Our friend Ralph Luker disagrees with Victor Davis Hanson's article and calls Hanson "He Who Is Without Military Experience" and "fanatic." It should be noted that he makes no further argument, but does cite Daniel Drezner, a man with no military experience, to refute Hanson. It should also be noted that Drezner does not mention Hanson in his blog entry, but does reproduce some of the arguments about troop numbers and unity of command to argue that Secretary Rumsfeld should resign. Drezner does not deal with the counterarguments about troop levels that Hanson brings up in his article.
At the risk of being accused of being a troll or attacking innocent parties, I should also point out that Dr. Luker characterizes Hanson's article as explaining "that five retired generals lack 'resolve.'" The word "resolve" does not appear in the Hanson article, so I think the quotation marks might be out of place.
For the record, I am not defending Secretary Rumsfeld. I do think we need more troops, but more to deal with situations outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Hanson does not address this particular criticism of Rumsfeld and the Bush administration, and I think that is a weakness in his article. But to be fair, I don't know why Hanson would feel the need to refute my argument, since I'm not very important.
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Retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold writes this week in Time about the "invented war": "My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results."
That quotation is nice, but it neither offers information (i.e.: evidence, examples, explanations) nor deals with the questions at hand (e.g.: are we sure that more troops would really be better?).
Please actually read the Hanson article, then feel free to comment.
(By the way, you know who else was in that "special province" Lt. Gen. Newbold refers to? Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Or would you rather have generals running American foreign policy? You might want to think about that for a while.)
James K. Polk and Woodrow Wilson also occupy that "special province." That chicken hawk argument is totally invalid.
"That chicken hawk argument is totally invalid. "
Agreed. Not to mention that at least Bush CANNOT be a chickenhawk because HE SERVED IN THE MILITARY....
He "served" in the military??? The texas air reserves during the Vietnam War--counts c'mon.
Military service is military service. At least when it comes to whom is a chickenhawk or not.
Military service of any kind precludes one from the possiblity of being a chickenhawk...
Preclude : to make impossible by necessary consequence : rule out in advance
chickenhawk : one who advocates the use of military power, but who never actually served in the military
Thus, if Bush served in any capacity, he cannot be a chickenhawk....
This goes hand in hand with the fact that one cannot be an AWOL chickenhawk because one must be in the service to be AWOL, but if in the service, one cannot be a chickenhawk....
Didn't we solve all of this in 2004?
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