popular belief" of Mr. Rutenberg and Ms. Tyson, but which elucidates yesterday's events for those of us with a less jaundiced view of Mr. Rumsfeld's activities as Secretary of Defense. While reporters for the Times and the Post perpetuate to the end the caricature of Secretary Rumsfeld that they helped to manufacture, the full honor review was designed to celebrate the real person, this "skilled, energetic and dedicated public servant," as the President put it, who has offered his blood, toil, tears and sweat in the service of Mr. Bush and the armed services he commands for the last six years. No, his tenure has not been without its controversy--which is only logical because people who do difficult and important things are rarely uncontroversial--but it has hardly been the endless and unmitigated firestorm of disaster portrayed by Mr. Rumsfeld's critics in the press. Nor is the military united in silent hostility towards their civilian boss. Perhaps Ms. Tyson is right--perhaps there is an anonymous "official" out there who chose not to attend because of perceived slight to General Shinseki (which remains the only such slight to which they can point, but no matter if it's the only one--there's still a pattern here). But his absence was more than offset by the large, enthusiastic crowd that did attend, military and civilian alike. Ms. Tyson might reflect on the fact that the Commander in Chief, like her mysterious official, did not have to show up yesterday. He chose to out of respect for and gratitude to his long-serving Defense chief, and because he believes in the policy they have pursued together. As I've noted before, elections happen and this last one made Mr. Rumsfeld's continued presence at the Pentagon nigh on a practical impossibility. But that circumstance does not negate the work that he did before, or his boss'--and his employees', for that matter--appreciation of it.

And so the bands played at the Pentagon yesterday--there was a 19 gun salute and remarks were made by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Vice President, the President and the Secretary of Defense (all the remarks are available here). The first three are worth reading for their unabashed praise of Mr. Rumsfeld both personally and professionally, which makes a refreshing change from what one reads in the papers, but they focused on what has gone by. The final speaker had something else in mind:

Today, I’ll break with convention one more time, and, instead of the traditional farewell remarks on past achievements, I will focus squarely on the future.

As such, yesterday's speech continued the pattern Mr. Rumsfeld has established since his resignation of looking forward rather than back. In a series of speeches, he has begun to sketch out a proposal for sweeping reform of domestic and international institutions in response to the new challenges of the conflict Mr. Rumsfeld describes as a struggle against extremism. I might call yesterday's speech a sort of wake up call designed to explain to the American people why such reform is necessary, given the realities that confront us. He began by invoking the President's September, 1999 "A Time of Consequences" speech at The Citadel, in which Mr. Bush laid out the groundwork for what has become his defense policy. In the course of that speech, then-Governor Bush presciently noted:

Add to this the threat of biological, chemical and nuclear terrorism – barbarism emboldened by technology. These weapons can be delivered, not just by ballistic missiles, but by everything from airplanes to cruise missiles, from shipping containers to suitcases. And consider the prospect of information warfare, in which hacker terrorists may try to disrupt finance, communication, transportation and public health.

Mr. Rumsfeld isolated the salient phrase "barbarism emboldened by technology," which rings even more true today than it did seven years ago. "Barbarism" might seem an intolerable and deliberately-provocative insult to some, but I find the term highly appropriate. It does not imply an ethnic or religious coherence to our enemy, but rather a common cause: the destruction of civilization as we know it. Now that's a barbaric enterprise if there ever was one. These barbarians don't have to be of Middle Eastern descent—-they can be Asian, African, European, Latin American—or citizens of the United States. But they are united in their purpose, and the threat they pose is real and present which, as Mr. Rusmfeld declared, "[w]e forget that at our peril."

The Secretary went on to make an eye-opening point about the state of our allies:

Ours is also a world of many friends and allies, but sadly, realistically, friends and allies with declining defense investment and declining capabilities, and, I would add, as a result, with increasing vulnerabilities. All of which requires that the United States of America invest more.

I'm sure there are those who will squawk that such words invite (increased) American imperial unilateralism, and I don't think this statement will win Mr. Rumsfeld any popularity contests at the UN. Then again, that's never been a priority for him. Drawing national attention to difficult realities has been. A great deal of lip-service is paid to multi-lateralism and coalition building, and I understand that it is comforting to have the sense that everyone thinks we're right, and that we're not going it alone. And, as the President noted, alliances are certainly useful in efforts such as the Proliferation Security Initiative. But Mr. Rumsfeld's point is that this comes at the price of increased responsibilities for us, as we must protect these increasingly vulnerable partners. We're learning from the current NATO action in Afghanistan that the limited military resources and conflicting rules of engagement of our allies make this the equivalent of fighting a war by committee. At the NATO transfer of command last month in Latvia, the President argued for increased military spending by our allies. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is pushing Europe for additional assistance in Afghanistan—and he may get something. But he's not going to get everything that's needed in Afghanistan, or for any further deployment of NATO troops. The fact is that the US, as the largest and most powerful nation in the alliance, is going to need to invest more of its wealth in its military. This is neither good nor bad, it simply is. Wishing it were otherwise will not make it so.

Mr. Rumsfeld also broke with convention in that he did not attempt to sugarcoat the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, he remarked to Brit Hume on Thursday night that he regrets the Iraq and Afghanistan wars haven't been easier or wrapped up more quickly. And so you might expect him, like others, to be looking for a way to conclude them with all possible expediency. But his concern is that we do the right thing, not the easy one:

This is a time of great consequence. Our task is to make the right decisions today, so that future generations will not have to make much harder decisions tomorrow. It may well be comforting to some to consider graceful exits from the agonies and indeed the ugliness of combat. But the enemy thinks differently.

Under the President’s leadership, this country made a decision to confront the extremist ideology of hatred that spawned a worldwide movement, and to take the fight to the enemy. The alternative was inaction and defense -- a pattern that history has shown only emboldens the enemy.

Again, Mr. Rumsfeld is willing to face another difficult reality that is alarmingly denied by more and more Americans: there is no "graceful" alternative that will somehow make everyone happy and return us to the delicate balance of power that we supposedly shattered by invading Iraq. This pleasant fiction ignores the basic fact that the apparent balance was itself an illusion that had tragic and deadly consequences on 9/11. We might be willing to compromise, but the problem is that the enemy is not. We can debate the strategy, but to abandon the policy of aggressively confronting our enemies now would be disastrous.

Mr. Rumsfeld concluded with a shot across the collective bow of the surviving members of the Axis of Evil and (and their sidekick):

America is not what’s wrong with this world. Ours is a message that was heard and fought for in places like Berlin, Prague, Riga, Tokyo, Seoul, San Salvador, Vilnius, and Warsaw.

And that message is even now being whispered in the coffee houses and streets of Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

The Secretary apparently has learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan--or perhaps it might be closer to the truth to observe that he has learned something very different than his critics have as his conviction remains that even if it hasn't happened on his watch, the movement towards democracy lives on, and, given time and patience, it will prevail.

As I said at the outset, it was an unusual farewell speech, and one that confounded Mr. Rumsfeld's critics. But then again he has been an unusual Secretary of Defense so maybe they shouldn't have been so surprised. Perhaps, contrary to what our friends at The New York Times and The Washington Post believe, or want to believe, he has a broader historical perspective than they. And here's another reality that might be difficult for the press to admit, but it is no less true for being painful: he has a great deal more information about what has actually gone on over the last six years than the media does at this point—and based on that information he seems to believe pretty firmly that his record is nothing of which he should be ashamed. Judging from yesterday, rather the contrary. I was struck by the contrast between Mr. Rumsfeld's confidence and future-oriented remarks and Calvin Woodward's widely-syndicated AP article on Mr. Rumsfeld earlier this week, which begins "History seems to be in a hurry to judge Donald H. Rumsfeld," and goes on to quote what some think-tank analysts believe about the "national tragedy" that is Iraq. I think we should probably read "Calvin Woodward" for "History," because only someone utterly ignorant of what it means to write history would compose such an article, which probably tells us much more about the need of the press to perpetuate its self-created myth of Donald Rumsfeld and the failure of Iraq than it does about serious historical perspective. I think at this point, the only responsible prediction that we can make is that we have no idea how history will ultimately judge Mr. Rumsfeld or Bush administration counter-terrorism policy, although it's probably a pretty safe bet that much current media criticism will befuddle historians. Unforeseen events over the next six months—-over the next six weeks or even six days for that matter—-could radically reshape how we understand the recent past. That's not to say we shouldn't try to make sense out of our own time, but we need to bear in mind all that we do not know as we sift through what we do (there are those pesky known unknowns, after all). And rather than racing to get out in front of history, we might consider, like Mr. Rumsfeld, letting such future judgments take care of themselves, and concentrate instead on the realities that confront us. It is not reassuring to face the fact that despite our many allies, we are in a military sense increasingly alone. It is not pleasant to reflect on the fact that there are enemies in our very midst who plot to kill us, and that our only viable strategy is to kill them first. That this is not a situation we can talk our way out of. It also isn't fun to be at war. Can you blame Americans for prefering talk of diplomatic solutions and exit strategies? Perhaps not, but understanding the appeal of such rosy promises masquarding under the thin veneer of "realism" doesn't make them viable strategic alternatives.

In his remarks, General Pace highlighted Mr. Rumsfeld's "courage," which the General explained as the Secretary's willingness to express his convictions regardless of their popularity. Some might call that quality willfully blunt, even, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Rutenberg, "combative." It certainly can be dangerous to our comfort level. But given the world in which we live, I fear that we may find ourselves in desperate need of such straight speaking, as opposed to wishful thinking, as we move into that future on which Mr. Rumsfeld, at least, is focusing.