Where’s the Outrage?

Updated below 

The fine folks at the American Enterprise Institute. It’s a pro-business, right-wing think tank that promotes free-enterprise capitalism and is the home of many of the prominent neo-conservatives that currently influence our nation’s actions.

It is the landlord for the Project for the New American Century, the group co-founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1997 that pushed so hard for a war in Iraq with regime change as a goal. The PNAC seems to be the war-mongering arm of the AEI, with a policy document entitled, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, that advocates for global military domination. Project co-chairman for this document? Donald Kagan, father of the aforementioned Robert Kagan, and also the father of the yet-to-be-mentioned Frederick Kagan.

Josh Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo pointed me towards this article from the Times of London. In the closing paragraphs, reporter Sarah Baxter highlights the degree of influence that this Kagan family has had on the Iraq war.

“Frederick Kagan, 36, is the author of Choosing Victory, a blueprint for the surge adopted by President George W Bush. Just as everybody had begun writing off the influence of the neocons at the White House, genial, chubby-faced Frederick gave the muscular intellectuals a lease of life.

It was at Camp David last June that Kagan, a military historian and fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, outlined his plans for pouring more troops into Iraq to Bush and his war cabinet.

Donald Rumsfeld, the then defence secretary, was unimpressed, but Kagan’s views got another hearing when Bush was searching for ways to ditch the seemingly defeatist recommendations of James Baker’s Iraq Study Group. “Wow, you mean we can still win this war?” a grateful Bush reportedly said.”

The whole article is worth reading, and is unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, quite depressing.

So what are the military bona fides of this strategery master, this Fred Kagan who sez that more troops will be the answer? Well, his Ph.D is in history, with a focus on 19th century Russian military, so he’s got that going for him. And he wrote a book on Napoleon, focusing on the years 1801-1805, so he clearly knows a lot about the Middle East, Islam, modern military tactics, urban warfare, religious sectarian violence, and post-war stabilization. I’m starting to feel great about this guy. This just might work after all…….

I mean, just because the guy looks like an accountant doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know his stuff, and after all, doesn’t everything boil down to math anyway? So I’m sure the numbers are solid….right? Well, check again. As pointed out by Belgravia Dispatch, here, with original source here, Smiley Fred was writing on 12/04/06, that:

“Conducting Tal Afar-type operations across the entire capital region all at once would require concentrating all available forces in the area and a “surge” of about 80,000 U.S. soldiers–a large number, to be sure….”

but less than a month later, on 12/27/06, he was saying in the Daily Standard, that:

“Bringing security to Baghdad–the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development–is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.”

Pretty confidence-inspiring stuff, eh? Well, Senators McCain and Lieberman were lapping it up, since it’s the heart of the plan that they endorsed on January 5.

And now, with the Bush plan calling for 21,500 troops, which if my math is correct, is significantly less than 80,000, you can color me positively overjoyed.

Bleh.

Update:

And if the above doesn’t make you totally lose confidence in Doctor Kagan, take a look at this diary on dailyKos by somebody who went through his CV with a finer eye to detail than I could ever stomach.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/14/21715/7058

Tags: Mess O'Potamia (Iraq/Iran/Israel/Palestine), Military //