Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 147

Confessions of a journalist: How I was drawn into the cult of Tommy R. Franks

For years, reporters -- myself among them -- have criticized Gen. Tommy R. Franks.
You've heard it all: He was short-sighted, we wrote. He knew how to start a war
but not how to win one. He spiked the ball on the 20-yard-line and went home. "Two-time
loser," one of us bayed.

But consider that he figured it out before all of us. General Franks got
to Baghdad in the spring of 2003 and said, Screw it, I'm going home. He was
just anticipating American policy by eight years. That is strategic genius! David
Petraeus is a tactical piker by comparison.

While I am at it, how about Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez? We've all dumped on
him -- the guy was a jerk, his subordinates hated him, he didn't realize that an
insurgency was blowing up around him, and he should have been fired after Abu
Ghraib. But remember that after all that, he went home pissed off that he
didn't get a promotion to four stars. Lesson here: When you screw up, stand on
your sense of entitlement. It might just work. Donald Trump gets by on
less. 

While I am at it, have we really given Blue Oyster Cult and Journey their
due? C'mon, aren't they really better than the Clash and Ray Charles? And what
about the band Kansas. You know, it is
true: All we are IS dust
in the wind. Also, at the end of the journalistic day, isn't canned ravioli
better than most of the pasta the high-priced trattorias are peddling these
days? And the Ford Pinto? -- underrated!

Okay. As my favorite comedian, Triumph, would say, I kid,
I kid. All this is a reaction to Spencer Ackerman's mea bigga culpa the other day. (Warning: If you post a nasty comment about
this, I may just send you a shirtless photo of myself.) I admire his
willingness to flagellate his own self, but I think he took it too far. 

And for what it is worth, Spencer, I still think that Petraeus'
determination really was the most important element of the American approach in
Iraq in 2007. (Man, I already can see
the smoke coming out of Col. Gentile's ears. I suspect that Gentile doesn't
realize that he speaks for the conventional point of view in the Army -- that he
is not the dissident, but the spokesman,)

Fwiw, I also wrote in my new book (Gian: p. 446) that, contrary to what
Paula wrote and Spencer worries he might have, that I do not think General
Petraeus had a lasting influence on the Army officer corps.

But I do think it would be better if he had.

Adjusting in war: Have we adopted any enemy tactics over the last decade?

I
was enjoying a Sierra Nevada Torpedo or two (yum-oh) and reading The Complete Roman Army and
this line jumped out at me:

It was a point of pride for the
Romans to be willing to copy and employ the effective tactics or equipment of
their enemies. . . .

This
made me wonder: Have we copied any enemy tactics over the last decade? If not,
is there a good reason (like the tactics are inhumane) or is it just the "casual
arrogance" that Andrew
Exum identified?

 

Wait, Sen. Inhofe of Oklahoma is the new ranking minority member on SASC?

Yow. This
guy is a piece
of work. Back in the day when I covered the Senate Armed
Services Committee, he frequently struck me as mean-spirited. If he is running
things, he will do things like make
excuses for Abu Ghraib. Keep an eye on that space.  

Petraeus situation: You asked, I answer

Some commenters asked what I thought of the whole Petraeus situation.
This is what I told the Reuters
news agency-take it as dour thoughts on Veterans' Day:

The sudden departure of
General David Petraeus from the CIA probably tells us more about the state of
our nation than it does about Petraeus. President Barack Obama should not have
accepted his resignation.

We now seem to care more
about the sex lives of our leaders than the real lives of our soldiers. We had
years of failed generalship in Iraq, for example, yet left those commanders in place.
Petraeus' departure again demonstrates we are strict about intimate behavior,
but extraordinarily lax about professional incompetence.

Americans severely judge
some forms of private behavior between consenting adults, if one party is a
public official. Yet we often resist weighing the professional competence of
such officials -- even when they clearly are not doing a good job.

This is not, as some say,
because we are a puritanical nation. Rather, our standards have changed in
recent decades -- and not for the better.

We don't know precisely the
relationship between General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his driver, Kay
Summersby, during World War II. But it is evident that it was romantic in some
ways, and, by her later account, quite intimate. If Ike were judged by today's
standard, he would have been sent home in disgrace from Europe, and the war
likely would have been worse without his calm, determined and unifying
presence. He was not fired. But dozens of other Army officers, including 16
division commanders in combat, were relieved of command during the war -- for
professional reasons.

Matthew Ridgway was another
great American general, serving in World War II and Korea. Over a few months in
1951, in one of the best but lesser-known episodes of American generalship,
Ridgway turned around our fortunes in the Korean War. Like Ike, Ridgway was
fond of female companionship. He almost seemed to get a new wife for every war.
In his personal papers on file at the U.S. Army archives in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, interspersed with discussions of how to improve combat leadership
in the Korean War, there are some terse notes from his first wife's lawyer.

This change may have
occurred in part because we as a nation no longer have much military experience
and no longer prize military effectiveness, nor even are capable of judging it.
In past wars, soldiers eager to survive would forgive their leaders a multitude
of lapses if they believed those leaders knew their business.

We also may have changed
because so few of us have "skin in the game," to use a phrase one often hears
from the parents of soldiers. Certainly, if I had a loved one in a combat zone,
I would care much more about the military skills of the people in charge than I
would about their sexual lives.

Another reason we may also
hesitate to judge professional competence is that it is difficult in small,
messy, unpopular wars to know just what victory looks like. Yet ironically, in
Iraq, Petraeus was one of the few clear successes we had among our top leaders --
first in commanding the 101st Airborne Division Mosul in
2003-04, and then as the overseer of "the surge" that began extricating the
United States from Iraq in 2007.

Our diminished standards
speak to a lack of seriousness in the way we wage our wars. No, the conflicts
in Afghanistan and Iraq are not existential, as World War II was. But a soldier
blown up in Afghanistan this year is every bit as dead as one machine-gunned on
Omaha Beach 68 years ago. Today's soldiers deserve to have the most competent
leaders we can provide, just as the men of D-Day did.

Some of my friends in the
military argue that a general who cannot keep his marriage vows cannot be
trusted to keep his word. But we all fail in different ways throughout life. As
Petraeus' revelations last week reminded us, he is human. We have asked much of
him, sending him on three tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Yet
when the time came for us to be generous in return, we were not.

I have known Petraeus for
about 15 years, and his supposed lover, Paula Broadwell, for a portion of that
time. I am not close to either. I do not approve of what they reportedly did.
But I also don't think it is any of my business.

By contrast, taking care of
our soldiers should be a concern of all of us. Where are our priorities?

And Tom in the NYT: Time to ask our military leaders some tough questions

Yes, I am cranky
as usual. I just think we need to uphold some standards of professional
competence. That is more important to me than the private sex lives of people.
But I seem to be in a minority on that. 

Veterans' Day (II): When no direction is home, pride can hold you together

By
"Larry Nicholas"

Best
Defense guest columnist

When I was in college one of my professors asked me what
I thought our generation of veterans had to offer our society. I could not give
her a good answer at the time and that always bothered me.

Every year on Veterans' Day I think of that question. I
also think of the Corporal. The Corporal and I served together years ago when
we were both very young men. He was a Marine and I was a Corpsman. He was a
good man; easy going, confident, a proud Texan. We were in the same battalion,
but in different platoons. I was close to his platoon Corpsman though, and I
knew him fairly well. While serving we were sent to Iraq on the same
deployment. It was a unique situation. The entire battalion didn't go, only a
few. He was with his platoon, and I had volunteered to go with another
platoon. 

The year was 2004. Our unit had been
tasked with taking back the city of Fallujah from insurgents. We attacked the
city, and after weeks of savage combat we succeeded. Several of our brothers
were killed, many more severely injured, but in the end we accomplished our
mission. We stayed in Iraq a little while longer, after which we went back to
our duty station. Upon our return though, we were grasped by a surreal regard.

Everything around us was the same, except for the way
people looked at us. They looked at us like we were superhuman. Everywhere we
walked people would move out of our way, like Moses parting the Red Sea.

The Corporal was especially well regarded. He had a right
to be. While I was proud of my part in the battle, it was nothing compared to
what he had done. The tales that were told about his heroism were unbelievable,
unimaginable, but they were true.

Shortly after coming back the Corporal started to have
problems. He had taken to alcohol too readily, often becoming very drunk.
During the Marine Corps Ball he was walking around his dress blues sloppily
incoherent, intoxicated out of his mind. Seeing him like that was devastating.
I felt as if I was watching him being slowly reduced to ash. I tried to talk to
him for a little bit, hoping some sense would come though. He only said this to
me, "I wish I was still the man I was in Fallujah." I feared that the Corporal
was becoming lost in his own anguish.

I had some issues as well. My hands shook from time to
time. I mistook strangers for departed friends. A grim stare had become my
default facial expression. People would ask why I looked so sad, often telling
me, "You need to smile more." I regarded these as minor developments however.
After all, I had no issues with nightmares, no problems with alcohol, and I had
a promising military career ahead of me. I thought I had a handle on the
situation.

My confidence was boosted by doing something peculiar
that no one else had done. I decided not to go home. We were stationed overseas
and when we came back everyone went home on leave, except me. I felt that I was
not ready to go back home. Fallujah was still very fresh in my mind and I did
not want it to be when I saw my family. So I stayed, I worked, I tried to
forget.

Some of my Marines thought I was foolish for staying. One
of them stated his opinion colorfully by saying, "You're crazy Doc. I'm going
home. I have girls to seduce, babies to make!" The Corporal understood what I
was trying to accomplish, although I don't think he approved. I had spoken to
him about it once. I told him that I just wanted to forget about Fallujah and
move on with my life. He gave me a strange look; part sympathetic, part
scornful, part amused, part knowing. I wasn't sure what the look meant at the
time.

I waited until Christmas to go back to America. I went
back in my hometown. I was surrounded by my family. It should have been a
wonderful time. There was just one problem. I wasn't home. It was at then that
I knew what the Corporal's look had meant. The warmth and comfort associated
with the concept of home was absent. I had forgotten what it felt like to be
home. To know a place where one felt safe, felt at ease, felt happy. The
concept that was once so natural became alien to me. Overtime, I compensated by
sometimes becoming hyperactive, expending enormous energy in pursuit of certain
goals. But that only covered up the problem, and only for a short while.

So you see, I was more affected by Iraq then I had
thought. I had tried so hard to forget Fallujah, but I could not. The place had
become a part of me. The Corporal realized this much sooner then I did. The
Corporal and I exhibited different symptoms, but we both had the same problem.
Our souls had become fragmented. The days that we spent in battle had changed
us. They were difficult days. Days filled with hatred, anger, fear, suffering,
and sorrow. But they were also days of great pride.

That pride supersedes any pain we could ever feel. If
there is a saving grace, any silver lining in what we have been through, then
that is it. Those were days when we felt privileged to be able to fight for our
country. Days when we made each moment very sincere because we knew that we
might not have many more moments left. Those were days when our pride was felt
not in fleeting moments, but was instead weaved into the fabric of our being.

In retrospect, that is the answer that I should have
given my professor. I should have told her that I believe the greatest gift our
generation of veterans can offer society is our pride. But not pride in the
superficially vain sense of the word. The pride we offer must be more genuine,
more sincere. That pride must be the sort that compels us to encourage our
fellow citizens to excel. It must be the sort of pride that drives us to remind
people that extraordinary things can be accomplished. In an age consumed with
cynicism and doubt, that is a service that is gravely needed. That's what being
a veteran means to me.

To all my brothers and sisters that are still haunted by
the violent memories of war, I want you to know that I know how you feel. I
have walked in your footsteps. Those memories can be a terrible burden to bear.
They often inhibit the joy of present moments by pulling us back into the past,
sometimes putting a dark overcast on the future. But you do not have to accept
things as they are. There is hope for a better tomorrow -- if you are willing to
fight for it.

In my dreams, I sometimes see the Corporal. In those
thoughts he had fought to get his life back. He was able to secure some peace
in recent years. He found a good woman to love. He finally made his way back
home. I hope that is his reality. No one has earned it more. In a group of
proud warriors, he was a giant. But I cannot be sure. I have lost track of the
Corporal, and I have not spoken to him in many years. I do like to think that he
is well though.

I hope that all of our veterans can one day come home.
Not just physically, but also in terms of spirit. In order for that to happen
we will need to offer them more then just a simple plane ride back to their
country. In order to ensure an adequate homecoming we have to respect their
service without shunning the realties that came with it, appreciate the
experiences that they can offer our society, and most importantly, we must try
to understand.

"Larry Nicholas" is an Iraq War veteran who fought in the Second
Battle of Fallujah in 2004 while attached to the ground combat element of
the 31st Expeditionary Unit.

Veterans' Day (I): An Iraq vet thanks Vietnam vets for their long-ago service

By Crispin Burke

Best Defense guest columnist

Fred
Castaneda, 63, reaches into a well-worn day planner and removes a bumper
sticker he carries with him everywhere. Bearing the motto of the Vietnam Veterans of America, it reads:

"Never again shall one generation of
Americans abandon another."

Fred is
one of nearly three million Americans who served in the Southeast Asia theater
during the War. Enlisting in the Army at
age 21 to help pay for college, Fred served a tour of duty as a grenadier and a
machine gunner in Vietnam, initially with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and eventually with the Americal Division. 

But
though Fred served his nation honorably, he hid his service from his co-workers
at IBM for nearly two decades. 

2012
marks the 50th anniversary of
the Vietnam War,
one of the most painful episodes in American history. The war itself took place in the midst of
tremendous social unrest in America, with service members often finding
themselves convenient scapegoats for the counter-cultural rebellion of the
era. 

In the
years following the War, Vietnam veterans fell victim to a slew of negative
stereotypes involving post-traumatic stress, homelessness, and substance
abuse. And while those problems were
certainly real, they belie the fact that many Vietnam veterans have gone
forward to lead happy, successful lives.

Today's veterans return to applause and adulation from a grateful nation; but not our
Vietnam veterans. Some returned home in taxi cabs, clad in civilian clothes. Others shoved their belongings into garbage
bags, rather than be seen with the distinctive government-issue duffel
bag. Many returned as individuals -- not as
cohesive units as they do today -- and they didn't enjoy the veteran support
programs today's veterans take for granted.  

Four
decades ago, Joe Bray, now the San Antonio President of BBVA Compass Bank,
served as a military policeman in South Vietnam. At the end of his
tour -- December 21st, 1971 -- he boarded a plane bound for the United
States, filled with service members from a mishmash of different units. In less than 72 hours, he was discharged from
the Army, and sent home in civilian clothes for his home in Chicago. He pushed the entire Vietnam experience to the
back of his mind, thinking of his service only as a "lost year." He never even
unpacked his bags until years later, when he discovered his awards still sealed
in a plastic bag.     

After
the First Gulf War, however, many Vietnam veterans became more forthcoming
about their service; and after 9/11, Vietnam veterans were among the most
ardent supporters of our service members and veterans of Iraq and
Afghanistan. 

But
though Vietnam veterans distinguished themselves both on the battlefield and in
their post-war lives, no one has paid tribute to their service. No one had
tried to right the wrong. But during this commemorative year, many military installations attempted to finally do justice
to our Vietnam veterans. Just this past
week, Fort Sam Houston became the first military installation to be recognized
as a 50th Anniversary Commemorative partner; likewise for the local
San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. In a
ceremony held on Wednesday, U.S. military personnel and community leaders lined
the streets of Fort Sam Houston to cheer our nation's Vietnam veterans. It was a long-overdue gesture, but one
well-received by the hundreds of Vietnam veterans who showed up to this
historic event.

This
Veterans Day, I would ask that all our post-9/11 defer their accolades to that
generation of veterans who never received so much as a pat on the back upon
returning home. We should take their
slogan to heart-that this generation of veterans shall not abandon our
predecessors. This weekend, I ask that we take a moment to shake the hand of a
Vietnam veteran and finally tell them, on behalf of a grateful nation, that we are proud of their service.

Little old Tom in Pasadena (tonight at 7)

Ah, Jan & Dean.
Tonight's appearance is dedicated to them.

I'll be at the Crawford Family Forum event tonight talking to Frank
Stoltze about my new book, about General Petraeus and much much more. Don't
miss the fun. It is free -- but you gots to sign up here.

As usual, those wearing Best Defense t-shirts will get a special
shoutout.

Also, at 6:30 Wednesday night in San Francisco, I'll be giving a special
talk on the Chosin Reservoir campaign at, of course, the Marine Memorial Club. I've asked that
some front-row seats be reserved for Chosin Reservoir vets. Their beers are on
me. 

And Thursday night will find me
drifting northward to Book Passage in
Corte Madera, California, where Isabel Allende once served me a café con leche.
And so on, Friday night at the Seattle
Public Library at 1000 4th Street.

By the way, two people who have contributed to Best Defense at various
times -- Paula
Broadwell and David
Petraeus -- have been making headlines because it turns out they had an affair
with each other. My attitude is this:
What you guys do on your own time is your own business. But, yes, the news does
make me wonder if any other BD contributors are making time with each other.

Why does Petraeus have to go?

I suspect that someone
in the military with an axe to grind ratted out David Petraeus for
having an extramarital affair. I am told that President Obama tried to
talk Petraeus out of resigning, but Petraeus took the samurai route and
insisted that he had done a dishonorable thing and now had to try to
balance it by doing the honorable thing and stepping down as CIA
director.

But
why? Petraeus is retired from the military. If the affair happened back
when he was on active duty, it is part of the past. And there is
nothing illegal about civilians having affairs.

So the surprise to me is that Obama let him go. But the administration's loss may be Princeton's gain.

Gourley: What I want is not just blogs that have data, but blogs that have meaning

 By Jim Gourley

Best Defense
commenter of the year

Last week Tom
requested suggestions for new blogs to add to his daily reading list. I thought there were some interesting
recommendations from readers, but after investigating each one I went back and
clicked through the different windows in succession to gain a little more
perspective.

Looking at them in
aggregate provoked questions. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,
so what world view would the range of sites produce? How does the news feed
presented by these sites differ from what Tom is probably already reading?
Grouping the sites by their emphasis implies that view would be primarily technology-based,
lightly seasoned by some current events in specific regions with dubious
commentary. There is very little context. By and large, it lacks breadth and
depth. The spectrum of information is narrow and the range of subjects too
one-dimensional to provide necessary background.

I read lots of
blogs, none of them regularly and not all of them related to defense matters
per se, but I tend to see value in unique cultural overlaps. I seek context, perspective, answers. Lately, I find the blogosphere
giving me more questions than answers.

Spend enough time
reading the tech blogs and you'll see that there are scores of unmanned weapons
systems in development in the United States and throughout the world. Within
fifteen years we may have a UAV that brings J.J. Abrams' new television series to life, warships with lasers, and bipedal battlefield terminators assistants. All of these blog posts follow the same thematic
approach. They simply show us the technology. That's valuable information, but
I only need to see it once.

Nowhere can I find
answers to the immediate questions I ask upon reading these blogs. Why are we
developing these technologies? What existing weapons programs that we're
currently shoveling money into will be rendered obsolete by these new weapons?
Where does the care and equipping of human service members fit into this?
Exactly what threats and enemies are such weapons meant to counter, and what
retaliatory developments do we anticipate said enemies to attempt? Do we have a plan or are we just building stuff?

Intelligence and
strategy blogs have made the pivot to China well in advance of the defense
department, it seems. The American political discourse about the Chinese threat
was electrified during the presidential campaign and think tanks are moving
apace with speculations of what a conflict with China would look like. But in all the debate over who would do best at
"getting tough with China," I didn't hear a compelling argument for
getting tough in the first place. Is China really our enemy? Do they have to be
our enemy? Is the conventional wisdom more conventional (or perhaps convenient)
than it is wise? I have no end of questions about what the American security
establishment thinks of China because there is no clear explanation of how it
thinks about China. Is there a blog for that?

The defense,
intelligence and national law enforcement architectures continue to meld in
ways both mysterious and disturbing. The DEA has operated in Afghanistan for a
number of years. Predator drones have been used to track cattle rustlers in North Dakota. Part of President Obama's legacy
will be a government that can wire-tap my phone without a warrant and assassinate me without due process. I see these developments and I have more
questions. Are there still such things as American defense, intelligence and
law enforcement establishments, or is it gelling into a monolithic
"security establishment?" How long a shadow does it cast and do civil
liberties and posse comitatus fall underneath it? Is everyone contributing to
this emergent construct actually okay with the potential consequences, or are
we just following orders?

Blogs are a
relatively new species in the journalism environment, but already the
conceptualization of them has become traditional. They were conceived as
web-based forums for microbursts of data to help news organizations keep up
with the increasing pace of information flow. It was believed that the in-depth
analysis would be left to the more substantive print media side of the house.
The value of print has already been challenged and found lacking, but so too
should the idea that synthesis and analysis can maintain the old pace as
developments continue to accelerate. Blogs can't just be places to collate data
points any longer. They need to start connecting the dots that are rapidly accumulating.
I think 'Best Defense' has succeeded in that endeavor, but Tom depends on good
sources of information like any human being. There are more questions than
ever. More blogs ought to attempt answering them. Those answers matter now more
than ever, because the new pace to which blogs have contributed is not going to
wait.  

Jim Gourley has been elected to
the Best Defense all-star commenter team three years running.