December 20, 2007

Today's Huckalunacy: Back to the Future? No, Forward to the Past!

Hatched by Dafydd

Some evangelicals, such as Lee Harris at TCS (Technology, Commerce, Society) Daily, passionately believe that conservatives (and even non-conservatives such as myself) who say bad things about Mike Huckabee's campaign for the presidency, are simply haters who despise religious people. We spend our time nitpicking every word that Huckabee utters, find absurd conspiracies (such as the "floating cross" in his Christmas TV ad that was actually a reflection off his bookshelves), and even fabricate supposed faux pas out of thin air. We are the polar opposites of those believers who see Jesus in a tortilla and the Virgin Mary in a rock formation.

Not so! In fact, I knew absolutely nothing about Huckabee until I began to hear his own words. I have assumed from the git go that he is no more or less religious than that other evangelical, born-again Christian who currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And everything I have attacked about Huckabee's campaign has been based upon his own words, either spoken, or in the case of his Foreign Affairs article on his deep, surethoughted foreign policy, written after careful pondering and the hiring of a skillful ghostwriter... thus all, one presumes, the considered position of Gov. Mike Huckabee himself.

So I feel no guilt for bringing to your eyes what I just heard with my own ears, on just about the most friendly venue Huckabee can possibly get: the Michael Medved show, a one-on-one conversation with a pal who has pulled out all the stops to turn his show into a virtual daily campaign spot for Gov. Huckabee.

Today, Medved began by asking Huckabee about the section of his article where he says he wants to build up the military much more rapidly than President Bush is doing. As a reminder, this is what Huckabee wrote, or at least put his name to; I include annotations from myself:

The Bush administration plans to increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps by about 92,000 troops over the next five years. We can and must do this in two to three years. [Considering that the president has just barely met his own expansion rate, how exactly does Huckabee plan to double it? Care to tell us?] I recognize the challenges of increasing our enlistments without lowering standards and of expanding training facilities and personnel, and that is one of the reasons why we must increase our military budget. [How would increasing our DoD budget cause recruits to magically appear -- and to magically get 4-5 years of training in 2-3 years?] Right now, we spend about 3.9 percent of our GDP on defense, compared with about six percent in 1986, under President Ronald Reagan. [At the peak of the Cold War.] We need to return to that six percent level. [So he wants to add another $240 billion per year to the DoD budget... if he has a plan for getting Congress to vote this -- without a staggering tax increase -- does he care to share?] And we must stop using active-duty forces for nation building and return to our policy of using other government agencies to build schools, hospitals, roads, sewage treatment plants, water filtration systems, electrical facilities, and legal and banking systems. [That would be a great idea, if we could recreate the Foreign Office of the British Empire; but when has America done such a thing in the middle of a war? The Marshall Plan came after Germany was utterly razed.] We must marshal the goodwill, ingenuity, and power of our governmental and nongovernmental organizations in coordinating and implementing these essential nonmilitary functions.

If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and use overwhelming force. [A force that took months and months to settle in the friendly country of Kuwait -- which had just been invaded by Iraq, thus was willing to allow us to do so. Which country in the Middle East would have been willing to make itself a target over a six-month period prior to launching our own invasion of Iraq?] The notion of an occupation with a "light footprint," which was our model for Iraq, is a contradiction in terms. [Oddly, though, it seemed to work -- as even Gov. Huckabee admits a couple of sentences later.] Liberating a country and occupying it are two different missions. Our invasion of Iraq went well militarily, but the occupation has destroyed the country politically, economically, and socially. [Destroyed it? It appears to be doing significantly better by many measures than it was under Saddam Hussein.] In the former Yugoslavia, we sent 20 peacekeeping soldiers for every thousand civilians. [And say, that's worked out well, hasn't it!] In Iraq, an equivalent ratio would have meant sending a force of 450,000 U.S. troops. [Great leaping horny toads. And where were we to get the extra 200,000+ troops? Can Huckabee the Great conjure 20 divisions out of his hat?] Unlike President George W. Bush, who marginalized General Eric Shinseki, the former army chief of staff, when he recommended sending several hundred thousand troops to Iraq, I would have met with Shinseki privately and carefully weighed his advice. [Before or after he publicly smeared you with his "advice" at a Congressional hearing?] Our generals must be independent advisers, always free to speak without fear of retribution or dismissal. [Where "our generals" includes Eric Shinseki, but not, evidently, Tommy Franks.]

Look at that -- lots of attacks on Huckabee's ideas, yet not a single reference to "knuckle-dragging evanvgelicals" or "protofascist Christian theocrats!"

But Gov. Huckabee's military naïveté is perfectly encapsulated by a pithy, sententious aphorism he just delivered on the show, which is what spurred me to write this post. Here is what he said -- transcript from my own memory (but as you'll see, it would be hard to get this wrong):

Donald Rumsfeld famously said, "You don't go to war with the Army you'd like; you go to war with the Army you have." But I say, you don't go to war with the Army you have... you go to war with the Army you need. And you don't go to war until you have the Army you need!

(Actually, what Rumsfeld said was "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." But Huckabee's paraphrase is near enough to the meaning.)

Think about that for a moment. How many things are wrong with that sentiment?

  1. How do you calculate "the Army you need?"

    Huckabee would use the Powell Doctrine -- where we essentially refight World War II in every military conflict we undertake. The Gulf War was a classic force-on-force confrontation not that different from Patton's North Africa campaign or the Battle of the Bulge. But wars in the future will not much resemble those of the 20th century; and if we're still trying to fight campaigns against agile, assymetrical insurgents with the bigfooted approach of a Colin Powell -- well, look at our Iraq tactics of 2005-2006 and how effective they were.

    And for how many years could we have supported that size of a force in Iraq, by the way?

  2. How long do you wait to go to war, trying to raise the Army you think you need under the Powell Doctrine?

    When Colin Powell fought the Gulf War, he had the advantage of the Reagan Army build-up already under his belt. I understand that Huckabee wants to build up our armed forces; but he's still only talking about another 92,000 troops -- in three years. But he now says we should have used 450,000 soldiers in Iraq, which is more than 200,000 more than we used. So should we have waited six years to attack Iraq?

    What kind of WMD would Saddam Hussein have had by now, had we done nothing for the last six years?

  3. Where exactly would Huckabee have staged an Allied Expeditionary Force of near half a million? Turkey? Kuwait? Iran? Has the governor even thought this through? Which Moslem country was going to allow us to build up such a massive force of crusading Christians on its territory, in the era of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda?
  4. Perhaps Huckabee is covertly saying he wouldn't have invaded Iraq at all; that like President Clinton, he would have been content with occasional bombing runs to "keep Saddam Hussein in his box." And when the sanctions regime collapsed under the weight of the UN's Oil for Fraud bribery scheme, we would have grimly watched -- while building our mighty, Cold-War sized Army -- as Hussein rebuilt his entire arsenal of chemical and biological weaponry.

    (Which, by the way, he might have used against neighboring civilian populations or even his own people, rather than against our soldiers... and the civilian death toll could have been much, much higher... even as high as the ludicrous Lancet guesstimate of 655,000 deaths, or the even more risible Opinion Research claim of 1.2 million.)

    If that is what Huckabee is saying, I wish he would just straightforwardly make that case, so we could confront his arguments... instead of advocating policies that would force us down that road, willy nilly, in future.

  5. And what if our goal to add another 20-30 divisions were delayed indefinitely by a Congress unwilling to increase the military budget by 65%? How long do we wait before going to war... not just in Iraq, but anywhere?

    Years? Decades? Never? But even Huckabee admits that "our invasion of Iraq went well militarily."

    It seems he would preferentially never invade anywhere at all if he couldn't get enough troops to do it more or less like Operation Overlord on D-Day. This is like the king who had the largest army in Europe -- but would never fight for fear of "breaking" it.

Pace, Lee Harris, but this is why so many Republicans don't think much of "President" Mike Huckabee. Those of us who are not captive to the identity-politics of evangelism realize that electing yet another naïve Arkansas governor with no foreign policy experience to the White House is probably a bad idea during an existential war against global hirabah. Heck, the first was bad enough during the American vacation from history!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 20, 2007, at the time of 1:37 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this hissing: http://biglizards.net/mt3.36/earendiltrack.cgi/2660

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Today's Huckalunacy: Back to the Future? No, Forward to the Past!:

» Captain Head-Fake from Big Lizards
I have suddenly realized something sad about Michael Medved: He never was pro-Huckabee, as he appeared; I doubt he is now really pro-John McCain. What he has always been in reality... is an "Anybody But Romney" fanatic. I now think... [Read More]

Tracked on January 7, 2008 5:09 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Davod

WE need to have a competition to see who is writing this for him.

On a second reading, just maybe someone is searching the web and cutting and pasting. It sure does look as if he taking bullet points from a range of sources.

The above hissed in response by: Davod [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 20, 2007 1:54 PM

The following hissed in response by: LarryD

And we must stop using active-duty forces for nation building and return to our policy of using other government agencies to build schools, hospitals, roads, sewage treatment plants, water filtration systems, electrical facilities, and legal and banking systems.

The reason out military is doing so much, is that other parts of our government [cough]State Department[cough] don't want to contribute. Not to success, anyway.

The above hissed in response by: LarryD [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 20, 2007 2:40 PM

The following hissed in response by: Seaberry

Well, you have been doing a great job on pointing out what Huckabee has said! Fact is, it seems to be Huckabee using his religion to gain support, and has even spoken against Romney's religion.

BTW, good point on 'W', i.e. "that other evangelical, born-again Christian who currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave." I have supported 'W' (as you clearly have) since he was first elected, because he is a great leader...especially in this War.

Hopefully, Huckabee is just a 'fad' right now, and that he will go away soon. I will not vote for him...

The above hissed in response by: Seaberry [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 20, 2007 4:07 PM

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

Huckabee will be the girl that dates alot, but never gets married.

What I find funny is people who criticize Bush (who deserves some criticism), but for all the wrong reasons.

Invading and even occupying Iraq with the force we had was never the problem. The problem was crappy intel(no, not the WMDs, the fact that the infrastructure and political system inside Iraq had been utterly degraded) and a poor strategy for success (no COIN). It is clear that Bush et al wanted to get in and out without the messy nation-building - but that the problems in Iraq were much worse than anticipated. We broke it and bought it.

The whole history very much mirrors our own civil war. The initial optimism. The early poor generalship. The copperhead Democrats screaming for surrender at any cost.

Another thing that always bugs me - everyone assumes that the Iraqis have no say in our success. That if only Bush adopted the right mix of strategy we would have won by now. This has more than a whiff of "white man's burden" about it. In the end, it is all going to be up to the Iraqis. People can and do reject what is best for them every day. And in the end there is very little you can do about it.

And another thing (or two, I've lost count). War is sometimes....persuasion via bullets. Fast wars with low body counts tend not to accomplish this task - the losing side is not yet convinced they are the losers. Our invasion and occupation occurred at digital speed, but humans still have analog minds. A bloody multi-year occupation with lots of casualties may have been inevitable under any strategy or force structure.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 20, 2007 6:56 PM

The following hissed in response by: lsusportsfan

Pace, Lee Harris, but this is why so many Republicans don't think much of "President" Mike Huckabee. Those of us who are not captive to the identity-politics of evangelism realize that electing yet another naïve Arkansas governor with no foreign policy experience to the White House is probably a bad idea during an existential war against global hirabah. Heck, the first was bad enough during the American vacation from history!

You might be suprised but many of us that are not particually captive to the "idenity -politcs" of evangelism" are Huckabee supporters. I find it odd that so many in the conservative press seem to assume it is just Huckabee and the Evangelicals. Epsecially since he appears to be polling in areas where Evangelical strength is not huge.

I go over to the COrner blog and they seemed to start every third post on Huckabee with "some evangelical just emailed and said we don't like them" However like last year on disputing their immigration stance not many of my current emails are being answered about why the CLub for Growth is so distorting Huckabee record in Arkansas. I live 15 miles from that State and you would think reading the conservative media that Huckabee was some crazed Socialist. Funny it doesn't look like that close up. I will admit Bryon York in a few blurbs wonders why these attacks have been so big time from that organization and what is really behind it.

As to the above Medved conversation. Well it sounds about as vague as what I am hearing from other people running. I seem to recall that military leaders have said there is a need to increase the Peace time standing Armed Services.

: Seaberry
You said
BTW, good point on 'W', i.e. "that other evangelical, born-again Christian who currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave." I have supported 'W' (as you clearly have) since he was first elected, because he is a great leader...especially in this War.

Hopefully, Huckabee is just a 'fad' right now, and that he will go away soon. I will not vote for him...

I would like to point out that our current President is not really a Evanglical. I hear this and I guess it is just a pet peeve of mine since it is not really correct. President Bush is a mainline Methodist that still appears attaached in some respect to his Anglican Faith. If he was not I have no idea why he is taking Communion at St Johns Episcopal right across the street which is High Church in its view of "Sacraments". Something most Evangelicals are not.

Anyhow Huckabee might very well not be going away and I hope some Conservatives no matter who they are supporting remember that before they unload. As a Conservative Roman Catholic very much opposed to Rudy I try to follow that advice myself as to him. However, I do think Conservatives and Republicans must ask why Huckabee is getting Republican likely voters attention. What is he saying that is causing him to get a look. One reason we have these primaries is to gauge the public temperature in our own parties. If Huckabee does not get the nomination it would be tragic if we then forgot those people who supported him. I get his sense his appeal is far more than just the "Jesus Issues" or at least how those issues are sterotyped. It seems that Voters that have no particular voter ID or engaged like us in the political process all the time are listening to what he is saying too? WHy is that? Huckabee very well might go away. However the reasons why people were listening to him were not. Let us just hope the Democrats next Novemember figured out that Huckabee audience and we do not in time

JH
LOuisiana


The above hissed in response by: lsusportsfan [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 20, 2007 9:20 PM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Extremely well said.
The huckster would be a mess, even if he was not crudely and cynically attacking the faiths of those he is running against.
Of course the attacks over his ad were silly.
But that does not mean his policy ideas are not even more silly.
JH - ditto on you good take.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 21, 2007 4:48 AM

The following hissed in response by: Seaberry

JH,

That was my point, i.e. I'm not looking at either's religion. Christianity has so many sects and/or denominations (thousands?) that I just list them all under Christianity...sorry about the miscommunication on my part.

Huckabee has been the one bringing up his and other's religion, and he has been quite rude about it.

Have you seen Novak's recent article yet?

Opposition by Southern Baptists a telling tale against Huckabee

..He did not join the "Conservative Resurgence" that successfully rebelled against liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention a generation ago.

..Scarborough and Huckabee clashed during the Baptist Wars. Fighting to drive the liberals from the temple, Scarborough was badly defeated for president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas while Huckabee embraced the liberal church establishment to become president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

..Huckabee confirmed reports from people who know him that his good-natured facade conceals thin-skinned irritability. The candidate jumped Pressler with bitter complaints.

..Shortly thereafter, bitterness was demonstrated by an interview with Zev Chafets of The New York Times. Huckabee was irritated that Richard Land, a prestigious Southern Baptist leader, had not endorsed him.

..Huckabee's jumping Pressler two months ago did not deter the judge from telling me this week much the same thing he had said to Fund: "I don't know of conservative appointments he made and I don't know of any contribution to the conservatives."

Huckabee uses the Democrats' talking points against 'W', and even the Republican party over and over again. Here's another example:

Rice Rejects Huckabee Criticism

...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday denounced comments by a leading Republican presidential candidate that the Bush administration's foreign policy is arrogant and unilateral.

"The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous," she said at a State Department news conference. "One would only have to be not observing the facts, let me say that, to say that this is now a go-it-alone foreign policy."
...Huckabee recently said the administration's foreign policy was characterized by a "bunker mentality."

Huckabee is slicker than 'Slick-Willie' and dumber than Jimmy "The Mullah" Carter, and I will not vote for him...

The above hissed in response by: Seaberry [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 21, 2007 12:41 PM

The following hissed in response by: phil g

Wow I typically enjoy Lee Harris but he's way too sensitive especially defending a form of Christianity that he no longer follows. Interesting that he makes no mention of Huck's slander towards Mormans. This is going to be an interesting election.

The above hissed in response by: phil g [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 21, 2007 12:55 PM

The following hissed in response by: Beldar

[Y]ou don't go to war until you have the Army you need!

By this standard, the American Revolution would, of course, never have been fought. And we might have been ready to declare war on Japan (and risk war with its ally Germany) by oh, say, June 1944.

The above hissed in response by: Beldar [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 22, 2007 1:54 AM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

I am just amazed at the ability and the willingness of Republicans to go after each other. I have not decided who I will vote for. It is too early. But I think it would be a mistake to dismiss Huckabee as just a some Baptist minister. He did not get in the lead nationally, just by polling well with Evangelicals.

I voted for Bush and I still support him. And it is worth noting that a lot of people said he was too religious and lacked foreign policy experience when he became president.

So go ahead and smear the man. I think all this negative attention might be helping him.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 22, 2007 2:48 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

Seaberry:

What I find is interesting is that other Republicans attack Bush all the time for all sorts of reasons. That is fine. Call the man Jorge, a big spender, a screw up whatever. But if Huckabee is critical...well that is just horrid.

And since when do hawks care what Condi Rice the great betrayer have to say anyway?

Beldar:

It is not reasonable to compare Japan and Iraq. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, otherwise we would not have gone to war with them at all. We chose the conflict with Iraq. I supported that decision, I still do, but I think most people today after the fact would agree that things should have been handled differently. Interestingly enough McCain has been proven to have been right in many ways about the war and how it has been conducted. But there are people on the right who bitch about him even more than they do Huckabee.

Keep it up and come November the Democrats will win by default.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 22, 2007 2:56 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

BTW, it is worth noting that in the first war with Iraq, the Gulf war the Coalition put up 660,000 troops...roughly 3/4 of them were American.

Like I said I am not a Huckabee person. I think this long campaign is not a good thing. And I think the reaction to Huckabee by some people on the right has been downright bizarre. Parsing each sentence is a little obsessive.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 22, 2007 3:27 PM

The following hissed in response by: SDN

Another thing that can never be pointed out enough is that Powell had the size Army he wanted before Bill Clinton and Al Gore gutted it.

Look it up: the net reduction in government employees the Clintons like to boast about came 100% out of the military; ALL other areas of government grew. And I don't remember any protests from Powell, no resignation, nothing.

The above hissed in response by: SDN [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 26, 2007 3:38 AM

The following hissed in response by: The Yell

I agree Huckabee has been quite foolish-- I would like to see his ambassador to Iran offer to "domesticate" them as a father speaks to a wayward child--but his military opinion is quite reasonable.

If we can't put 20 divisions overseas for three years without crippling our military, then we need a bigger military. How are we going to honor our guarantees of Polish, Korean and Iraqi territory otherwise?

In 1917 we raised a million men for France in 14 months, and were set to raise another million by spring 1919. And that was with a population less than a third of what we have today. It's a question of devoting the resources.

If it's in our national interest to do something politically impractical, don't we have an obligation to make the necessary, practical?

The above hissed in response by: The Yell [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 28, 2007 11:04 AM

The following hissed in response by: Seaberry

The Yell,

Poland is a NATO member, we don't need troops there. South Korea has wanted us out of there for years, so we should pull out. We don’t need troops in Europe either…pull those out also.

Our military is not crippled, and has in fact gained valuable experience and training in the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan…both are good training grounds. We’ll be in Iraq for a long time…need to maintain a strong presence there, but we don’t need to be patrolling the streets like ‘cops’.

We certainly don’t need some ‘bloated’ military, just a ‘tweak’ here and there on the great one we have now.

Huckabee is just using the Democrats’ ‘talking points’…

The above hissed in response by: Seaberry [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 28, 2007 1:26 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

The Yell:

In 1917 we raised a million men for France in 14 months, and were set to raise another million by spring 1919.

Yes, by a draft. Is that your suggestion?

We cannot refight World War II (or I) every time we have a military problem. Warfare in the new millennium is fought very differently than in the last.

In particular, we are never again going to see vast, multi-million-man armies ponderously maneuvering across scores of nations; future wars will be like Afghanistan and Iraq, or like the hundreds of smaller military actions and engagements we fight around the world every year... and that's what we need to plan for, not some putative conflict with the next incarnation of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or the Kaiser.

Kosovo will turn out to be the fifth and last time we refought World War II. Our troops need to be highly intelligent, intricately trained, and high-tech. This takes years of committment... and it can only blossom from motivated volunteers, not conscripts shoved through basic and straight to the front lines.

I agree, our military is too small. So does Bush, who has a plan to increase its size by some ten divisions within five years (a plan that will of course either be continued or cancelled, depending on who is the next president).

But should we have waited until we could field 450,000 men before invading Iraq... while the sanctions were rapidly crumbling due to the corruption of Oil for Food?

Should we have waited until we had "overwhelming force" before moving against the Taliban? We would still be waiting, TY... and al-Qaeda would still have a save haven in Afghanistan.

In the modern era of warfare, speed and intelligence are much more important than a huge footprint; especially when the goal is to turn the country over to its people as quickly as practical.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 28, 2007 4:51 PM

The following hissed in response by: The Yell

We are obligated to defend Poland, South Korea, and I think Iraq to the utmost, if they are attacked. We do not control, really, if they are attacked.

Pearl Harbor was not bombed because the Japanese thought they could whup us in a total war. Pearl Harbor was bombed because the Japanese thought we would not fight a total war, if we started out losers.

Should Russia, China, North Korea, Iran come to the same conclusions about NATO and the USA in the next four years...we are going to be hurting to deal with it. You have no solution to the problem of a hostile army of 250,000 soldiers marching on a US ally in 2011. You plan on it not happening. That makes it likelier to happen.

It takes a draft to put 1% of our population into uniform. It does not take a draft to put another 0.3% of our population into uniform. And it wouldn't take 5 years, it could be done--as in WWI and WW2--within a single year. It is a question of resources committed to outfitting and training our troops.

The above hissed in response by: The Yell [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 30, 2007 4:33 PM

Post a comment

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)

(If you haven't hissed a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Hang loose; don't shed your skin!)


Remember me unto the end of days?


© 2005-2009 by Dafydd ab Hugh - All Rights Reserved