Rumsfeld - This is really disgusting!

[Joseph_Botwinick]

In August 1974, he was called back to Washington, DC, to serve in the Ford Administration successively as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (1974); White House Chief of Staff member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975); and the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense (1975-1977). During this period he was instrumental in increasing the power of the military within the administration and at the expense of the CIA and Henry Kissinger. This was accomplished by promulgating the view that the Soviet Union was increasing defense spending and pursuing secret weapons programs, and that the proper response was a re-escalation of the arms race. This view was in direct contrast to CIA and generally accepted reports on the declining state of the Soviet economy, and the earlier success of Richard Nixon in establishing Detente (referring to a thawing of the Cold War) with the Soviet Union. However, Rumsfeld was able to pave the way for the increase in acceptance of the views of Leo Strauss, which served as part of the foundation for the military build-up of the Reagan administrations (which claimed credit for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union).

In 1976, Rumsfeld was responsible for transferring George H.W. Bush from envoy to China into the position of Director of the CIA. This was reportedly an attempt to scuttle Bush's presidential ambitions, and led to a certain animosity between the two.

In 1977, Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld

He was right then and he is right now.

 

[poncho]

Anne Hessing Cahn

Team B: The trillion- dollar experiment

Today, the Team B reports recall the stringency and militancy of the conservatives in the 1970s. Team B accused the CIA of consistently underestimating the "intensity, scope, and implicit threat" posed by the Soviet Union by relying on technical or "hard" data rather than "contemplat[ing] Soviet strategic objectives in terms of the Soviet conception of 'strategy' as well as in light of Soviet history, the structure of Soviet society, and the pronouncments of Soviet leaders."

And when Team B looked at "hard data, everywhere it saw the worst case. It reported, for instance, that the Backfire bomber "probably will be produced in substantial numbers, with perhaps 500 aircraft off the line by early 1984." (In fact, the Soviets had 235 in 1984.) Team B also regarded Soviet defenses with alram. "Mobile ABM [anti-ballistic missiles] systems components combined with the deployed SAM [surface-to-air-missile] system could produce a significant ABM capability." But that never occured.

Team B found the Soviet Union immune from Murphy's law. They examined ABM and directed energy research, and said, "understanding that there are differing evaluations of the potentialities of laser and CPB [charged particle beam] for ABM, it is still clear that the Soviets have mounted ABM efforts in both areas of a magnitude that it is difficult to overestimate.' (Emphasis in original.)

But overestimate they did. A facility at the Soviet Union's nuclear test range in Semipalatinsk was touted by Gen. George Keegan, Chief of Air Force Intelligence (and Team B briefer), as a site for tests of Soviet nuclear-powered beam weapons. In fact, it was used to test nuclear powered rocket engines. According to a Los Alamos physicist who recently toured Russian directed-energy facilities, "We had overestimated both their capability and their [technical] understanding."

Team B's failure to find a Soviet non-acoustic anti-submarine system was evidence that there could well be one. "The implication could be that the Soviets have, in fact, deployed some operational non-acoustic systems and will deploy more in the next few years." It wasn't a question of if the Russians were coming. They were already here. (And probably working for the CIA!)

When Team B looked at the "soft" data concerning Soviet strategic concepts, they slanted the evidence to support their conclusions. In asserting that "Russian, and especially Soviet political and military theories are distinctly offensive in character," Team B claimed "their ideal is the science of conquest' (nauka pobezhdat) formulated by the eighteenth-century Russian commander, Field Marshal A.V. Suvorov in a treatise of the same name, which has been a standard text of Imperial as well as Soviet military science." Raymond Garthoff, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has pointed out that the correct translation of nauka pobezhdat is "the science of winning" or the "science of victory." All military strategists strive for a winning strategy. Our own military writings are devoted to winning victories, but this is not commonly viewed as a policy of conquest.

Team B hurled another brickbat: the CIA consistently underestimated Soviet military expenditures. With the advantage of hindsight, we now know that miliary spending increases began to slow down precisley as Team B was writing about "an intense military buildup in nuclear as well as conventional forces of all sorts, not moderated either by the West's self-imposed restraints or by SALT.' In 1983, then-deputy director of the CIA, Robert Gates, testified: "The rate of growth of overall defense costs is lower because procurement of military hardware-the largest category of defense--was alomost flat in 1976-1981...[and that trend] appears to have continued also in 1982 and 1983."

For more than a third of a century, perceptions about U.S. national security were colored by the view that the Soviet Union was on the road to military superiority over the United States. Neither Team B nor the multibillion dollar intelligence agencies could see that the Soviet Union was dissolving from within.

For more than a third of a century, the assertions of Soviet superiority created calls for the United States to "rearm." In the 1980s, the call was heeded so thorougly that the United States embarked on a trillion-dollar defense buildup. As a result, the country neglected its schools, cities, roads and bridges, and health care system, From the world's greatest creditor nation the United States became the world's greatest debtor--in order to pay for arms to counter the threat of a nation that was collapsing.

 

[The Galatian]

It was in the Reagan administration's best interests to cry "wolf", even as they saw the Soviet Empire collapsing.

Defense contractors had deep pockets for republican candidates.

The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about, had come true.

 

[poncho]

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> In August 1974, he was called back to Washington, DC, to serve in the Ford Administration successively as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (1974); White House Chief of Staff member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975); and the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense (1975-1977). During this period he was instrumental in increasing the power of the military within the administration and at the expense of the CIA and Henry Kissinger. This was accomplished by promulgating the view that the Soviet Union was increasing defense spending and pursuing secret weapons programs, and that the proper response was a re-escalation of the arms race. This view was in direct contrast to CIA and generally accepted reports on the declining state of the Soviet economy, and the earlier success of Richard Nixon in establishing Detente (referring to a thawing of the Cold War) with the Soviet Union. However, Rumsfeld was able to pave the way for the increase in acceptance of the views of Leo Strauss, which served as part of the foundation for the military build-up of the Reagan administrations (which claimed credit for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union).

In 1976, Rumsfeld was responsible for transferring George H.W. Bush from envoy to China into the position of Director of the CIA. This was reportedly an attempt to scuttle Bush's presidential ambitions, and led to a certain animosity between the two.

In 1977, Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld

He was right then and he is right now. </font>[/QUOTE]Interesting post Joseph.

However, Rumsfeld was able to pave the way for the increase in acceptance of the views of Leo Strauss, which served as part of the foundation for the military build-up of the Reagan administrations (which claimed credit for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union).

He was right then and he is right now.

So, if you feel that it was right for Donald Rumfeld to use the Straussian philosophy as the foundation for the "arms race" with the Soviet Union...I'm guessing here...you must also feel that Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush are rightly justified to have used the same Straussian philosophy to lead us into a war with Iraq.

Is this correct?

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

I don't know who Leo Strauss is, but if he came up with the Reagan foreign policy with the Communists of the USSR, then yes, I do agree with him.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[poncho]

You should do some research on Leo Strauss and Machiavelli. Basically, Leo believed that the "elite" should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.

Both these guys are popular dudes with the Neo-cons that in power now. I thought you knew what the Straussian philosophy was.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Oh, I see. Then I would argue that these two men are only relevant to this discussion in your imagination.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[poncho]

Your the one that brought Leo Strauss's philosphy into this discussion Joesph. Now you don't want to discuss it...hmmmmm.

Does this mean you won't be doing any research on Leo Strauss, Machiavelli, or Leon Trotsky now?

Thanks for the link though, very informative!

 

[The Galatian]

The old neocons aren't very willing to talk about the marxist roots of their philosophy. And some of the new ones aren't even aware of it.

 

[poncho]

Originally posted by The Galatian:
The old neocons aren't very willing to talk about the marxist roots of their philosophy. And some of the new ones aren't even aware of it.

Little wonder Galatian, to understand the Straussian philosophy of the neocons might mean that we have been right all along.

Probably just to scarey for them.

 

[Dragoon68]

Is someone claiming that the basis of recent and current administration policy is rooted in the philosophy of Leo Strauss?

Patrick

 

[The Galatian]

To the extent that the neocons are influencing policy, yes.

 

[Dragoon68]

Who are being labeled "neocons" and thereby "Straussians"?

Patrick

 

[The Galatian]

Ah, good question.

Consider this:

Strauss, who opposed the idea of individual rights, maintained that neither the ancient world nor the Christian envisioned strict, absolute limits on state power. The statesman thus enjoyed a relatively wide latitude for the exercise of his prudential judgment. Norton herself points out that the Straussians’ almost cult-like admiration for Abraham Lincoln derives from the sixteenth president’s willingness to act outside the law: e.g., suspending habeas corpus, jailing dissidents, and suppressing free speech. "Lincoln," Norton writes, is for Straussians "the model of prudential leadership" (p. 130) – a concept that, at least in its fundamentals, can be traced to Strauss himself.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods28.html

Sound vaguely familiar?

 

[Conservative Christian]

"In fact, secret deals had been struck between Iraq and the U.S. foreign policy establishment in 1983. Even as the Soviets were nurturing Iraq’s embryonic chemical and biological weapons program, the U.S. State Department was making its own overtures to Saddam. With the help of an obscure U.S. Department of Agriculture program, an equally obscure Atlanta branch of an Italian bank, and the involuntary assistance of the U.S. taxpayers, the foreign policy establishment helped Saddam build his war machine, including his weapons of mass destruction.

In 1982, as a prelude to the U.S. "tilt" toward Iraq in its war with Iran, the State Department dropped Iraq from its list of states that sponsor terrorism. As Alan Friedman points out in his exposé Spider’s Web, this move meant that "Baghdad would now be eligible for American government loan guarantees" and that covert operatives in the U.S. intelligence community "now had political cover to go ahead with their plans to provide U.S. equipment to Iraq, albeit by way of unofficial channels."

On December 17, 1983 — shortly after the Soviets had agreed to help build Saddam’s CBW capacity — presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld visited Baghdad bearing a handwritten letter from President Reagan to Saddam. "In it Reagan offered to renew diplomatic relations and to expand military and business ties with Baghdad," reports Friedman. Shortly thereafter the U.S. began to extend taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to Iraq. In 1984, for example, the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) extended a $500 million loan guarantee to Iraq to build the Aqaba oil pipeline — a project that enjoyed the personal attention of then-Vice President George Bush.

But Eximbank subsidies were too visible to serve as a means of underwriting Iraq’s war machine. So the foreign policy establishment selected an obscure Agriculture Department program known as the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). "As relations between the United States and Iraq began to thaw in 1983 and 1984, the White House sliced Iraq a giant piece of the CCC pie," explains Peter Mantius in his book Shell Game. "Between 1983 and early 1990, Iraq received $4.98 billion in farm loan guarantees from the CCC." Iraq is almost entirely dependent upon agricultural imports, and its war with Iran exacerbated this dependency. As Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie point out, "The CCC credits were important to an increasingly cash-starved [Iraq]. Under the program, Baghdad had three years to repay the loans, and if Iraq defaulted, the U.S. government would be obligated to pay off the debt itself" — by extorting the requisite sum from the taxpayers, of course."

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1998/vo14no07/vo14no07_arming.htm

 

[LadyEagle]

If only I had owned a lot of stock in companies contracted to the DOD. If only......I'd be rich now.

(sniff)

Anybody care to guess how many of the neocons own stock in companies who are contracted to the DOD? Rummy and others have made quite a bit more of the $$$ since Afghanistan/Iraq.

Of course, none of that enters into our foreign policy and the war on terror.

 

[KenH]

Just about any of us who own money in a broad based mutual fund have a stake in companies that have contracts with the Department of Defense.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by LadyEagle:
Rummy and others have made quite a bit more of the $$$ since Afghanistan/Iraq.

Just curious, do you have proof that Secretary Rumsfeld has owned stock in any of these companies that you mention during his service to these United States as Secretary of Defense?

 

[LadyEagle]

It's on the web.

 

[KenH]

Could you pleae give me your link for the info, LE?