The situation with Rumsfield is slowly boiling.  One moderate republican congressman (Christopher Shays) seemed to have questined whether Rumsfield should stay around on Larry King's show.  Also, news reports indicate that republicans who are very loyal to president Bush also feel that Rumsfield is a liability.  Rumsfield does have Dick Cheney on his side, which may be enough to get him through the current situation with him still holding onto his job.  
    It will be interesting to see what happens when some of the other information that still has not come out about the prisoner treatment comes out.  One publishing outfit is preparing to publish an article next week that brings out more troubling news.  If the news gets any worse, Rumsfield is probaly a goner, the republican establishment will drown out the support of Cheney and force Bush to get rid of Rumsfield.
    The things that bother me about the prisoner mistreatment is that it has knocked us off the moral highground that we have held when it comes to obeying the Geneva conventions on treatment of prisoners.  One of the people who has been charged for mistreating the prisoners says that she got no training on the conventions and that she was ordered to do things to the prisoners that would soften them up for questioning.  If she is telling the truth, it should be hard for any court to convict her of anything, one key reason is that if she did not do the mistreatment then she would have been guilty of insurbordination.
    The second thing that bothers me about the prisoner mistreatment is that it gives islamic radicals a tool with which to recruit more gullible jihadists.  The situation makes it much harder for those in the muslim world who were willing to stand up against the radicals to be effective in their already large task.  As a non-muslim westerner, I do not assume that I know what goes on in the minds of people who are islamic.  But I do know that if you take a gullible person and twist facts to serve your own needs, then you have a convert that is willing to do anything.

... or that Dick Cheney will take a side?  Rumsfield did a very good job prosicuting the war, but I think that he would resign in a NY minute if his best sense of the situation was that it would help Mr Bush.  I'm still betting that he will stay long enough to get ahead of the prisioner story, put fixes into place and then quit.  The interesting political porblem will be to see how this effects the treatment of prisoners outside Iraq.  I think it will make it that much harder to make the "enemy combatents" case the administration wants to make to the courts.

Regarding Iraq War, unfortunately the "gravy" has hit the fan.  Rumsfeld departure can somehow imply a "reset", a change, and is a good political move.

This was not the case in the matter of Tenet/911, so a rational look, into a fundamentally irrational situation, indicates Rumy is a goner.

Even Republican Senators are not supporting him, rather I saw chastising Cheney for defending him.  His departure, under any guise, is GREAT for our country.  He is a good soldier, and he will leave.

As a true patriotic American [defined by the love of our constitution, Bill of Rights, every inch of this country (including backwaters of Arkansas, that reminds me of the developing world!) and our decent people, who are loved around the world], I like to see Rumsfeld leave.  

But, as newly converted Democrat, I like him to stay!  I am torn.


-- Modified on 5/9/2004 1:26:27 PM

Alas, I'm afraid that Rumsfeld is now toast. When your own party starts to cut you loose, you're a goner. I would much prefer seeing George W. and his neocons all ousted together in November. Maybe they could have group hug in Crawford.

However, I would have to take issue with Harry's view that Rumsfeld ably prosecuted the war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. It was because of their obsession with Iraq that we pulled out our troops too soon in Afghanistan, especially special-ops that were hunting Bin Ladin. Pakistan's own search for Bin Ladin has been laughable - I've always thought that Bin Ladin has been hiding out in ISI headquarters.

If you look at the disasterous war planning for Iraq, too few troops on the ground hobbled us in maintaining security after Saddam Hussein's army dissolved into the woodwork. One reason why Rumsfeld was so keen for the Iraqi war was that it was a demonstration project for the rest of the Arab world. That is, we could go in light with high tech and special ops and without all that heavy armor, and still win big. With his goal of further reducing the fighting divisions in tatters, no wonder the Army will be glad to see him gone.

The import of this decision is so far reaching, I think it warrants putting partisan politics aside. That's why you see Republicans perhaps questioning his fitness as SoD. It is proper consideration. It appears it is those Pubs who have the "high ground". And you can bet it is those Pubs who will determine for whom the bells toll.

Google the phrase "weapons of mass destruction." Hit the "I'm feeling lucky." button. Republican, democrat, Nader lover it doesn't matter, just have a laugh

But I can't find an I'm feeling lucky button on the google website.  Where is it?

... I came away with a new respect for Rumsfield as a SofD.  It describes a man who went about getting a very high level of performance from the military.  Regardless of any concerns I have of the result, I personally admire his work.

Harry

If the overall strategy is flawed (i.e., attack Iraq at all costs), then the best tactics in the world won't make up for it.

Besides, Rumsfeld has endangered our entire military with their war on Iraq. We are now "decisively engaged", in that there are no more troops to call up, even though they're desperately needed to maintain some semblance of security. That is why they're ~20,000 armed civilian contractors in Iraq (some would call them mercenaries) to take up the slack.

An important part of Rumsfeld's job as SofD is to maintain proper force levels. Instead, he has depleted our military, largely so that they can still have their fanciful toys, such as the untested and unverified missile defense that is now being deployed. The additional 2-4 divisions that some critics say are needed could have been financed for the price of such unneeded weapons systems.

The neocons in this administration are fond of ancient Greek history, particularly the Peloponnesian wars between Sparta and Athens. Usually, they envision themselves as Athenians, but it's important to remember that they lost the war. Still, there are lessons to be learned from Sparta as well. First, they were feared as the best fighters in the ancient world, but they never took up arms unless they absolutely had to. Sparta knew that you couldn't be invincible, if you were ever actually defeated. Second, Sparta was always stretched thin with its military, which never numbered more than ~10,000. To support their military aristocracy, there were ~100,000 slaves called helots. Most of the time, the Spartan military was needed at home to insure that the helots didn't revolt.

The lessons for today from this mini-history review. First, the U.S. military looked a lot more invincible before the Iraqi war, than now when we are losing troops every day to the insurgency. Second, we have fully committed our troops to maintaining "order" in Iraq, which means 'policing' 25 million Iraqis. Third, we are in no strategic position to deal with the real threats in the world, such as North Korea who actually possess weapons of mass destruction.

Because of Rumsfeld's negligence with the abuse/torture at Abu Ghraib prison, there is now a universal outcry in the international community. Surely, we will not be seeing any additional troop commitments from the coalition of the "willing", and indeed may see further contractions among our partners.

It is a "Google Bomb." With a little knowledge of the Google search algorithm you can cross link enough sites to raise a listing to the top.

After all, where is the accountablilty in this Administration?

Like I said last week, worst Administration of my lifetime, by light years.