The Donald Rumsfeld memo as leaked for MSBNC is a remarkable document. Here we have the Secretary of Defense admitting that he doesn’t know if the US governnment is winning or losing the war on terror, and, more pointedly, admitting that “we lack the metrics” to know. ”Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get’?”
There you have it: a typical government program. Hundreds of billions down the drain, and nothing to show for it but confusion. Later in the memo, Rumsfeld asks obliquely: “Do we need a new organization?” In a word, yes, and it shouldn’t be government.
Recommended reading for Rumsfeld and everyone else: The Myth of National Defense, edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a book which serves as the subject of my latest column. This book explains why socialism in military affairs works no better than socialism in any other sector.
