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Back to the Forum Archives Lets talk a bit about Iraq in the context of goals. I have no argument with the notion that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy and sooner or later had to be dealt with. Not at all. My argument has always been about the timing of it and the lack of a coherent plan. That is what got us into this deadly swamp where our president ends up begging the international community for help. Let's talk about plans and goals. Start with the fact that we have not set a goal for America. We do not have a strategy. Our entire foreign policy seems to consist of going off in all directions with an incoherent series of unrelated tactics. Sometimes a quick action is a knee jerk response. Sometimes it is just a vendetta. The point is, it does not come out of a coherent plan. It is a dangerous way to behave and it can only lead us into unexpected consequences. Eventually, we must deal with all of the thugs of the world, including our own American born. But, we must do it systematically, not off-the-cuff. We must have a plan. To have a plan, we must have clearly defined goals. I am speaking of the long term goals of America, not short term ends but goals. Let us not confuse goals with tasks. Putting Hussein down is not a goal. It is not even a milestone. It is a task taken unnecessarily out of order. It could be part of a strategy, a tactic in that strategy if you would. We tend to forget about purpose and we tend to confuse our day-to-day routines with purpose to the end that our routines eventually becomes our purpose. We are caught in the day to day activities and we are not even aware of why we are doing them. We forget why we started a thing in the first place. Instead of thinking and planning we tend to react. This is true in government and everything else we do. To avoid that degeneration of purpose, it is necessary to have clearly stated goals and to constantly test our plans and actions against these goals. Once we have established our long term goals, it is necessary to create a plan to achieve those goals. This is called strategic planning and it's product will be a series of strategic plans with clearly defined goals. These plans will usually be set in some kind of time frame based on resources available, current and projected. It should be obvious that we cannot do everything at once. Time after time, adventurous presidents have gotten us into deep kaka by ignoring that fact. That is how we got into Iraq with too few troops where our kids have become sitting ducks for every mercenary in the area. Once we have made our strategic plans, then and only then is it reasonable to devise tactics for the execution of those strategic plans. Tactics are the final stage in the execution of a strategy. These can be planned in advance, but they cannot be cast in stone. They will be general in nature. Tactics must be flexible to adapt to the ever changing environment. Every time we take an action, the universe will respond to it. It would be nice if these responses were completely predictable, but the very idea of that is silly. Even in long known processes the unexpected often occurs. Thus, our tactics are formulated in skeletal outlines and are fleshed out in the application. At this point, dynamic leadership is essential. This is the time when it is necessary for the bureaucrats to step aside and leave it in the hands of the practitioners. Even Eisenhower had sense enough to leave Patton alone in this final phase. So, what is our ultimate goal for America? I must submit it must be the complete liberation of all mankind. For people who strut and pretend to greatness as much as we do, that is the only goal that will answer. Anything less reveals us as frauds, just a silly as a French politician. Please don't tell me about world hunger and blindness in Africa. Resolving those are worthy things, but impossible given the current world situation. We must first create the conditions where those things are possible. We must liberate people so they may do these other things. And how do we do that? What is our strategy. Correct me if you know another way, but I believe the only way to liberate all of mankind is to democratize the world. Yes, we must export democracy along with cigarettes, jeans, and bad burgers. Actually, we need not force it on anyone. We need only create the conditions where it can sprout and grow. We missed a golden opportunity to do that in Afghanistan. Now we no longer have the necessary resources. Let us hope we will someday. The point is, exporting democracy is a long term process. It will take a lot of resources, but it will lead to the resolution of most of the problems we cannot solve now. It will also lead to world peace. We do not have to rule the world to have peace. We need only have a world of cooperating democracies which can ensure a reasonable piece of the pie for each human being on earth. When human creativity is released within democracy, there will be plenty of pie to go around. The thugs and despots around the world will not allow that now. So long as they don't, there will be mayhem and murder. The thugs must go. Now, exporting democracy is the last step in the strategy to the realization of our goal. It will not happen tomorrow. It is a long term thing. There are many other steps before that, each with its own sub-strategy or plan. First, and not the least of these is the cleaning up of our own house. We need to be lean and strong to achieve our goals. This means we must root out the thugs and crooks from our own system. We must rededicate our population to the values we once claimed to be sacred. You know them, honor, fidelity, courage, truth, and duty. This will be difficult to do when our leadership sets the example of hypocrisy, but it is necessary. If we cannot manage that, we don't have a ghost of a chance of success. We will be resigned to the current crisis mode of behavior where we react instead of plan. Eventually we will use up all of our resources and we will be meat for every vulture in the world. We need to clean house in Washington, Lansing, and every other government body in America. Then we need to see to the nurturing of our kids that they may bring our long term goals to fruition. Don't ask me about all the steps in this strategic planning.
Those must be worked out. It is enough to know the long term
goal and the first step. Let us create a strategy and a set of
tactics to clean up the marble lined sewers of Washington and
Lansing, etc all. Then let us implement those tactics in a systematic
way. After that, we can look to the next step.
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