Criticizing the ‘’the f—ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth’’
It’s apparently really bad to do according to Frank Gaffney:
Doug Feith is an old friend of mine. He is among the most thoughtful, careful and conscientious public servants I have ever known.The only truly “inappropriate” behavior evident is the ongoing effort led by Sens. Levin and Rockefeller to impugn the integrity, quality and, yes, the appropriateness of policymakers’ efforts to ensure that far-reaching national security decisions are made on the basis of the best information available.
Tommy Franks, former Centcom commander referred to Feith in the quote. Lawrence Wilkerson said: “”Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.”
After 9/11 Feith wanted to attack remote areas of Argentina and Brazil
Aug. 9 issue – Days after 9/11, a senior Pentagon official lamented the lack of good targets in Afghanistan and proposed instead U.S. military attacks in South America or Southeast Asia as “a surprise to the terrorists,” according to a footnote in the recent 9/11 Commission Report. The unsigned top-secret memo, which the panel’s report said appears to have been written by Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, is one of several Pentagon documents uncovered by the commission which advance unorthodox ideas for the war on terror. The memo suggested “hitting targets outside the Middle East in the initial offensive” or a “non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq,” the panel’s report states. U.S. attacks in Latin America and Southeast Asia were portrayed as a way to catch the terrorists off guard when they were expecting an assault on Afghanistan.
It’s entirely possible that Tommie Franks got it wrong, Douglass Feith is potentially the fucking stupidest guy in the universe.
We’ll be expecting coarse language objections from the right wing towards Franks and Wilkerson…
February 14th, 2007 at
How come every time (and granted it’s been awhile since I’ve graced the website) I take the time to read the full article from which your pull-quotes come, I find the pull-quote completely misrepresents the angle of the article.
Read the full article here to see where your mistake was made vis-a-vis Feith’s “contribution” to the “Attack South America Plan.”
Sheesh, reading comprehension is not that difficult.
February 14th, 2007 at
What was the mistake? Perhaps you can explain it because nothing I’ve written in inconsistent with what Feith defended in the Washington Post.
February 14th, 2007 at
Ruffian,
You’re kidding, right? Should I break down the directly quoted paragraph above for you:
1) A senior Pentagon official thinks there are no good targets in Afghanistan.
2) Said official writes a report suggesting attacks on South America or Southeast Asia.
3) Said official is believed to be Doug Feith.
Apparently reading comprehension IS that difficult.
February 14th, 2007 at
If Feith really wanted to surprise the terrorists with unexpected targets I have one word for him: Naperville.
February 14th, 2007 at
Josh Marshall suggested blowing up one of our own ships or bombing Portugal.
Frankly, attacking Iraq made as much sense.
February 14th, 2007 at
We’re all adults here. I feel confident that if you all read the full story and compare it with the pull-quote, you’ll quickly find the error. It’s not that hard.
February 14th, 2007 at
Three other people have read the whole thing and disagree with you. One can only assume you are a troll if you cannot actually use the English language to explain what we are getting wrong.
February 14th, 2007 at
Ruf,
I suspect your point is that the ideas were not original to Feith, but rather to Maloof and Wurmser, who conceived of them.
But Feith commissioned the two, and he signed off on the report. Therefore, he’s responsible for the idea. He owns it. If he disagreed, he might have reasoned, “Thanks fellas, but these are patently absurd ideas. The American People have been attacked by an enemy that is in Afghanistan. And while there aren’t a lot of good, high-profile targets to get us nice headlines there, we owe it to the dead and the living to attack those responsible, and not anyone in Paraguay -or in Iraq…Paul, I’m talking to you…”
But he didn’t.
February 14th, 2007 at
I’ve been hesitant to weigh in because I worked for Frank and know Doug — who was always very kind to me, even when he didn’t have to be. That says something in DC and in the national security community.
Like Frank, the Doug is brilliant. You look at people like Halperin, and Perry as a conservative and say, these guys are idiots. Not for their intellect but for their conclusions. I can understand saying the same thing about Doug. That’s the way to approach Doug. I think he is a good strategist but a poor small “p” politician. Other friends who were mentored by Gaffney thought Doug was a poor fit. But the stupidest guy in the Pentagon. please. We should keep that in mind.
And oh…personality wise, there is no possible way that Gen. Franks and Doug would get along…
As far as reports that Feith signed off on…if you have ever tried to circulate a triple S (staff summary sheet) through the Pentagon you would know that whatever he signed off on was signed off on multiple times by civilian, political and military staff.
We sit here in the blogosphere and criticize these principles as if they are sitting there making decisions without the input of sometimes hundreds of people and usually well into the tens. As if things weren’t vetted. These things are and staff officers and policymakers learn stuff from all of them. Even the ones that are rejected.
And an IG criticizing someone for being “inappropriate” is absurd. I mean, there was a guy being “political.”
February 15th, 2007 at
Buck — how could Feith “sign off” on an unsigned memo?
February 15th, 2007 at
He defended the memo in the Washington Post for goodness sakes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46898-2004Aug6.html
And Greg, it’s a really stupid idea even in the concept of throwing ideas out there. I do talk to folks around DC and this was a running gag in that very community. I appreciate he might be a nice guy, but I have many friends I wouldn’t put in charge of my 4 year olds for 10 minutes. And some of them are even brilliant in some sense.
February 15th, 2007 at
OK, the guy who invokes our “adult-ness” here takes me to task for improper word choice.
He actually “wrote” the memo. As such, the fact that he didn’t sign it is something of an academic argument, now isn’t it?