Michael keeps the public off-balance with numerous vectors during this this interview,
his role appears to be to create confusion about Iraq.
For example, Mike tells us Ron's understanding of Iraq trumps all the other candidates, that he understands the threat Americans live under and how to alleviate that threat. But then Michael goes on to say that he wants to take out Bin Laden more than the next guy, and that he'd be willing to stay in Iraq if the current administration was willing to win by inserting 500,000 troops there. WTF? Ron rightly wants to bring our troops home now. What is Michael talking about here?
Scheuer is talking about dealing with the reality of armed conflict with a strategy designed to win quickly and end hostilities. A reality-based strategy, as opposed to the faith-based war planning that characterized the Iraq war.
This is really quite old strategic thinking, that goes at least as far back as Sun Tzu. It was more recently embodied by the Powell doctrine of the first US-Iraq war, where overwhelming force was brought to bear to quickly and decisively crush the opposition's will to resist. Paradoxicallly, the overwhelming application of force often leads to less overall destruction and death, than the half-assed strategy of trying to apply minimal force. This is also a doctrine recognized by Machiavelli. The prince, in Machiavelli's terms, should make punishment brief and overwhelming. And after dispensing the brief overwhelming shock, the prince should offer good things to the people over an extended period of time.
Then Michael goes into the vector that we are in Iraq due to America's lack of energy self sufficiency....that our primary interest in Iraq is Oil. What crap, we have always controlled middle eastern oil. We're there to destroy their society and build one that we control from the top down.
Which is ultimately a means to the end of controlling their oil resources.
Finally, he sends us down the road that our NSC is incompetent by telling us the story that NSC members supposedly spent an entire meeting focused on how best to bind Bin Laden once he was captured. The ultimate fallacy was his statement that we built an ergonomic chair and specially padded shackles for his capture....that we've become weak and "sissy-fied." So, here, Mike is trying to say that we are not pursuing them aggressively enough because our politicians are weak and stupid. This entire line of messaging is a blatantly false and intended to be another misdirection. Are we supposed to be over there or aren't we, Mike? If we go after them more aggressively, then how does that fit with your meme that they attacked us because we over there? Is the USA a nation of torture, or not? Finally, how does these themes align themselves with Ron's view that we should leave now?
I think he was commenting on the politically correct armchair quarterbacking of people who are safely in the rear. It's the same philosophy that tries to cloak our aggressive military actions in euphimisms of liberation and spreading democracy.
When the US went to war with Japan in WW2, there was none of this bogus posturing to conceal the reality of what we were doing. We went over there to kill lots and lots of japs. There was a fundamental honesty about what we did then, that is blatantly lacking in modern conflicts. We should not be entering into a shooting war, unless we really are prepared to commit mass murder, which is what war is. Our modern leaders refuse to deal with that reality, and instead try to sell us on the idea of war where nobody gets hurt. Where only the bad guys are surgically targeted by smart missiles.
This entire doctrine is flawed from the root. War is terror. You win wars by terrorizing the enemy. You don't win wars by communicating to the "enemy" that you care about their well-being. You win by callously slaughtering them indiscriminately. That's why war is a terrible thing that should always be avoided if at all possible. It is a dehumanizing hell. Our current leaders want to lead us into this hell, while pretending it is really compassionate and caring, with padded hand-cuffs and ergonomic chairs.
His messages are inconsistent, which I believe is intentional...meant to confuse a public searching for logical answers to the USA's actions. Unfortunately, the more one listens to "experts," the more confused one gets. And Michael is helping confuse.
I don't think his message is inconsistent, I just think his message is something you find objectionable. Scheuer is dealing with the reality of deadly armed conflict without the feel-good cloak of modern liberality and respect for humanity nonsense. He is very Machiavellian in a way. It's an eminently logical position, but not obviously moral or ethical. The thing that may not be obvious on the surface, is that cruelty can be a kindness. When a surgeon amputates a gangrenous limb, it is a brutal assault on the flesh that maims, but it also saves a life. The compassionate doctor who turns away from the horror of sawing off a limb may in the end be doing more harm to the patient.
