Mitchell Zais is a retired Army brigadier general who is the president at Newberry College in South Carolina. On Nov. 9 he gave a speech at the college in which he stated that “most of our problems in Iraq stem from a flawed strategy that has been in place since the beginning of the war.” I won’t paste the ehole speech here, yoo may read it at the link, but here are his central points:

Our strategy in Iraq has been:

1) Fight the war on the cheap.

2) Ask the ground forces to perform missions that are more suitably performed by other branches of the American government.

3) Inconvenience the American people as little as possible.

4) Continue to fund the Air Force and Navy at the same levels that they have been funded at for the last 30 years while shortchanging the Army and Marines who are doing all of the fighting.

No wonder the war is not going well.

Read the whole thing.

Link to “The price of fighting a war on the cheap”

When I read this post my mind immediately remembered the book by Thomas Barnett called The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century. In that book Mr. Barnett highlights the anguish within the armed forces over preparing the U.S. armed forces for the next war. He argues that the U. S. already has air and sea superiority and without a renewed threat from Russia or China, it is very likely we can maintain this superiority with a considerably reduced budget. The Army and Marines have a different problem. The success of the invasion part of the Iraq war makes a persuasive argument that this part of the war was appropriately funded and staffed. The peace keeping portion of the Iraq war has not been successful. Using the same argument the failure of the peace keeping mission leads one to believe that this part of the mission was underfunded and under-staffed. The Army and Marines would have liked this mission to be performed by “someone” else but there isn’t someone else. The dilemma they face is that the peace keeping mission requires the increased funds and soldiers/policemen and not the invasion part. This puts pressure on the Defense Department to divert money from lower priority projects and to embrace the changes required to fight our new strategic threats. There is a lot of money and politics riding on these projects which are no longer strategic to the defense of the country. The budget warriors know that if funds are diverted from their project, they will never get the funds back. These officers are fighting for their jobs and future and hoping for a new enemy like the last one. In a way this budget battle is like a game of musical chairs with the music slowly winding down.

Since it appears that the US Ambassador to the UN will not get confirmed, the reform of the UN is a dead issue, too. Although I recognize that Bolton was a controversial selection, his selection was the middle ground. There was quite a contingent of people much smarter than me who had given up hope for UN reform and felt that we should start over. The problems at the UN drug the issue of reform from the political fringe to the mainstream. For these UN skeptics the ballgame is over. Reform is no longer on the agenda. Working with corrupt and incompetent officials is just a cost of doing business at the UN.

It is interesting to reflect on the differences between the Abramoff corruption and the Oil for Palaces scandal. In terms of money involved and loss of life, the Abramoff scandal was minor league. You can use the same rationale for the Cunningham, DeLay, Foley, and Jefferson scandals. It is ironic that Jefferson, a Democratic congressman, is seeking re-election in a year the national Democratic party is lamenting the culture of corruption in Washington. I doubt the Democratic party will find fault with the UN culture that looked the other way when genocides were committed in Bosnia, Iraq, and Rwanda. The UN legacy is hard to overlook but Democratic leaders have ignored it in the past.

I genuinely hope the Democratic leaders will be successful in leading this country out of Iraq and reducing the threat of global terrorists. The Democratic party discipline shown in this last election was successful in avoiding many self-inflicted injuries. This discipline will be necessary over the next couple of months if anything is to be accomplished in Congress. If the exit polls are correct, the key issues that got Democrats elected in 2006 will not be issues in 2008. This “big tent” has a lot of new players with different agendas. The Democrats need to accomplish something important to the voters in the next two years or they will not get re-elected. The key is working together and avoiding divisive issues. The conservative and independent voters will leave them in droves if the Democrats cannot accomplish anything because of their own party politics. I can only watch and hope for the best.

The Democrat I should have voted for is Richard Cordray for Ohio Treasurer. His experience as a county treasurer is probably the best indicator for me that he will do a good job. I am grateful that his campaign for Treasurer has had very few negative ads.

Although Ted Strickland will likely become Ohio’s next governor I am still ambivalent about him. Last week we got a heavy dose of the “courtship” political ads. These are the ads that try to woo the voters to a candidate. I saw his ad talking about his vision several times before the irony in it struck me. The words that caught my attention were “Turnaround Ohio”. The problem is that I think that Ohio has done a pretty good job economically. I know if you work for the auto industry you may have a different opinion. In fact I was surprised the economy was not mentioned more by the candidates. The national economic numbers are really quite good. It was not too long ago that economists discussed permanent unemployment and inflation rates considerably higher than today. Countries like France continue to remind us how bad an economy can get. The reality is that Ohio will continue to lose manufacturing jobs as the auto and steel industries continue their long term decline in Ohio. For the most part both parties have philosophically gotten over this problem and are looking at increasing the number of small businesses as the keystone of Ohio’s economic future. When you look at the countries in Europe, the United States has done an outstanding economic job. The people in Europe are envious of our economic growth, our flexibility, and our ability to create jobs. If you believe that Ohio has been doing a good economic job, doesn’t it follow to reason that if you turnaround Ohio that the economy will get worse? Does his plan want us to be like France?

Ted’s best characteristic is that he has a lot of political experience. I believe he is politically savvy enough to not kill the goose while pursuing partisan issues. Some of the partisan issues worry a lot of small business owners so he will have to be very careful. He needs to appease his constituents but like Bill Clinton he will remember that he was not elected because of his vision or the party loyalists. He was elected because those fickle independent voters voted his way and that his opponent’s campaign sucked. If Ted plans to win the re-election in a couple of years, he will have to convince these independent voters that a “Bill Clinton”-like governor is good for Ohio’s future.

Ohio’s Kenneth Blackwell is the right candidate in the wrong year.

Link to Ohio’s Fall Guy

I have to admit that I voted for Ken Blackwell even though I think he will lose to Ted Strickland. I have to say that Strickland’s pro-growth strategy does not excite me. Its an important issue but a lower priority for me. Ted does seem to be a decent fellow.  The economy has filled the state’s coffers again so I am most concerned with spending as the economy slows down. Ken Blackwell is a fiscal conservative at the core.

My wife and I filled out our ballots and mailed them in. It was our act of rebellion. We have three close elections in our TV viewing area. Nowadays close elections means lots of negative ads. So when we received an offer for mail-in ballots we took them up on it. I was pretty tired of the television ads. Frankly, I did not glean a significant piece of information from any of the ads on where they stood on important issues. So we voted for the people who we already knew.

We had several constitutional amendments on the ballot, too. I almost voted for the amendment to raise the minimum wage. I run the payroll for our farm and our Habitat affiliate. Although both organizations are exempt from minimum wage laws, we have always paid a wage rate than was higher than the minimum wage. Like most businesses we pay the prevailing wage rate. It is hard to get   and retain good employees. Minimum wage rate laws have never been important to our business. The problems we have had with our Habitat homeowners has always been them losing their jobs not the wage rate. As a result of my statistical sample of two, I do not find much value in the minimum wage rate increase to anyone except politicians and people who like to talk about how they are helping the working poor. I am sorry about my cynicism. God is not finished with me.

My problem was not the wage increase but all of the extra stuff they threw into the amendment with it. The amendment is almost a page long. It is as long as the other six amendments combined. I have insurance policies with less verbiage.  I am confused why we could not have a simply worded amendment to raise the wage rate and let the state government figure out how to manage it most effectively. I definitely feel like I was subjected to a bait and switch ploy so I voted against it.

My main point is that the Democrats’ claim that the Bush tax cuts helped only the wealthy does not square with the facts, and I am both astounded to discover that this is true and discouraged to know that there is no possible way the American public will ever appreciate it. If the media hasn’t figured it out by now, they never will.

Source: Back Talk: The Rich Were Better Off Under Clinton Than Bush

This article was written by a professor who describes himself as a “registered Democrat, a liberal by most measures, but a radical conservative relative to the large majority of my colleagues.” I added this article because it was an interesting analysis of the effects of taxing policy. The professor substantiated his position by providing a link to the Tax Policy Center site which provided the raw numbers for his conclusions.

I have been skeptical that the tax cuts favored the rich based on my non-scientific polling of rich friends. If this was such a bonanza my rich friends were sure doing a fine job of keeping their new wealth quiet. Typically I will find someone who can not control their enthusiasm and will spill the beans.

I have a similar issue with the complaints about the Halliburton contracts. If Halliburton is getting such sweet deals from the government, their earnings should be going through the roof. Historically almost all of their earnings has come from the non-governmental side of the business, oil well servicing. Their stock price does not reflect any new found wealth from government contracts. Early in my career I worked for Bechtel when they had a “cost plus” contract to manage construction of the Washington Metro. I learned that “costs plus” contracts were used when the risks are large or difficult to control. The client assumes the risk. The client makes all of the key decisions. The contractor gets a smaller than normal profit and normally keeps their mouth shut. Talking about risk or bad decisions with the press is typically a lose-lose proposition. I have to assume the the Army has control over the decisions and is assuming all of the risk for the contracts in the war zone.

I also worked for Brown and Root early in my career. Brown and Root is the subsidiary of Halliburton actually doing the work for the Army. Brown and Root and the Army have a long working relationship going back to the Vietnam war. It is ironic that back in the 1960’s Brown and Root was closely linked with LBJ and the Democratic party. Herman Brown, LBJ, and several other mover and shakers in Texas politics used to have a regular card game in a hotel in downtown Houston.

Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” dated April 2006

We assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this Estimate.

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq jihad; (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims all of which jihadists exploit.

I pulled this from the NIE report because this part of the report agrees with my gut feeling that the root causes of terrorism is Middle East poverty and lack of hope. When you combine poverty with inept, corrupt, and non-responsive governments you better have a foreign threat to focus the people’s anger elsewhere. If we are eventually successful in Iraq, it will because we helped the Iraqi government break the Middle East poverty cycle and the Iraqi government’s success gives hope to all Muslims in the region. The Iraqi government must be perceived as owner of the success for this to work. In this framework the US must be perceived as the meddlesome partner whose intentions were both good and bad.

It is not surprising that my key indicator for evaluating US foreign policy in the region is not the daily death toll but the Iraqi economic numbers. If the Iraqi economy can expand and spread the wealth, the terrorists worldwide will have lost not only the battle but the war.

The other stuff in the report does not reveal any new insight and looks pretty routine. The omission of the words Islam and Muslim in the report is interesting. I tend to view terrorists as Muslim and as perverting the teachings of Islam to justify their violence. This leaves the non-terrorist Muslims with quite a dilemma. How do you support change on your “entrenched grievances” without supporting terrorists? Rephrasing this question in a more proactive manner we get something like this. What progress have we made in separating terrorism from meaningful changes on “entrenched grievances” ? Considering the lack of facts that are not already available in the press or internet, this report could have been written by almost any journalist or blogger. It is amazing that this report got so much hype.