The Commander Toad Strategy
By streiff Posted in Democrats — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Yesterday the Democrats unveiled their concept of a national security policy. That the Democrats believe anyone can take them seriously on national defense speaks to their talent for both self-delusion and shamelessness. Self-delusion in that some may actually believe the pabulum they are tossing about and shamelessness in they actually expect everyone to forget their record of the past 30 years.
When all the fluff is cut away, their strategy seems to consist of chanting “tough and smart, smart and tough” in the same way Commander Toad is “brave and bright, bright and brave.” As if saying the phrase over and over like a necromancer’s incantation will indeed produce the result.
Read on.
For those with nothing better to do the entire document is here and the accompanying press release is here.
The press release is notable for the near perfect quality of its mendacity. Jack Reed complains that we aren’t devoting enough resources to the GWOT. Pelosi claims the Dems are committed to projecting US power. Madeline Albright rhapsodizes about “dedicated leaders.” Missing is Ike Skelton’s comparison of the Dem’s foreign policy to that of the man who dropped two nukes on Japan, pushed the Marshall Plan, stopped Soviet expansion in Europe, and defended South Korea. A more amusing read is very hard to find.
Thee men and women of America’s armed forces and those on the front lines here at home have met every challenge with skill, bravery, and selfless dedication. They, along with veterans, military retirees and the families of those who have given their lives or have been wounded in defense of our country, deserve the gratitude and support of the American people. We will always honor their service and fulfill our promises to them.
Really? How does this square with the aptly named Dick Durbin equating US soldiers to Nazis and John Kerry attempting to reprise his infamous Winter Soldier rant by accusing US troops of terrorizing innocent Iraqis? Are those Republican elected officials who are seeking to keep military recruiters out of high schools? How about those who claim that only the poor and disadvantaged go into the military? Is that “honoring” their service?
Under President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress, the war in Iraq began with manipulated intelligence and no plan for success; our ports and other critical infrastructure remain vulnerable, while both soldiers in the field and first responders at home lack the basic equipment and resources they were promised. Both in the Persian Gulf and our own Gulf Coast, lucrative no-bid contracts have gone to companies such as Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown and Root, and others with friends in high places and records of cheating taxpayers. And despite record high fuel prices, our country remains heavily dependent on foreign oil because of an energy policy that benefits the big oil interests.
Quite a strategy, this. I wonder if Michael Moore received a consulting fee?
Rebuild a state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary.
Guarantee that our troops have the protective gear, equipment, and training they need and are never sent to war without accurate intelligence and a strategy for success.
One hardly knows where to start here. By any standard, the years of the Clinton Administration were ruinous to the military. The military today is in markedly better shape than it was in 2000 and it is difficult to see how it gets more state-of-the-art considering the actual state-of-the-art. We’ve demonstrated conclusively over the past 5 years that we can project American power wherever and whenever necessary. How the Dems think they can improve on this is beyond me.
The second item is simply part and parcel of the Halliburton™ and BushLied™ talking points. Any conflict is going to present you with deficiencies in training and equipment unless you are extremely fortunate, like in the Gulf War, and are able to essentially fight a war you’ve spent 30 years preparing for. Intelligence is rarely accurate and while the Dems may not agree with the Administration’s strategy in Iraq it is simply a baldfaced lie to assert there was not a strategy for success.
Enact a GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century that guarantees our troops -- active, reserve, and retired -- our veterans, and their families receive the pay, health care, mental health services, and other benefits they have earned and deserve.
Of the laundry list presented here, one would have thought that at least this concept of a new GI Bill of Rights would have been fleshed out a bit. The original GI Bill responded to the social need to manage the demobilization of some nine million members of the Armed Forces without generating huge pockets of unemployed and embittered veterans. It is hard to see what need a new GI Bill would respond to other than a fairly transparent attempt to turn veterans into a new class of welfare recipients.
Eliminate Osama Bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban.
Given their performance the last time they were presented with this opportunity it is hard to take this very seriously.
Double the size of our Special Forces, increase our human intelligence capabilities, and ensure our intelligence is free from political pressure.
One would truly like to believe the Dems have got religion here but again there is nothing that gives us confidence that is the case.
The position of most Democrats in regards to the NSA surveillance kerfuffle leads one to believe that they are not terribly interested in taking action that could, in fact, destroy terror networks.
From Admiral Stansfield Turner gutting of the CIA’s HUMINT programs under the Carter Administration to the Sen. Robert Torricelli’s prohibiting the CIA from having contact with suspected human rights violators, the Democrats have been the implacable in their opposition to HUMINT activities.
The idea that they can simple mandate a doubling of the size of US SOF without severely decrementing the quality goes to show that this is simply not a serious proposal.
Secure by 2010 loose nuclear materials that terrorists could use to build nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs.”
What, if anything, does this mean? Are they seriously proposing that in four years they could bring the world’s supply of medical and industrial radioactive waste under some kind of a monitoring regime?
Redouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.
Uh, okay. I wonder why the Bush Administration hasn’t thought of this?
Screen 100% of containers and cargo bound for the U.S. in ships or airplanes at the point of origin and safeguard America’s nuclear and chemical plants, and food and water supplies.
Does anyone really believe this is possible? About nine million ocean containers arrive in the US each year and millions more cross the Canadian and Mexican borders via truck and train.
Prevent outsourcing of critical components of our national security infrastructure -- such as ports, airports and mass transit -- to foreign interests that put America at risk.
Nice pander. It is pretty ironic to see Sean Hannity and Harry Reid demagoging the same issue.
Achieve energy independence for America by 2020 by eliminating reliance on oil from the Middle East and other unstable regions of the world.
As unstable would accurately characterize most of the US sources of crude oil I would be interested in seeing this bit of alchemy explained.
Presumably this is part of the 2006 Democrat strategy to take back the House and Senate. Sadly, it is a risible list of the banal and the bizarre. Most items on the list are either being done, have been done, or there is a great deal of doubt as to whether it is possible to do. It is difficult to see how this strategy paper unites the Democrat caucus, helps their candidates, or makes them more credible on national defense. Far from being either tough and smart or smart and tough this strategy paints the Democrats as amateurish poseurs who need to be turned out of office in large numbers.
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"lucrative no-bid contracts have gone to companies such as Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown and Root, and others"
They'ld know that Kellogg, Brown and Root is part of Halliburton.
Then again...
think they'd know that KBR did the same work in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Of course, that would imply they received "lucrative, no-bid contracts" during the 90s, also.
And thanks for synopsizing so I didn't have to read the whole position paper. I usually stop reading when I get to the point where an assertion renders everything written thereafter as suspect. In the case of the Democrat "plan" it come in the seventh paragraph
Under President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress, the war in Iraq began with manipulated intelligence and no plan for success
The Democrats need to be held accountable for this, they need to cite their "proof" of manipulated intelligence or be called on the carpet for an abominable lie. RNC should full court press on this!
about the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq. I think I know what they mean by that.
The Democrats say that they want to:
"Rebuild a state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary."
Have any Democrats noticed what Donald Rumsfeld has been doing for the last five years?
And why did Rumsfeld need to REbuild a state-of-the-art military? Because the Clinton Administration let it decay to reap his "peace dividend" until September 11, 2001, and Bush was stuck with the bill.
Meet the new Democrats--proud supporters of the Bush / Rumsfeld Military Transformation plan.
Are American voters stupid enough to believe this? Just in case, we need to give them a history lesson...
We are for the troops. They must fail!
We are spending too much. We must spend more!
President Bush is doing it wrong. It's our turn to do the same things!
It's hard to argue with such reasoning.
The Dems are only carting out this wagon-load of horse manure because they have to for the sake of politics. They don't care about national security, and haven't for a long time. For proof of that, follow the actions of the Democratic leadership, i.e. Dean, Pelosi, Feingold, Kerry, Durbin, etc.
What have these fools done to positively affect our military or counterterrorism efforts? What have they done to undermine it? The second outweighs the first by any measurable margin.
Actions speak louder than words, Dems, so stuff your plan and start acting like you care about this country's security for once.
which they think will:
A. Sound good.
B. Make people believe that these aspirants to power aren't the same appeasing, September tenth crowd of Moveon.org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean. [The unholy trinity.]
And most important,
C. Make the public forget that it all means more taxes.
This is a wish list. No substance. Not even the implication of substance. if this were a paper it would be given an incomplete.
(Unless of course a liberal professor were grading it.)
And if the Republicans don't get ahead of things and back on message, the Dims might just get away with this trite, stale rice cake of a position paper.
I think the Dims are trying the Kerry Strategy again. You remember, just look reasonably competent and the rubes will pick you over the current management.
Again, I fear this sorry non-strategy might work unless the congressional Republicans and president Bush stay as scattered as they are now.
last line, meant to say if congressional Republicans and president Bush stay as scattered as they are now.
Doh.
to have a clue. If ever a party was simply sitting back waiting for their opposition to self-destruct, then it is the Democratic Party.
The things that would make sense in the current climate are actions that would be to the right of George W. Bush. Things like border security, reduction of immigration from Muslim countries, Naval patrols of our own sea lanes, and the like.
The Dems can't advocate those policies since they are captive to the left wing of their party. Some Republicans do advocate many sensible policies, but the White House is far from on-board with them.
In general, though, the Republican Party has bet the farm on Iraq. If it works out, then the Party is fine. If it doesn't, then it is likely to suppress Republican turnout or even force Republicans to go 3rd Party. I doubt many of them will go Democratic, though some might on the assumption that it is the only way to punish the Party.
The President simply has to succeed in Iraq. Rhetoric isn't going to cut it. The White House can blame the MSM all day long, but the MSM isn't responsible for the sectarian bloodletting. The MSM isn't responsible for the fact that there is still no government. The MSM didn't create the necessity for the President to tell the recalcitrant politicans in Iraq to 'get governing.' The MSM didn't manufacture the current problems with sectarian militias. The President has acknowledged those problems himself. The new government has to reign in the militias, the President said so himself.
Either the Administration figures out a way to make Iraq work, or the Dems stand ready to win by default. The fact that they have no plan and no common sense can simply not be relied on to bail out a Republican Party that is up to its eyeballs in an Iraq that is failing to thrive.
If the situation in Iraq were going well, the MSM would be irrelevent. It isn't, and the Dems can smell the blood in the water. They don't have an answer, but if President doesn't appear to have one either, then Republican-leaning voters may take next November off, and possibly the one in 2008 as well.
That will not be pretty.
I realize that this is a political document and not a project roadmap, but if the Democrats expect to be taken seriously they need not only to identify policy objectives, but to provide some basic details of how they expect to achieve those objectives. Right now this reads not at all unlike the business plan of the Underpants Gnomes:
- Collect underpants.
- ???
- Profit!
In this case, the idea seems to be:
- State a bunch of happy-sounding policy goals that most Americans share.
- ???
- Get elected!
I anxiously await the Democrats' practical plan for the implementation of these policies, which I suspect will be pulled out of John Kerry's magic hat any day now.
see a practical plan for implementation of their proposed policies. They have no plan and the strategy is to postpone letting the great American unwashed figure that out until after November. The MSM will aid this by talking about the groundbreaking strategy of the Democrats, the breathtaking foresight, the cohesiveness, the clarity, the elegant simplicity, of it all.
The Emperor was, is, and will remain, naked as a jaybird. However with the proper application of sufficient smoke and mirrors you will never see any of the "nasty bits."
The chow provided downrange by KBR in Bosnia was much better than the chow in garrison. How's that for a contradiction! If all no-bid contractors do as well a job, I'm all for firing many of the 200,000 procurement people working in the military.
I wrote a check to the NRSC. Really, this has GOP fundraiser written all over it.
Just how do you do that exactly? The training is extremely rigorous and long. Most applicants, despite strong motivation, don't make it through now.
So, will they:
-shorten the training?
-lower the standards?
-expand the pool of potential applicants by expanding the armed services in general, i.e. a draft?
Then, special forces are generally engaged in the clandestine, legally ambiguous activities that the Dems find so problematic.
So how will they handle all this?
????????????????????
Informed minds want to know!
As this seems to be just an opportunity for the stick in the eye, but it would seem we have fielded larger numbers of special forces in the past on a smaller population base, no? Or has the SF forces stayed constant through the overall manpower cutbacks over time? Streiff, maybe a question for you....
we have more SOF on the Army side of the ledger now at about 530,000 endstrength than we had at the 781,000 that was the standard endstrength from 1973 through 1991.
The idea that we can grow three additional Ranger battalions, five additional SF groups each consisting of 3 SF battalions, and an additional Operational Detachment Delta and keep anything like current quality is just ridiculous.
they are going to open up SOF to any member of the Explorer Scouts; provided of course that the troop denounces the Boy Scouts homophobic policy regarding Scout Masters.
And they've solved the intelligence problem as well. They are going to move all intelligence services to a new agency jointly headed up by Robert Toricelli and Bianca Jagar with "Leaky" Leahy as the agency's general counsel. Problem solved.
let me count the ways:
Rebuild a state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary.
Guarantee that our troops have the protective gear, equipment, and training they need and are never sent to war without accurate intelligence and a strategy for success.
And we are taking a firm stand against ugly shoes.
Eliminate Osama Bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaeda, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban.
And when this is done we will not rest until we have stamped out the Wicked Witch of the West and dandruff.
Secure by 2010 loose nuclear materials that terrorists could use to build nuclear weapons or "dirty bombs."
And Senator Kennedy has promised that we can store all this stuff in his car.
Redouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.
Our first steps in this are to prohibit Jimmy Carter and Madeleine Albright from travelling to either country; can't hurt.
Achieve energy independence for America by 2020 by eliminating reliance on oil from the Middle East and other unstable regions of the world.
We will plant switchgrass on the entire Mall and all national parks and recreation areas (with the exception of the Nantucket seashore, Ted said no.)
Gasbags.
--------------------
Yes, I did want people with military knowledge to provide one, and it looks like they did.
I suspected that this was another case of political innumeracy (the partisan's inability to relate numbers to the real world), but did not have the knowledge base to prove it. So I asked.
(This procedure may seem alien to devotees of Kos and kindred lists, where one just uses expletives to cover up the deficiencies in one's arguments).
Translations of documents seized in Iraq will definitely help debunk this lie. I hope there's a lot of them translated before November!
Then again, Saddam probably did manipulate his intelligence service. But nobody would believe Saddam was a Republican, even if he did have a "Republican" guard...
By the time that happens, the Democrats and their megaphones in the MSM (or as Rush calls them "the drive by media") will have picked up on some other meme, selected not for its truthfulness but rather for its ability to harm President Bush and Republicans in general.
Our children are imperiled if these children win control of either house of Congress. They will quit in Iraq if they get half a chance. And the jihadis will be emboldened by their win and push at us all the harder.
Weakness, thy name is Democrat
If a Democratic House candidate calls and asks for my vote, here's what I'll politely say:
Thanks but no thanks. I've voted for Democrats before, and am willing to do so again. But not now. Regardless of how supportive you say you'll be of President Bush, I can't get the following images out of my head:
- Speaker of the House (and fourth in line of succession to the Presidency in time of crisis) Nancy Pelosi
- House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers
If you win this House seat, those nightmarish images become that much more likely to come true. Have a nice day.
My Dad, 26 year veteran of WW II, Korea and Vietnam, died September 4, 2001; he was fortunate enough not to see his country attacked the following week. The day after he died we hung the flag out front and it has been there every day since.
During the 2004 campaign some neighbors came around pitching for Kerry. I said "no, we're all voting for Bush. Didn't you see my Bush/Cheney sign out front?" They "no, we didn't." Me "well, I don't know how you could miss it, it's that big thing out there with the red and white stripes and the blue in the corner." They left. I didn't get a KEdwards bumper sticker. Quelle dommage.
The democrats' strategy for 'real security' is pretty much the same as their Iraq Strategy.
Iraq
To Honor the Sacrifice of Our Troops, we will:
Ensure 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country and with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces.
Insist that Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to unite their country and defeat the insurgency; promote regional diplomacy; and strongly encourage our allies and other nations to play a constructive role.
Hold the Bush Administration accountable for its manipulated pre-war intelligence, poor planning and contracting abuses that have placed our troops at greater risk and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
- Responsible redeployment of U.S. forces ...---... Cut-and-run
- Insist Iraqis make political compromises ...---... Appease terrorists
- Hold Bush Administration accountable ...---... Impeach Bush™
two letters. U.N.
Thanks for the great breakdown Streiff. I wonder if they thought very long on how they are going to "finish the job" in Afghanistan and destroy all terrorist networks (Iran, Syria, Gaza....)