The Ricochet Podcast - CPAC #16: Col. Allen West

Episode Date: February 28, 2015

Col. Allen West, author of Guardian of the Republic, Fox News contributor & former U.S. Congressman joins Jay Nordlinger to discuss CPAC, 2016, the state of the military, and how Republicans can doa better job of attracting African American voters. Source

I'm Jay Nordlinger at CPAC for National Review and Ricochet. We have as our guest the fabulous Colonel Alan West, former congressman, current world beater. Nice to see you. Jay, you're too kind. It's good to be back with you. Remind me of the name of that sterling organization that you now head. National Center for Policy Analysis. It's a 31-year-old conservative free market think tank. Roth IRAs, health savings accounts, were born at NCPA, which is headquartered down in Dallas, Texas. Well, we could talk to Alan West about just about anything foreign and domestic.

I'd like to begin by asking him how to beat ISIS. Well, there are multiple fronts that you have to engage in, and anyone will tell you there are four elements to a nation's power. It's called the dime theory. The first one, the de-diplomatic, what we have to be able to do is cut ISIS off from its state sponsorship. There are countries out there, such as Saudi Arabia, the Qatar, the Turkey, that are providing support to ISIS, and we have to be able to put the diplomatic pressure on so that ISIS can be isolated.

Because obviously people are flying into Turkey and transiting across that border to get into Syria, and there are others that are engaged there. The other thing is the I is for information. If you're going to defeat ISIS ideology, first of all, you got to admit what the ideology is. But you have to have a dedicated information operation to delegitimize that ideology. And we're not doing that. This militant Islamic totalitarianism, jihadism, terrorism. We have to define it. Sun Tzu even said that in The Art of War. The M stands for military.

Now, I would say that that's a concurrent thing that you're looking to develop because you also have to look at the E, which is the economic aspect. You've got to put the sanctions out there to cut it off from the financial stream that it is having right now. Someone is helping them to sell oil on the black market. Someone is funneling funds to them so that they can buy the tickets for these young people all over the world to try to fly over to join with them. Someone is buying the artifacts that they're selling out there, so we've got to follow that money. But most importantly, you're going to have to meet them on the battlefield.

And when I talk about meeting them on the battlefield, this is not this insane paradigm that we've been on for the past 10 to 13 years of nation-building, occupation-style warfare. This is about strike operations. This is about developing an operationally maneuverable military that can lethally and violently find this enemy wherever he is, fix him in place, and destroy him in detail. We have seen ISIS grow from 3,000 fighters to 50,000 to 60,000 and now have affiliations in about 11 to 12 countries. This is a very serious threat. Let's talk a bit about the M part of DIM military all of my life i've heard a phrase i'm sure you have too lean and mean you hear it from defense cutters you need a military that's lean

and mean and i'm all for both of those things but sometimes lean becomes too slight yeah and i wonder if you think our military now is big enough, strong enough to accomplish our purposes. No, it's not. As a matter of fact, the Heritage Foundation just put out an index report that looked at the end strength of our military. That was sobering, if not alarming. Well, it has to be alarming because what we have done, when we talk about budget cuts in the Department of Defense, which are necessary. I mean, there are places where you can find waste. But what we have done is cut our warfighting capability, which you should never do.

But instead, we have seen the incredible growth of the bureaucracy of the Department of Defense. You know, you look at the service secretariat staffs, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, Department of the Navy, and how they have absolutely exploded. You look at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. You look at the civilian component headquarters of the combatant commands, the CENTCOMs, the AFRICOMs, the European commands. They're just too big. They're unwieldy.

And so we have a sense of non-efficiency, non-effectiveness, but we're not able to put the right troops on the ground. As a matter of fact, seven or eight combat tours of duty, we're wearing them down. So I remember a General Cavazos who had a great quote that he said, quantity has a quality all of its own. And you want to have overwhelming power. And it's not about high technological weapons sometimes. It's just being able to have the will and the ability to bring all of your weapon systems effectively to bear

against an enemy. You know, you look at Vietnam. We were defeated not at the tactical level. We were defeated at the strategic level. And I think that we run the risk of that happening once again. When you see the collapse, near collapse of Iraq, and you contemplate a potential bug-out of Afghanistan with very negative consequences, do you think that your service in Iraq and Afghanistan was in vain or for naught? It is never in vain. It was never for naught for those of us that were there

because we knew the things that we were doing to try to bring a better life for the people that were there. The one thing that I'll never forget, the two and a half years I spent in Afghanistan working with the Afghan army, seeing little girls go to school. Because I know if we had not been there, that would not be possible. So no one can ever take that memory away from me and that aspect of the commitment that I made. What a terrific answer.

But it does hurt to know that the service that you gave in Iraq has been relegated to nothing more than a campaign promise. So that now the blood, the toil, the sacrifice, it seems to be in vain to others, not to us. And we're going to have to go in and fight for a ground that we once held. We're going to have to go and fight against an enemy that we had defeated. ISIS is nothing more than al-Qaeda in Iraq reconstituted. And we have an administration, we have a president that doesn't understand, just because you say we're ending combat operations, the enemy has a vote. And so the enemy has voted, we're not done. Let's talk politics. In the 2016 presidential campaign, do you have a preference?

No, it's very early. But I will tell you that when you look at the candidates that are out there, you have three different categories. You have governors, you have senators, and you have outsiders. Outsiders, Carla Fiorino. Of course. Yeah, Ben Carson. I think it's going to be very difficult for Category 2 and Category 3 because you're going to be looking for people who have the experience of governing, have had the executive experience.

Now, within the category of governors, there are two subcategories, former and current. So the question becomes, who do we really see as being able to bring out the message of the opportunity society as opposed to the dependency society, the equality of opportunity as opposed to the equality of outcomes, the liberty and the economic freedom for the individual instead of the collective misery of shared prosperity. Whoever can bring out that simple message and also display strength, exceptionalism, and fear and respect to our enemies, but also trust our allies, that'll be the person that will come out on top. Let me tell you this, Colonel.

I make it almost a rule not to ask black politicians, writers, activists, race-related questions because they spend so much of their lives being asked those questions. And it's almost a rule with me. It can be insulting. I'm going to break my rule to ask the simple question which you've heard a thousand times. How can Republicans, conservatives, the right, do a better job of reaching out to those black Americans who want to be their natural allies? They just have to show up. They've ceded that territory for so long.

You know, when you go back and you look at Booker T. Washington at the turn of the century, and he had three points, education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance. That is really the essence of the black community. A black community that was able to thrive. Give us those three again. Education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance. Those are not progressive socialist policies or principles or concepts or values. When you look at what was the strongest point in the black community, the family, and look at how since the 1965 Great Society programs, how the family has been decimated in the black community, only 28% of black children have mothers and fathers in the home. When you look at the

influence of the church, you know, faith is very important. So those are common things that we should be talking about. Case in point, when did anyone stand up and say something about Barack Obama canceling the D.C. school voucher program in 2009? When did anyone say anything about the first black attorney general bringing a lawsuit against the school choice program in the state of Louisiana? No one gives a rat's behind except for us here. When did anyone say something about Bill de Blasio going after the charter school programs in New York City where one of the best is in Harlem, Success Academy? Black single mothers were the ones who complained to Governor Cuomo

about taking away that opportunity for their children. So those grounds for commonality exist. We just have to meet them there. I have to ask you one more thing because our producer Scott Emmergut has to get to the airport. You strike me as a happy warrior, a cheerful fellow, someone who wakes up happy. I never see you down. Are you generally optimistic or do you just have a brave face? No, you know, I think about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at Little Round Top, second day of Gettysburg.

You know, he was there with a decimated force, casualties mounting, ran out of ammunition, but he knew that he was the last line of defense for the Army of the Potomac. He didn't check it in. He said one simple thing. He said bayonets. And the charge that he led, the courage that he showed, saved not just that day and the battle there at Little Round Top, not just the overall battle of Gettysburg, but he saved the Union. Because if the Army of the Potomac had been routed, then the Army of Northern Virginia was heading to Washington, D.C.

I wake up every day knowing that I live in the greatest nation that the world has ever known. And I wake up every day just being so blessed that I can be in this exceptional nation that took a kid from the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, and allows me to sit here with you today. And if you can't wake up every day with a smile on your face about that, you're in the wrong line of business. Well, you have a special way of signing yourself. And one reason I love receiving a letter or note from you is you have a special sign-off. What is it? Steadfast and loyal. And that is the motto of the United States Army's 4th Infantry Division, because I think that that's what every single person should be toward this country. Steadfast so that you stay resolute, resilient in hard times and loyal to the Constitutional Republic,

for which I took an oath for 31 July 1982. Colonel Allen West, it's a pleasure and an honor to be with you. Thank you, Jim. See you later. All the best. Ricochet. Join the conversation.