Minister Al-X

Anthony Zinni for U.S. Senate (Pennsylvania) Pt. 4- An open mind is a liberal mind

One question I'm always asked when I tell Democrats that I would love to see Anthony Zinni run for senate is "is he even a Democrat"? And I don;t know (or really care) about the answer to this question, because one thing is clear, Anthony Zinni has a strong liberal mind. As this quote, which I have already posted, notes, Zinni's thinking is flexible, rational, and open minded- the exact qualities we need from our leaders.

Here's the quote again:

Our biggest flaw is that we never take time to understand the culture. Some things we do that make perfect sense to us do not make perfect sense in another culture.

In another example of the rational thinking that I fell we need from our leaders Zinni gives the 10 biggest mistakes we've made in Iraq (from the Center for Defense Information).

1. The belief that containment as a policy doesn't work. It certainly worked against the Soviet Union, has worked with North Korea and others. It's not a pleasant thing to have to administer, it requires troops full-time, there are moments when there ... there are periods of violence, but containment is a lot cheaper than the alternative, as we're finding out now.

2. The strategy was flawed.I couldn't believe what I was hearing about the benefits of this strategic move. That the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad, when just the opposite is true, the road to Baghdad led through Jerusalem. You solve the Middle East peace process, you'd be surprised what kinds of others things will work out.
The idea that we will walk in and be met with open arms. The idea that we will have people that will glom on to democracy overnight. The idea that strategically we will reform, reshape, and change the Middle East by this action -- we've changed it all right.

3. We had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support, a mistake repeated from Vietnam. The books were cooked, in my mind. The intelligence was not there. I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee one month before the war, and Senator Lugar asked me: "General Zinni, do you feel the threat from Saddam Hussein is imminent?" I said: "No, not at all. It was not an imminent threat. Not even close. Not grave, gathering, imminent, serious, severe, mildly upsetting, none of those."

4. We failed to internationalize the effort.

5. We underestimated the task. You are not going to go through Edelman's "cakewalk;" you are not going to go through Chalabi's dancing in the streets to receive you. You are about to go into a problem that you don't know the dimensions and the depth of, and are going to cause you a great deal of pain, time, expenditure of resources and casualties down the road.

6. Propping up and trusting the exiles. When I testified before Congress in 1998, after a grilling from Senator McCain and all those wonderful senators supported the Iraqi Liberation Act, and I told them that these guys are not credible and they are going to lead us into something they we will regret.

7. The lack of planning. didn't hear anything that told me that they had the scope of planning for the political reconstruction, the economic reconstruction, social reconstruction, the development of building of infrastructure for that country. And I think that lack of planning, that idea that you can do this by the seat of the pants, reconstruct a country, to make decisions on the fly, to beam in on the side that has to that political, economic, social other parts, just a handful of people at the last minute to be able to do it was patently ridiculous.

8. The insufficiency of military forces on the ground. There were a lot more troops in my military plan for operations in Iraq. I know when that plan was presented, the secretary of defense said it was "old and stale." It sounded pretty new and fresh to me, and looking back at it, now because there were a hell of a lot more troops. It was more the (Eric) Shinseki model that I think might have been a hell of a lot more effective to freeze the situation. Those extra divisions we had in there were not to defeat the Republican Guard, they were in there to freeze the security situation because we knew the chaos that would result once we uprooted an authoritarian regime like Saddam's.

9. The ad hoc organization we threw in there. No one can tell me the Coalition Provisional Authority had any planning for its structure.

10. A series of bad decisions on the ground.De-Baathifying down to a point where you've alienated the Sunnis, where you have stopped having qualified people down in the ranks, people who don't have blood on their hands, but know how to make the trains run on time... Disbanding the Army... Lack of a dialogue or identification of the leadership in the Sunni and the Shia areas. The inability to connect with the leadership down there...

Now, I don;t know what people think of when they think of "liberal" thinking, but first and foremost inmy mind is a critical mind, and clearly Zinni poseses one...

posted by Anonymous @ 9:27 PM