Minor Thoughts from me to you

Michael Yon posted a new dispatch on his blog. In it, he talks about the "forgotten war" in Afghanistan, the recent attacks on Secretary Rumsfield, and the importance of listening to the soldiers who are fighting the war.

On Rumsfield:

And when these old veterans talk, we should all listen. They know war. We should listen more to our veterans than to politicians. We are more likely to get straight answers about war from warriors than we are from politicians and most of the media.

Like it or not, "Rummy" is a politician. He's a good one. He's an effective administrator. But he's just an administrator, when all is said and done. If he hasn't been personally involved in a battle, he can't have the same perspectives and understandings that the people in the field do.

Joe Galloway (the reporter from "We Were Soldiers") had this to say about Secretary Rumsfield:

I can wish that your boss [Donald Rumsfeld] had surrounded himself with close advisers who had, once at least, held a dying boy in their arms and watched the life run out of his eyes while they lied to him and told him, over and over, "You are going to be all right. Hang on! Help is coming. Don't quit now".

Such men in place of those who had never known service or combat or the true cost of war, and who pays that price, and had never sent their children off to do that hard and unending duty. I could wish for so much. I could wish that in January of this year I had not stood in a garbage-strewn pit, in deep mud, and watched soldiers tear apart the wreckage of a Kiowa Warrior [helicopter] shot down just minutes before and tenderly remove the barely alive body of WO Kyle Jackson and the lifeless body of his fellow pilot. They died flying overhead cover for a little three-vehicle Stryker patrol with which I was riding at the time. I could wish that Jackson's widow Betsy had not found, among the possessions of her late husband, a copy of my book, carefully earmarked at a chapter titled Brave Aviators, which Kyle was reading at the time of his death. That she had not enclosed a photo of her husband, herself and a 3 year old baby girl.

On the character of those attacking Secretary Rumsfield:

And some highly respected officers such as recently retired Major General John Batiste have been calling for Donald Rumsfeld to resign. When John Batiste was leading the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, he was not a stay-in-the-palace general. Like many of our top military leaders, Batiste was frequently on the battlefield. He lost more than 100 soldiers in Iraq. I would see the General personally attending the memorials for his soldiers.

General Batiste knows the face of war, and his voice should be heard by Americans. Some people have called Generals like John Batiste "traitors" because they speak out in retirement against civilian leadership. Batiste and Galloway might be a lot of things, but they are both patriots to freedom and brave men. They are also both very smart about war.

On Afghanistan:

The Canadians are fighting more and more although few people seem to notice. Hopefully, Bill can help change that. No matter what anyone says, the Afghanistan I just left is easily as dangerous as the Iraq I spent almost a year in. But whereas we are beating back the enemies and winning in Iraq, the enemies in Afghanistan are getting stronger as the seconds tick. We need to listen to our military experts and to our young soldiers, too. Like Ernie Pyle once noted, nobody is more plainspoken than combat soldiers. The ones I met in Afghanistan call that the "forgotten war" but unless things change dramatically, 2007 will be a year everyone remembers in Afghanistan.

On listening to the military:

Soldiers, you are fighting a war that is becoming the Great Undocumented War. We at home need to know what is happening, what you are doing right, wrong. Good or bad, tell us what you need. We are listening. Send us your stories.

Read the dispatch. Then go read the stories.

In case you haven't been keeping track, Dubai Ports World is in the process of buying P&O; Port. P&O; Port, a British company, currently operates six major American ports. These ports are in New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami, Philadelphia and New York. The problem is, Dubai Ports World is a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. While the UAE is a close American ally, they have also been tolerant towards terrorist groups. Understandably, many Americans are concerned about the safety of America's ports if Dubai Ports World takes over their management.

With that in mind, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and House Majority Leader John Boehner have pledged to introduce legislation that would prevent Dubai Ports World from taking over the ports. This opposition led President Bush to call reporters aboard Air Force One and threaten to veto the legislation.

Why would the President do that? This statement sets up a conflict of interest within his own party. Worse, it makes the Administration look weak on national defense during an election year. Worse yet, Republicans have been making national defense the linchpin of their electoral strategies. Why put all of that at risk by allowing a Middle-East state-owned Arab company take over America's ports? Is Bush out of his mind?

Well, probably not. Like most things in life, the situation is more complex than it looks. Spook86, a former member of the U.S. intelligence community, passes along this analysis:

But it's not that simple. Cancelling the port deal could mean the end of U.S. basing rights in the UAE, strained relations with other regional partners, and the potential loss of a key defense contract, all viewed as critical in fighting the War on Terror. Collectively, those factors probably explain why the deal hasn't already been nixed, and why the Bush Administration may put up a fight--even with political allies.

Overturning the port deal could also create other problems in the Persian Gulf. Cancellation of the contract would be viewed as an insult to the UAE and its leadership; regional critics would accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy--anxious to utilize UAE bases and sell its defense hardware to the Dubai, but unwilling to let a UAE company manage operations in U.S. ports.

Finally, striking down the port deal would mean likely curtailment of the sale of U.S. F-16s to the UAE. ... In economic terms, the UAE F-16 deal means literally billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in the President's home state.

I'd advise you to go read the full analysis. This deal appears to be a lose-lose situation for the President. He can either risk political fallout at home, or he can endanger his foreign policy initiatives. Right now, he appears more than willing to preserve his foreign policy, even if it means engaging in a domestic battle with his own party.

At the moment, I'm not sure what the right course of action is. One thing I do know: this issue is far more complex than it originally appeared.

The Daily Show and the Colbert Report have become successful by demonstrating just how laughable most of our elected representatives are. This is most true when politicians are responding to press questions. Unfortunately, most press questions tend to be rather laughable themselves. Fortunately, someone who knows what he's talking about managed to slip into a news conference today. Mark Tapscott provides a good summary Senator Durbin's bad day:

Capitol Hill is buzzing with talk of a news conference earlier today in which Powerline's Paul Mirengoff was pushing some hard questions at Sen. Teddy Kennedy, D-MA, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-IL, about the NSA's anti-terrorist international "eavesdropping" program.

Kennedy apparently got flustered with Mirengoff, so Durbin started fielding the questions and himself became increasingly flustered. Finally, according to one account, Durbin asked Mirengoff what news organization he represented.

Yes, Senator Durbin ran into the buzz saw known as Paul Mirengoff and Power Line. The proprietors of Power Line are best known for their role in forcing Dan Rather to retire, after Rather pushed the false Texas Air National Guard story about President Bush. Paul and the rest of the gang are legal experts, unlikely to be intimidated by Senator Durbin's impressive blustering. Apparently, Senator Durbin was the more intimidated person. I'm looking forward to watching the video once I get home.