Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Rumsfeld

Mac Owens reflects on Rumsfeld’s work at Defense, via Midge Decter’s biography. Certainly, Rummy’s one of the more interesting defense chiefs, ever. A good read. But also see this useful and critical Washington Post story on the disagreements between Rumsfeld and some military and intelligence officials about how to conduct the war against terrorists. This includes, but is not restrcited to, whether to use Special Mission Units or Green Berets. It seems that Rummy has moved to favoring more direct action strikes, rather than working with insurgents, a more indirect approach. Is counterinsurgency better than assasination and snatches? A useful article. The common sense answer is that both are needed, depending on circumstances. The trouble is that the development of a "hearts and minds" mode (counterinsurgency) takes time to develop. That time should be taken, of course. Yet, I think that if the right doors are kicked down at the right time in the right way, that could also be useful. Ponder it.
  

Discussions - No Comments Yet

Leave a Comment

* denotes a required field
 

No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: https://nlt.ashbrook.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/3333


Warning: include(/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2004/01/rumsfeld.php on line 384

Warning: include(): Failed opening '/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/sp/php7.2/lib/php') in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2004/01/rumsfeld.php on line 384