[QUOTE=RickJay]
Whether it’s valid or not depends on what it is you’re trying to establish. As a general “I think Candidate X sux” argument, no, it’s not valid. It also doesn’t prove the war in question that Candidate X supports is wrong.
It could serve as a data point, though, for assessing the overall character of a person, and that person’s wisdom with regards to the issue. A small point, but there it is all the same.
As a case in point, I am not sure I buy into the concept in the specific case of George W. Bush. I do, however, think that there is something to be said for Paul Wolfowitz’s perspective being sadly lacking in firsthand experience; Wolfowitz is notable for being extraordinarily bright, but suffering from an idealistically based refusal to consider any real world experience that would get in the way of his idea. According to virtually every account of the man I have ever read, he is notoriously resistant to the acknowledgement of facts that contradict his worldview. It is worth noting that if was Wolfowitz who refused to believe John Shinseki’s estimates of how many troops would be needed in Iraq, and who refused to prioritize an occupation plan; of course, Shinseki, the man with experience, was proven completely right.
One wonders if Wolfowitz’s decision to avoid service and instead spend his entire life in positions of academia and policymaking detracts from his wisdom and understanding of how the real world works; he, more so than anyone else in the Bush administration, seems to be particularly guilty of not understanding the Law of Unintended Consequences, and his CV reads as a litany of high-concept ideological positions supported by very little consideration of how they might affect ordinary human beings - or, maybe more important, how ordinary human beings will react to the implementation of his positions.
So, would four years in the Army have done him some good? Perhaps it would have. I think, frankly, that the man’s lack of military experience (or experience in anything other than academia or government) is a fairly significant weakness - again, **in the specific case ** of Paul Wolfowitz.
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In my view, the way that Shinseki was treated by Rummy and Wolfowitz was (and remains) an outrage. The guy was supremely qualified for his CJCS position, and when he expressed a contrary view on troop levels needed to do a certain mission, he was overruled, sacked and replaced with a “yes-man”.
The Iraq war could have played out a lot differently if the political hacks that birthed this flawed plan had listened to, you know, the guys that have “been there, done that”.
My Dad is a retired major general who did 36 years in the Corps Of Engineers, we often have had this very discussion. He concurs with your position re: Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc, et al.
