Tom Ricks of the Washington Post is ticked that I said he is on “the left” (in my last item re Obama). He wrote me a note, here’s the exchange:
TR: Describing Iraq as a Hobbesian state worse than a civil war makes one a
leftist? That would be a surprise to the Army major in Baghdad who first used the term in a discussion with me. Under your definition, the Defense Intelligence Agency is a leftist organization.
Cheers…PW:
Nice appearance. Yep, I made the assumption which I make of most mainstream reporters, esp ones that write about Fiascos in Iraq, that they’re on the left. Certainly that was the function Meet the Press assigned to you: to represent the left. If I’m wrong, I’m happy to run your response…
Also: can I score your book from someone?TR: Here’s my response: “It’s a rookie mistake to assume things, especially when you can check them out. It must be a real luxury to be able to make things up. If you had read my book, you’d know it isn’t a book of my opinion, but instead is based on hundreds of interviews and a review of 37,000 pages of documents.”
You can get the book at the bookstore.
The only thing I want to retract is describing my judgment of Ricks’s politics as an “assumption” (putting it in the same category as his false assumption I’m a newby). It was a characterization, and I stand by it.
1, Meet the Press assembled a roundtable of four: two neocons, a centrist (CFR’s Richard Haass), and a lib/left voice: Ricks. It’s too bad that Anatol Lieven or Dan Swanson, someone truly on the left, isn’t at the table, but that’s just the way the American cookie crumbles now. The Washington Post is a liberal publication. 2, I mentioned Ricks last summer when he made the brave comment on Howard Kurtz’s show that the Israeli generals were leaving some Hezbollah rockets intact so that the civilian-deaths wouldn’t just pile up on one side, Lebanon. Brave, because Ricks, who as I recall based his statement on informed speculation at the Pentagon, was thereby defying an iron law of the conventional wisdom: Israel is fighting for its existence, not to maintain the perception that it’s David to an Arab Goliath. The Israel lobby went crazy, and Ricks and the Post backed down, alas (with Ricks saying drily that he was going to go back to a noncontentious issue: Iraq). But let’s be clear: Ricks’s willingness to question Israeli motives places him firmly where Russert put him, on the left side of the discourse. 3, Ricks’s claim that the Pentagon’s DIA is neutral shows how little he understands of the ideological matrix in which we work. As I’ve said many times on this blog, with the elites signing off on the Iraq calamity, from the New Yorker magazine to Hillary Clinton, the military is our best hope as the braintrust of the antiwar movement. Cindy Sheehan isn’t far removed from the colonels who are talking to Seymour Hersh, and probably to Ricks, too. Last spring, West Point hosted Noam Chomsky, the Naval War College hosted Walt and Mearsheimer (when these important intellectuals are in mainstream purdah). The guys in uniform who are being called upon to make the only real sacrifice here are also the ones looking for real ideas (like, Talking to Syria). Navy Secretary Winter is pushing for a “hearts and minds” battle with Islam, not a hot war.
I understand why Ricks is ticked. He’s a soi-disant professional and doesn’t want to be ideologically punched. It might damage his credibility. Not in my book. When Ricks said on Meet the Press that the Iraq war was “probably…the most profligate and worst decision in the history of American foreign policy,” he was a brave speaker of truth, and also mirroring the military’s best judgment, which is now on the left of the discourse. The good minds in the defense establishment occupy the same position as State Department Arabists do when the political parties and the executive sign off on illegal Israeli settlements. Tom Ricks can’t cop to this. His problem, not mine.
This is whet we've been saying all along to the editors of the Observer- Weiss is a blowhard and makes your paper look like a JOKE!!!
"It's a rookie mistake to assume things, especially when you can check them out. It must be a real luxury to be able to make things up. If you had read my book, you'd know it isn't a book of my opinion, but instead is based on hundreds of interviews and a review of 37,000 pages of documents."
Like most dipshits, Weiss can't take the truth and has to defend himself and dig himself deeper into a hole with his sophistry.
There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”
http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be – Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
"… the military is our best hope as the braintrust of the anti-war movement."
This resonated strongly with me. A few months ago I was fortunate enough to have a long conversation with Doug Rokke, ex-army officer/WMD specialist turned activist in the depleted uranium munitions issue. Even though he is challenging the Pentagon closely on the DU scandal, to the point of being persona-non-grata in military circles, he continues to be proudly military in his bearing and his identity.
I asked him about something that had been hovering at the back of my mind for awhile: given the non-responsiveness of the political administration to cries for reason in the prosecution of its' foreign policy, and given that the country appeared to be headed straight over a cliff at full speed in a military confrontation with Iran, it seemed to me that our last hope was the noncompliance of the military to the orders of their civilian masters. Is there any hope at all of a military coup? I asked Rokke. Making it clear that I envisioned an American-type coup, not a tanks in the street scenario but some restrained kind of thing, something like the coup that put GWB into power in 2000.
He was absolutely aghast. I had crossed over the line in even suggesting such a thing. (And my husband, ex-military turned Green Party official and activist, was aghast and embarrassed.)
I dunno, Phil. I agree with your take on the military being our best last hope, but I wonder what it would take for them to actually do something rational for the country. Col. Pat Lang, an ex-DIA/Special Forces turned administration critic, is asked questions along this line from time to time by his blog readers. He says the military would continue to respond to the Sec.Def. no matter what, the consequences otherwise being too potentially devastating. (which I have to agree with, this is truly desperation thinking here) Lang said the only time the Pentagon ever issued a "hold" order was when Nixon was incapacitated toward the end of his time in office. They weren't willing to go to war on Kissinger's order.
Ken Larson:
Thank you for the link, an excellent blog which I added to my favorites list. Your piece was great writing and made great reading. I wondered if you have read "Achilles in Vietnam" by Jonathan Shay.
I don't see how a genuine leftist could be a military affairs correspondent
Ricks sounds like an arrogant asshole. 3000 dead kids and he goes nuts because you correctly noted where he falls on the ideological spectrum. A real Washington blowhard. I won't buy his book.
Ricks baby, get over yourself, schmuck.
Mr. Larson,
Thank you for your comments and the link to your blog.
We all know the warning Eisenhower gave to Americans about the military-industrial complex. Personally, I don't think it can ever be tamed, it can only self-destruct.
A question for you:
In the context of the Iraq War, what role did the military-industrial complex play? Were they just happy to jump on the neo-con policy bandwagon once it really got going, or were they pushing for the Iraq War and the Bush Doctrine quietly from the very beginning while the neo-cons provided the policy papers, the propaganda, the faulty intelligence etc?
thomas ricks is not a damn shmuck. and of course you're going to buy his book. unless you're retarded
I think the characterization of Mr. Ricks' politics by Mr. Weiss was both an honest mistake?/assessment and limited by the nature of crossover positions. Pat Buchanan cautions about imperialist adventures and Dems have their share of warhawks.
I agree that Ricks need not have been so rude (a polite "out" would have been to refer Mr. Weiss to his publisher for a reviewers' copy) and that I felt he caved when he retracted his statement about rocket batteries being left in place.
Between "Operation Mockingbird" and the fact that "things are not always what they appear on the surface", I do not know if the WP can be considred "liberal" or that Ricks' war position is rightfully put in that category so cleanly either.
I had one of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth warn about determining "loyalties" when he said he was a bit suspicious at times of Michael Schuer. Another site was convinced that Ray McGovern was still shilling for the CIA somehow.
Geopolitics these days is like the movie "Nine Queens."
Alan,
The MIC is behind all efforts to develop new conflicts and test new weapons. That's how they make their living.
Key executives move back and forth regularly between the government and industry, peddling their influence.
Ken