Dr. D's objections to Mowbray
This is an attempt to continue the discussion of Dr. Demarche's Feb. 16 post, Enough, Joel. Can you help, or not? I'll try to summarize my comments on that post (I signed them 'e-hadj' which is a screen name of mine) , and then respond to points raised since then.
And keep in mind I'm a big fan of Dr. D, Smiley, and, I hope, a constructive critic of the State Department.
In the comments, others have adequately defended Joel Mobray's scathing criticism of the Visa problems pre 9-11, and his judgment that State was slow to fix them. I think State has made significant reforms and progress since then, and I think Mowbray's continued harping on the Visa issue is, IMO, his perhaps unproductive way of highlighting not the process problem (bad Visa procedures, or good procedures not followed), and not the policy problem (for which Dr. D correctly points out, Congress has a large part of the blame), but (dare I suggest) an attitude problem. I don't think it's sunk in at State how alienated ordinary Americans feel from this institution, and not just on the Visa issues. And I think blogs like Dr. D's are a huge help in addressing this problem.
On to specifics, then more speculation, brainstorming and tangents on my part.
OK, Mowbray hasn't given State enough credit for Visa reforms. I agree the reforms have been significant, and agree that for the remaining problems, Congress is largely to blame. Maybe Mowbray isn't treating State fairly on other fronts, too, I haven't read enough of him to have an opinion. Nevertheless, based on what I've read here and in his columns, he was right to criticize the ill-timed (or perfectly timed, depending...) leak of the classified No Dominos report.
I can't help wondering why we don't see State playing the same level of hardball (embarrassing Congress, the White House, or whoever else is part of the problem) on other issues, such immigration reform, or the disgraceful state of U.S. public diplomacy in the world today.
Yes, leaking is commonplace. I'm not pretending to be shocked. I'm simply citing it as evidence as to where State's passions lie as an institution. On opposing the war, they were passionate, and willing to go to the mat. On fixing the Visa, etc. problems mentioned, they clearly care about these, but less so. State's passion on this is to be admired if one opposes the Iraq war; but for those who support the war, State's passion (and it's illicit behavior) is grating.
re General Shinseki, he is a class act. I know he wasn't forced to retire, just that his retirement was prematurely announced in an intentionally irregular and embarrassing way. I'm not sure extra troops alone would have changed everything, but in retrospect, they would certainly have helped. I'd glossed over these points to save space.
My point was that there was presumably a great deal of internal debate at both State and Defense on the Iraq war. IMO, Shinseki came to symbolize, not just the immediate question (do we need c. 100K troops, or substantially more), but also all the other questions (like, should we be going at all). Embarrassing him publicly was correctly interpreted both inside and outside Defense that, not only were we going to go with the Rumsfeld plan for c. 100K troops, but that it was time to set aside any other reservations Defense might have as an institution, for the good of the troops and the country.
I think there was a substantial, but minority community at State who disagreed with the war, but who did get behind the President's plan, that did offer some great ideas and institutional resources that could have made a difference in the post-invasion phase. These resources and ideas, as far as I can tell, weren't deployed until months later, if at all. For example: State could have had a prepared, sophisticated, regionally savvy, massive public diplomacy campaign that kicked off the day after the statue fell. Instead, al-Jazeera and it's ilk filled the information vacuum, with disastrous results.
In part, that's because Defense, the White House, etc. didn't have a post-war plan (or IMO, had a plan that turned out to be too laissez-faire...but that's not the debate I want to have right now). Frankly, in part it's also because State either doesn't have, or failed to employ, or failed to employ soon enough, a Shinseki-like mechanism for telling itself, it's colleagues at Defense, the White House, the world, etc, that it was unequivocally on board. Frankly, I'm not sure State as an institution *ever* got on board, or at least, not as unreservedly as Defense did.
I'm open to being persuaded otherwise in a way that Mowbray probably isn't. Anyone care to try?
If not, meaning: if one thinks that State *shouldn't* have ever gotten on board, my advice is simple: That's wrong. It assumes a prerogative for State to define the national interest independently of the other branches of government. State is incredibly important, it is the first (and therefore senior) cabinet department mentioned in the Constitution, Fifth (I think) in the line of succession to the Presidency, etc., but it is not a separate branch of government.
Constructive criticism welcome.
- e-Hadj
And keep in mind I'm a big fan of Dr. D, Smiley, and, I hope, a constructive critic of the State Department.
In the comments, others have adequately defended Joel Mobray's scathing criticism of the Visa problems pre 9-11, and his judgment that State was slow to fix them. I think State has made significant reforms and progress since then, and I think Mowbray's continued harping on the Visa issue is, IMO, his perhaps unproductive way of highlighting not the process problem (bad Visa procedures, or good procedures not followed), and not the policy problem (for which Dr. D correctly points out, Congress has a large part of the blame), but (dare I suggest) an attitude problem. I don't think it's sunk in at State how alienated ordinary Americans feel from this institution, and not just on the Visa issues. And I think blogs like Dr. D's are a huge help in addressing this problem.
On to specifics, then more speculation, brainstorming and tangents on my part.
OK, Mowbray hasn't given State enough credit for Visa reforms. I agree the reforms have been significant, and agree that for the remaining problems, Congress is largely to blame. Maybe Mowbray isn't treating State fairly on other fronts, too, I haven't read enough of him to have an opinion. Nevertheless, based on what I've read here and in his columns, he was right to criticize the ill-timed (or perfectly timed, depending...) leak of the classified No Dominos report.
I can't help wondering why we don't see State playing the same level of hardball (embarrassing Congress, the White House, or whoever else is part of the problem) on other issues, such immigration reform, or the disgraceful state of U.S. public diplomacy in the world today.
Yes, leaking is commonplace. I'm not pretending to be shocked. I'm simply citing it as evidence as to where State's passions lie as an institution. On opposing the war, they were passionate, and willing to go to the mat. On fixing the Visa, etc. problems mentioned, they clearly care about these, but less so. State's passion on this is to be admired if one opposes the Iraq war; but for those who support the war, State's passion (and it's illicit behavior) is grating.
re General Shinseki, he is a class act. I know he wasn't forced to retire, just that his retirement was prematurely announced in an intentionally irregular and embarrassing way. I'm not sure extra troops alone would have changed everything, but in retrospect, they would certainly have helped. I'd glossed over these points to save space.
My point was that there was presumably a great deal of internal debate at both State and Defense on the Iraq war. IMO, Shinseki came to symbolize, not just the immediate question (do we need c. 100K troops, or substantially more), but also all the other questions (like, should we be going at all). Embarrassing him publicly was correctly interpreted both inside and outside Defense that, not only were we going to go with the Rumsfeld plan for c. 100K troops, but that it was time to set aside any other reservations Defense might have as an institution, for the good of the troops and the country.
I think there was a substantial, but minority community at State who disagreed with the war, but who did get behind the President's plan, that did offer some great ideas and institutional resources that could have made a difference in the post-invasion phase. These resources and ideas, as far as I can tell, weren't deployed until months later, if at all. For example: State could have had a prepared, sophisticated, regionally savvy, massive public diplomacy campaign that kicked off the day after the statue fell. Instead, al-Jazeera and it's ilk filled the information vacuum, with disastrous results.
In part, that's because Defense, the White House, etc. didn't have a post-war plan (or IMO, had a plan that turned out to be too laissez-faire...but that's not the debate I want to have right now). Frankly, in part it's also because State either doesn't have, or failed to employ, or failed to employ soon enough, a Shinseki-like mechanism for telling itself, it's colleagues at Defense, the White House, the world, etc, that it was unequivocally on board. Frankly, I'm not sure State as an institution *ever* got on board, or at least, not as unreservedly as Defense did.
I'm open to being persuaded otherwise in a way that Mowbray probably isn't. Anyone care to try?
If not, meaning: if one thinks that State *shouldn't* have ever gotten on board, my advice is simple: That's wrong. It assumes a prerogative for State to define the national interest independently of the other branches of government. State is incredibly important, it is the first (and therefore senior) cabinet department mentioned in the Constitution, Fifth (I think) in the line of succession to the Presidency, etc., but it is not a separate branch of government.
Constructive criticism welcome.
- e-Hadj
posted by It's MY blog too! at 11:23 AM
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