Redstate

Posted at 10:27am on Jun. 17, 2008 Book Review--War and Decision

for those interested in grappling with serious issues

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

If there was any justice, Douglas Feith's book would get a great deal more attention from the press than would Scott McClellan's opportunistic tell-all. Unlike McClellan, who confines himself to reciting the words and arguments of others and who does not present any kind of original or interesting analysis, Feith presents genuine scholarship, an interesting and original argument concerning 9/11, American actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and the general war on terror and a valuable behind-the-scenes look at the way in which foreign policy, defense and national security policy was made during the course of the Bush Administration.

Read on...

Posted in Afghanistan | Donald Rumsfeld | Doug Feith | History | Iraq | Pentagon | War and Decision — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:45am on May 13, 2008 Reading War and Decision: Part One

Chapters 1-3: The First Days

By Mark I

From its very first pages, War and Decision, Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, takes the conventional wisdom about the war on terror and throws it out the window. Nothing, literally nothing you know about the way that the Bush Administration planned, decided, and executed the United States’ strategy for fighting and ultimately winning the war can stand up to the scrutiny imposed by this consequential book. In twenty years, when historians start to write a dispassionate history of the Bush Administration and its actions, they would do well to start with Feith’s careful, detailed, and surprising account of the issues, decisions, mistakes, and triumphs that America experienced in the early stages of its war against fundamentalist Islamic extremists.

Throughout her history, America has been fortunate to have great leaders at decisive times: George Washington and the Founders; Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II; Ronald Reagan after the decline of the 1970s. America’s democracy, by design or by Providence, always seems to produce a man for his times to steer the nation through turbulence. In the case of the war on terrorism, there was not so much one man--although George W. Bush will ultimately be judged kindly by history for his principled leadership--as there was a particularly important plane trip. On the day after September 11th, 2001, when America had been brought low from the skies by hijacked airplanes used as weapons, it is both ironic and entirely fitting that the germ of the battle plan that would ultimately bring the terrorists to their knees, would begin to take shape in the belly of a military cargo plane en route from Europe to Andrews Air Force Base.

Read on…

Posted in Afghanistan | Donald Rumsfeld | Douglas Feith | Iraq | National Security | Pentagon | War and Decision | War on Terror — Comments (39)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:40am on Apr. 26, 2008 Millbank Continues The Post's War Against Feith

By California Yankee

Please excuse the piling on, I know Erick already posted on this, but I am still compelled to add my two cents.

Dana Milbank continues the Washington Post's campaign against Doug Feith's new book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism.

The paper's effort to diminish Feith's book began two weeks ago when Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote a hit piece on Feith's book without waiting for the book to be released or bothering taking the time to read the unedited manuscript of an embargoed book of some 528 pages less than six hours before they managed to obtain less than six hours before they went to press.

It seems a little unethical that Ricks and DeYoung forget to mention that they both have books being sold, books which take a bit of a different view of things than the three Post writers' versions of what is contained in Feith's book.

I feel at least as qualified as DeYoung, Milbank or Ricks to write about Feith's new book. Even though, like the three of them, I have not yet read War and Decision. At least I took the time to talk to Feith about the book and his experiences before writing this. Earlier today I was fortunate enough to participate in a conference call with Doug Feith and other bloggers including some RedState colleagues. As Pejman Yousefzadeh posted, we engaged in an interesting hour-long discussion about the book.

Read on, there is more.

Posted in Biased Media | Dana Milbank | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:46pm on Apr. 25, 2008 The Book the Washington Post Doesn't Want You To Read

Because you can't handle the truth

By Erick

The Washington Post has declined to review Doug Feith's War and Decision. On the grounds that Tom Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote about book on March 9th, the paper feels it has been given sufficient coverage in its august pages. The Post is apparently not concerned that Ricks and DeYoung had their unedited manuscript of an embargoed book of some 528 pages (excluding notes and appendices) by their own admission for less than six hours before they went to press, and that in the course of these six hours they conducted interviews with Feith and Bremer and wrote their article as well as quickly flipping through it for the juicy bits--a hectic schedule that explains why their piece ignores large segments of the book and does not mention any of the material Feith publishes for the first time (they condemn the book as including "surprisingly little new" information). This is no matter to the editor of the Post's Book World. That article is good enough for the likes of War and Decision. It counts as their formal review and there is simply no room for further consideration--it would be too repetitious. After all, the Post has its standards.

Or does it?

Read on . . .

Posted in Dana Milbank | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision | Washington Post — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:18pm on Apr. 13, 2008 On Doug Feith's "War and Decision"

By AcademicElephant

Promoted by Dan McLaughlin

[In the interests of full disclosure, Doug is a friend and I am biased in favor of him and of this book - AE.]

Doug Feith’s War and Decision came out on Tuesday. In my opinion, everyone who is interested in the greatest challenge to our country in a generation, the Global War on Terror, should read it.

War and Decision is the first book written by someone who was actually part of the decision-making process in the Pentagon on and after 9/11. Up till now, we have been reading largely second-hand accounts that report on events in which the authors were not directly involved and that are thus heavily reliant on selective sourcing. The result, as we all know, has not been pretty and the debate, particularly on Iraq, has disintegrated into finger pointing and hysteria.

Read On....

Posted in Afghanistan | Doug Feith | Iraq | War | War and Decision | WMD — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:48am on Mar. 10, 2008 "Ex-Defense Official Assails Colleagues Over Run-Up to War"

I would say It's about time

By AcademicElephant

Tom Ricks and Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post have obtained an early draft of Doug Feith's forthcoming War and Decision. In an amazing act of speed reading, they got through the entire 900-page manuscript in one day so they could do a preview in yesterday's paper.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they didn't like the book.

Read on...

Posted in Doug Feith | Iraq | Karen DeYoung | Tom Ricks | War | War and Decision — Comments (10)/ Email this page » / Read More »