Newtie and Company - the Real Banger Sisters?

16 October 2002

A few years ago, Frontline revealed that in 1958, fifteen-year-old Newt Gingrich had an "epiphany" at the World War I battlefields in Verdun, France. He decided at that moment to become "a politician who will prevent such carnage."

How time changes everything.

Today, Gingrich is a member of the hawkish and more hawkish Defense Policy Board. Rumsfeld said recently "We have former secretaries of defense and state, national security advisers. We have people who are very thoughtful and knowledgeable - former speakers of the House of Representatives, a couple of them. We have academics, people who think about these things full-time. And I have always benefited from a competition of ideas."

Really, Mr Rumsfeld? I'm not the only one wondering about the competition for ideas, as Bob Novak points out in his 14 October commentary in the Chicago Sun Times.

Novak says Newtie and some of his ilk have usurped the military strategy and planning positions traditionally held by senior military officers. The "ilk of Newtie" is basically guys who never wore a uniform and missed every opportunity to experience battlefield conditions because they were busy studying for PhD's in things not related to military strategy.

Indeed, Newtie is reportedly seen in the building frequently, usually in the evening, around 1900 hrs.

Miraculously and contrary to all logical expectations, folks like Newtie have become highly qualified war advisors, specifically for Iraq, later to include other selected parts of the Middle East. Perle, Newt, James Woolsey, Ken Adelman, Eliot Cohen - every one a like-minded war cheerleader.

Their detractors call them "chicken hawks," but where I come from a chicken hawk is a bird that actually knows what it is doing, and you have to respect that.

I'd call them aging combat groupies. Kind of like the Banger Sisters, but not as photogenic.

The 1916 Battle of Verdun, such an important motivator in the mind of the young Newt Gingrich, is worth reading about. If you want to skip the details, it was 300 days, 700,000 dead over a field of six square miles, no gain in territory for either side.

The Pentagon's amateur civilian defense advisors, like the German planners in 1915, are "convinced that the war [will] be over soon" and have, as in von Falkenhayn's playbook, a goal of "bleeding the enemy white." (Saddam today, others will follow).

The German codename for the action in Verdun was "Operation Judgment."

Perhaps Rummy could use a little more of that himself as he decides whether to expand his war planning team to include actual military war planners. But I must say, I bet the groupies are a lot more fun.