Hal O'Brien

(No, not the magazine...)

One of the most egregious among his many blunders of fact during the debate was when Mr. McCain "corrected" Mr. Obama on a particular set of terms... while being blissfully unaware he was getting it wrong.

From the transcript:

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OBAMA: (The soldiers in The Surge) have done a brilliant job, and General Petraeus has done a brilliant job. But understand, that was a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of mismanagement of this war.

And so John likes -- John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.

You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong. And so my question is...

LEHRER: Senator Obama...

OBAMA: ... of judgment, of whether or not -- of whether or not -- if the question is who is best-equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment.

LEHRER: I have got a lot on the plate here...

MCCAIN: I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.

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McCain hasn't been in the active military since 1981. And he was 894th out of 899 in his Annapolis class of 1958. So perhaps it's understandable why he went astray.

But, here's what the Army currently says in field manual FM-3, Operations:

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THE STRATEGIC LEVEL

2-4. The strategic level is that level at which a nation, often as one of a group of nations, determines national and multinational security objectives and guidance and develops and uses national resources to accomplish them. Strategy is the art and science of developing and employing armed forces and other instruments of national power in a synchronized fashion to secure national or multinational objectives. The National Command Authorities (NCA) translate policy into national strategic military objectives. These national strategic objectives facilitate theater strategic planning. Military strategy, derived from policy, is the basis for all operations (see JP 3-0). (emphasis in original)

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So, strategy is the big picture stuff. "We will be victorious in Iraq to foster democracy in the Middle East," is a strategy. "We will address the threat of the Soviet Union by containing them in a cordon of surrounding allied countries," is a strategy.

Strategy answers the question, "What do you want?"

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THE OPERATIONAL LEVEL

2-5. The operational level of war is the level at which campaigns and major operations are conducted and sustained to accomplish strategic objectives within theaters or areas of operations (AOs). It links the tactical employment of forces to strategic objectives. The focus at this level is on operational art—the use of military forces to achieve strategic goals through the design, organization, integration, and conduct of theater strategies, campaigns, major operations, and battles. A campaign is a related series of military operations aimed at accomplishing a strategic or operational objective within a given time and space. A major operation is a series of tactical actions (battles, engagements, strikes) conducted by various combat forces of a single or several services, coordinated in time and place, to accomplish operational, and sometimes strategic objectives in an operational area. These actions are conducted simultaneously or sequentially under a common plan and are controlled by a single commander. Operational art determines when, where, and for what purpose major forces are employed to influence the enemy disposition before combat. It governs the deployment of those forces, their commitment to or withdrawal from battle, and the arrangement of battles and major operations to achieve operational and strategic objectives. Figure 2-1 illustrates the link between the levels of war and the plans and actions of military forces. (emphasis in original)

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Tactics, then, answers the question, "How are you going to get what you want?"

From this definition, it's clear The Surge is a major operation. It's a series of tactical operations, with the strategic goal of keeping violence in Iraq at a manageable level while the political infrastructure is built by the Iraqis.

Tactically it's been a great success. Petraeus and his troops have executed very well.

But strategically it's been a failure. Because instead of taking advantage of the relative calm The Surge has provided them, the Iraqi political leadership has stalled in so many different ways to make Congress' performance this week the very model of effectiveness. (Thus the ghost of Garrison Keillor: "It could always be worse...")

But more than that... I'm not alone in noticing this. Jim Fallows quotes "a retired (1999) Army colonel" to the same point. Even more damningly, in some ways, was this post by Jim on McCain's personal ignorance of strategy vs. tactics:

"There has been no greater contrast between the Obama and McCain campaigns than the tactical-vs-strategic difference, with McCain demonstrating the primacy of short-term tactics and Obama sticking to a more coherent long-term strategy. And McCain's dismissive comment suggests that he still does not realize this."

And remember, folks... The military stuff is what McCain thinks he's good at.

In a comment thread at David Sucher's City Comforts, we've been talking about the administration's domestic spying program. One person said this:

"I was always dissatisfied with prior liberal complaints that we civilians had no sacrifice that we had to bear. I always thought that it was a crock, that the inevitable erosion of liberty in wartime was real sacrifice and that victory demanded such sacrifices as we temporarily acquiesce to the state powers that should be stripped of it in peacetime."

Leave aside the premise as to whether we are "in wartime" (Here's H.J.Res.114, which is the act authorizing force in Iraq. Look at Section 3, and tell me if we've achieved those things. If we have, any other use of force is unauthorized, folks. Which was Rep. Murtha's point. But I digress.)... As I say, leave that aside. The other premise bothers me even more. That is, that in wartime, an erosion of liberty is "inevitable."

I don't believe it is, at all. I'm squarely with William Pitt on this one: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

Now, if you want to say it's more difficult to fight a war while upholding liberty, I'd agree with that. But you know what? We're Americans. I think we're tough enough, and we can rise to the challenge. If you want to say this president is too weak to do the job correctly, I'd agree with you that far.

John Kerry had a great line in the first presidential debate, back on Sept. 30, 2004. It was this:

"Just because the president says it can't be done... doesn't mean it can't be done."

I thought Kerry should have hammered home on that in the close of the campaign. Just because Bush has said he has to break the law to fight terrorism, doesn't mean that someone better couldn't do the job legally. It only means this president couldn't manage to find the gumption to do it.

Here's what I really think: I think it's easy to stick to your principles when times are easy. I think it's hard to stick to your principles when times are hard.

I think that's why they call some times "easy," and some times "hard."

I think that as soon as times became hard, Bush lacked the character to stick to American constitutional principles.

But that doesn't mean it was, "inevitable." It just means this particular president failed.

It doesn't mean it can't be done.

...you know, the boys haven't had a live training exercise in an amphibious assault for a loooooooong time.

This goes back to my high school history teacher's reason for why the UK would never fully settle the Northern Ireland dispute. It was too useful to the UK military as a live training exercise.

It should be noted that he himself was an expat Brit.

And besides -- not unlike Iraq, the Administration probably already knows that Syria has no WMD... unlike Iran or North Korea, both of which the Cowardly Lion continues to treat with kid gloves. Wouldn't want our hands to get too messy, y'know.

The New York Times has an article where Rumsfeld tries the Reagan Defense -- he can't recall making any statements he has made -- and tries strenuously to hand off the war planning process to Gen. Tommy Franks. So, when the going gets tough, the tough blame their subordinates. (I hope he's just as calm about this when Jorge does the same thing to him.)

But, down at the end of the article, we find this:

Mr. Rumsfeld said that he was not concerned that the United States had yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. He said most of such weapons are believed to be at sites closer to Baghdad, and troops had not yet reached them.

Mind you, this is the same Administration that, until two weeks ago, was saying the weapons were so widely dispersed across the whole territory of Iraq that the UN inspectors could never find them. Now, ever so conveniently, the weapons are concentrated in Baghdad... Where they couldn't have been used for the last 12 years against either the Kurds or the Iranians, or our own troops, no, nowhere as operationally useful as that...

Snark hunt. Soon to be a boojum.

From Reuters:

Report: Rumsfeld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, (the) New Yorker (m)agazine reported.

In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times (emphasis added -- hbo) in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.

"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."

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Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said.

"The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the former official said.

Bruce Rolston's weblog, Flit.

Rolston is a Canadian military officer. In addition to the blog, he's also maintaining a situation map. Note that the map uses NATO military graphics/symbols. (I wonder what he thinks of Decisive Action.)

Dear Jorge Arbusto:

(two can play this silly-ass cutesy nickname game.)

OK. So, you hoped against hope -- given the crap quality of the intel you've had from the CIA during your residency so far -- that you had the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein pinpointed.

That's cool, and I appreciate the chutzpah of dumping your war plans to attempt to "decapitate" Iraq.

But, um... Jorge. Amigo. A few things.

* What does it say about your supposed quest for disarming Iraq, if you were willing to throw the command structure over those weapons into chaos, given that you don't have control over them?

* What does it mean when, presumably, you have someone inside Hussein's circle both close enough to him to know where he is, and is willing to fink him out to get him killed... But you don't have anyone willing to say where these much hypothesized weapons are?

Just a thought.

US to Iraq: "You're not allowed to surrender. Who do you think you are, the Russians? We Old School Republicans learned our lesson when they surrendered. Why do you think we (rhetorically) delcared war on "terrorism", and not an actual party we can win against? The idea is war now, war tomorrow, war forever... Surrender? Heh. You wish!"