Rummy's Farewell Show: On Our Tab
I don't like blogging on weekends, but I'll make this exception for Don Rumsfeld.
No matter that he's both architect and engineer of our current catastrophe in Iraq. Having lost the confidence even of his autistic boss, the President, Rumsfeld should be embarrassed to show his mug in public.
Instead, with his trademark and insufferable arrogance and on the verge of political extinction, he's actually taking not one but rather multiple victory laps.
Even though his successor has already been confirmed and is set to take over from Rummy barely a week from now, Rumsfeld's personal PR show has managed to dominate two news cycles in a row.
First came his astro-turf "town hall" meeting with his own DOD employees on Friday. A ready-made set piece for lazy TV news teams, Rummy did his best Bill Clinton-biting-the-lip impersonation before the hand-picked live audience and in return got the warm and fuzzies from the MSM.
Barely 24 hours later, he's off on a secret trip to Iraq supposedly to pay thanks to all those soldiers who are risking their lives for his failed war. I've been listening to the news reports on this last-gasp junket and there's plenty of headless chatter about this being Rumsfeld's "personal" way of saying goodbye. You know, it was all last-minute, hush-hush, low-profile, intimate and priavte, just Rummy and "his" troops.
I've got one question, however. Why should the taxpayers be footing the bill for what is clearly and only a personal PR vehicle for the disgraced DefSec? He's out of office 8 days from now, his policies have been repudiated, and there is obviously no government-related reason for this trip. Of course, the couple of hundred grand or so (at a minimum) that this little jaunt is costing is but a drop in the $2 trillion bottomless ocean of spending on the Iraq war.
No reason, however, not to make Rumsfeld pay out of pocket for this disgusting show. The rest of us are going to pay the rest of our lives for the unspeakable mess he leaves behind.
December 10th, 2006 at 1:16 am
Here is what was going on while Rumsfeld was saying goodbye to the troops. This is his legacy.
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: December 10, 2006 (NYT)
BAGHDAD, Dec. 9 — Bands of armed Shiite militiamen stormed through a neighborhood in north-central Baghdad on Saturday, driving hundreds of Sunni Arabs from their homes in what a Sunni colonel in the Iraqi Army described as one of the most flagrant episodes of sectarian warfare yet unleashed in the capital.
More than 100 Sunni families left Hurriya neighborhood Saturday.
The officer, Lt. Col. Abdullah Ramadan al-Jabouri, said that more than 100 Sunni families, many with very young children, had left the Hurriya neighborhood aboard a convoy of trucks and cars under cover of the nightly curfew. Government officials tried to urge the families to return by promising army protection, but could not persuade them.
As the fighting in Hurriya broke out, the outgoing secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for what American military officials said was a farewell visit to the troops….
December 10th, 2006 at 1:21 am
And continuing our discussion of the Baker commission recommendations, it looks like more than one can play the game of setting conditions for talks. Or did this panel of sages think that Iran and Syria would help get us out of this mess for free?
Iran Ties Role in Iraq Talks to U.S. Exit
By HASSAN M. FATTAH and MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: December 10, 2006 (NYT)
MANAMA, Bahrain, Dec. 9 — Just days after the Iraq Study Group recommended opening a dialogue with Tehran, Iran’s foreign minister said his country would enter discussions on stabilizing Iraq only if the United States commits to a troop withdrawal.
Speaking to a security conference in Manama, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was open to dialogue as long as the United States “changes its attitude,†and he asserted that the Americans were “50 percent to blame†for Iraq’s violence.
In a defiant presentation, he also insisted that the United States stop campaigning against Iran’s nuclear program….
December 10th, 2006 at 8:14 am
It looks as though the DoD does not release casualty figures over the weekend, so I can’t do my usual posting of the names of the dead. We are now nearing 3000 US soldiers killed in the war in Iraq, but sometimes numbers don’t do the job of getting across the enormity of what has happened to young American men and women (I don’t expect Americans to care about Iraqi deaths, but bravo to those who do.) Try this: If you have one of those mouses with a scroll wheel in the middle, click on this link and then see how long it takes you to get through all the names. Maybe that will provide more of a sense of what our young people have sacrificed while the rest of America goes about its business. Bring back the draft!
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/BY_DOD.aspx
December 10th, 2006 at 11:40 am
I suppose that you don’t find being completely ignorant about the military and how it works, or what motivates a soldier, to be a major impediment in your daily life, but if you’re going to make assertions about the military, you might want to learn something, lest you look like an idiot.
Which, not to put too find a point on it, you are doing here.
Whatever you think of him, Rumsfeld is widely admired, even loved, by the actual military. In a situation like this, it is very important to their morale to have a chance to “say goodbye” — it’s part of the organization, it’s part of how they think. If Rumsfeld had not gone, it would have hurt their morale, and made them less ready to do what they have to do.
I suppose, of course, it might not be ignorance but instead actual active desire to hurt morale, but I’d rather not think that.
December 10th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
The shameless careerism of the Rumsfeld type is not new, but it remains as disgusting as ever. Some ninety years ago the British were mired in the TIgris-Euphrates region, and even one of the Empire’s great poets had had enough. One of my students, a retired veteran officer of the U.S. Air Force who is outspokenly angry about Mr. Bush’s War, recently passed this along:
“Mesopotamia” (1917)
They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?
They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?
Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide -
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?
Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favour and contrivance of their kind?
Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
Even while they make a show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends,
To confirm and re-establish each career?
Their lives cannot repay us – their death could not undo -
The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shall we leave it unabated in its place?
Rudyard Kipling
December 10th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Look, I’m fine with the U.S. paying for Rumsfeld’s trip to Iraq.
It’s that flight _back_ that bothers me.
December 10th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Marc- the day will come when you as why you were so confused not to see that Rummy was right. You will wonder how were you so blinded by your feelings that you could not see what was happening in Iraq. The trip to Iraq is the right thing to do given his leadership role. If you led people with dignity, you would udnerstand why he went. We can only hope that some day you will grasp why.
December 10th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 2,915 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans over the weekend:
CASTRO, Jesse J. J., 22, Sgt., Army; Chalan Pago, Guam; 25th Infantry Division.
CIRASO, Kristofer R., 26, Staff Sgt., Army; Bangor, Me.; First Cavalry Division.
GIFFORD, Micah S., 27, Specialist, Army; Redding, Calif.; 25th Infantry Division.
HUFFMAN, Jason I., 23, Cpl., Army; Conover, N.C.; 25th Infantry Division.
KREGE, Travis C., 24, Pfc., Army; Cheektowaga, N.Y.; 25th Infantry Division.
LINCK, Henry W., 23, Staff Sgt., Army; Manhattan, Kan.; 25th Infantry Division.
MADDEN, Joshua B., 21, Specialist, Army; Sibley, La.; 25th Infantry Division.
MOKRI, Yari, 26, Specialist, Army; Pflugerville, Tex.; 25th Infantry Division.
PATRIQUIN, Travis L., 32, Capt., Army; Texas; First Armored Division.
POMANTE, Vincent J. III, 22, Specialist, Army; Westerville, Ohio; First Armored Division.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:31 am
More compassion…
Iraqi exodus could test Bush policy
By Michael Kranish, Boston Globe | December 11, 2006
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled their homeland are likely to seek refugee status in the United States, humanitarian groups said, putting intense pressure on the Bush administration to reexamine a policy that authorizes only 500 Iraqis to be resettled here next year.
The official US policy has been that the refugee situation is temporary and that most of the estimated 1.5 million who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere will eventually return to Iraq. But US and international officials now acknowledge that the instability in Iraq has made it too dangerous for many refugees, especially Iraqi Christians, to return any time soon…
Arthur E. “Gene” Dewey, who was President Bush’s assistant secretary of state for refugee affairs until last year, said that “for political reasons the administration will discourage” the resettlement of Iraqi refugees in the United States “because of the psychological message it would send, that it is a losing cause.”
December 11th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Yeah Charlie (Colorado) Rummy was adored by the troops. That is why the publishers of the Military Times (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) called for his resignation. That is why so many retired Generals asked for his head.
Maybe it is you, dear friend, that need a lession in the military.
Richard LoCicero E-5 RA 18866364
US Army Security Agency 1968-72
RVN Dec 6 1969 – Nov 22 1970
December 11th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
It amazed me that a guy who was fired “for cause” was allowed (or took it upon himself) to fly halfway across the globe to address a captive audience of servicemen and women. What was he doing other that (1) assuaging his own sense of maltreatment; and (2) preemptively poisoning the well against any successor who should try to reverse his policies in Iraq and the military overall. And yes, I sure as hell resent paying for that.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:02 am
You were in the Security Agency, rlo? I wonder if you were investigating me:
Michael Balter E-3 but busted down to E-1, just before being put in for E-4 by my sergeant, for disrupting a riot control class at Fort Ord, Calif.
US Army 1969-1971 (discharged honorably after 17 months under AR 212, for the good of the Army, after leading antiwar organizing on the fort.)
Anyone interested in reading about my adventures, contact me through my Web site and I might just send you the story I wrote about it.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Not unless you were sending messages in Vietnamese or Chinese codes MB. And even then all I could tell anyone was you station ID and Call Sign/Schedule.
Don’t write me as I was sworn to secrecy and because I don’t want to bore anyone to death.