Time for him to go

Nope, I prefer the other petition instead:

http://www.patriotpetitions.us/petition.asp?id=11

63,457 since yesterday

I have to add, though, that if Rumsfeld is the only one to be forced to resign, then someone else maybe a bit lower up, or higher, who knows, might be very very glad they got their own ass covered…

Rumsfeld aside, there needs to be uncovering of all responsibilities.

I think it’s far more immoral — not even in the same ballpark, really — to torture and humiliate people who are at your mercy than it is to shoot them or bomb them in pitched battle. Unless you think that the American military has deliberately targeted civilians in its shooting and bombing (something I absolutely do not believe), then the people who American soldiers have been trying to kill have been people who have been trying to kill them. The structural questions — was the invasion justified, is it wrong to fight against the Mahdi Army, etc. — are, I think, sufficiently ambiguous (from a moral perspective) that we cannot hold US soldiers guilty of war crimes for, say, firing an M-16 at an RPG-wielding guerrilla. But I would not hesitate to hold them guilty for happened in Abu Ghraib. (Executions of prisoners within Abu Ghraib, if they took place, are, needless to say, even worse than the abuses we’ve already seen. But they are extensions of the torture, not analogous to deaths on the battlefield.)

On the same point, where is the evidence that US troops in the field have been taught to dehumanize The People Who Shoot At Them All Day? And why capitalize the words? There are plenty of Iraqis who shoot at Americans every day, and lots of them who have been quite explicit about their desire to eradicate every American in Iraq. They are a small minority of Iraqis, but I’m not sure what the point is of pretending these people don’t exist.

Rumsfeld probably should have been replaced several months ago because of his refusal to send more troops to Iraq. But to replace him now would merely make him the victim of a media witch hunt, which is why the vast majority of Americans–including a large majority of Democrats–are against such a meaningless stunt.

“What if, instead, the President and Vice-President decided to tell the world that we owe Rumsfeld a “debt of gratitude”?

Without question, we do. His war plan for Iraq was brilliantly designed and executed, resulting in the routing of a vicious war machine that, we were told by old CNN warhorses and sundry experts across the spectrum, would result in a quagmire, countgerstrikes against Israel and v-v, chemicalnukebio-weapons attacks on our troops, and WWIII.

“…Rumsfeld is “the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had”?”

Certainly one of the best. His predecessors were incapable of persuading the Joint Chiefs to, as Albright put it in her stinging rebuke to Powell, “actually use some of the awesome force entrusted you.”

Rumsfeld’s obviously made huge mistakes regarding postwar planning and troop size, but these, in Shakespearian fashion, proceed from his great strengths.

“…and that people should ‘get off his back.”

This would be stupid. Rumsfeld should of course answer fully, as he has done so far, for all of his actions that have any bearing on the torture scandal. Interesting on this point to compare the administration and DOD’s responsiveness in investigating US military abuses with Kofi Annan’s stonewalling regarding a scandal that tops Enron and Catholic pedophile priests combined. That would be, of course, the UNSCAM story that major news organizations (and, to be fair, Jerry Bremer as well) are determined to bury as we head up to the UN-supervised handoff.

“What effect would that have?”

Probably the same effect on the 1972 election results of Nixon’s pardon of Lt Calley–who was in fact a war criminal convicted by a court martial.

Are you people really so stupid as to Why would anyone who’s hell-bent on removing Bush from the White House demand Rumsfeld’s head at this time? Recast Rumsfeld in the public eye as a victim of persecution by a media mob, and you can pretty much bet on Bush’s re-election.

MSG, care to check out the latest atrocity? Video of a beheading. Oops! That one doesn’t count: the beheaders are self-described AQ operatives in Iraq; victim is an American who was helping repair Iraqi infrastructure.

He doesn’t count, just as 130,000 (discovered so far) Iraqis slaughtered and thrown in mass graves by Saddam don’t count.

If you’re going to proclaim your outrage at atrocities, then at least get your numbers straight, and understand the distinction between mass murderers who target civilians for slaughter and those who, in attacking mass murderers, take extraordinary pains to avoid killing civilians. Just a minor distinction.

Msg wrote:

“This same affronted smarm burped up about those poor boys in Falujah. Those four helpless Americans. Horribly mutilated and dragged through the streets. Oh God. Then it turns out they were probably highly-paid Dobermans, responsible for still-censored atrocities.”

(1) Could you provide a link to the evidence that these 4 men were responsible for atrocities?

(2) Assuming they were responsible for atrocities, does that mean that we shouldn’t be affronted by atrocities committed against them? Should we also, then, not be affronted by atrocities committed against Abu Ghraib prisoners who had themselves committed atrocities?

And that tone you take, that warning “You better…” Where have I heard that before?

I don’t know. My browser’s find function can’t find anyone saying “You better” on this page.

chemicalnukebio-weapons attacks on our troops
Lack of WMD attacks on our troops cited as reason we should be grateful to Rumsfeld. S’pose irony is dead after all.

msg, Gambit? End-game? What’s that supposed to mean?

It’s as if the headlines in early 1945 were clogged with (true) accounts of millions of rapes of German women by the Red Army.

Ah yes, Iraqis-as-Nazis — a classic strawman. Problem is, the Nazis really were trying to take over the world while Iraq has been shown pretty convincingly to have been about as menacing to its neighbors as Canada is to us. That’s why Iraq’s neighbors tended to join the “coalition of the un-willing” instead of us. Just a minor point. Carry on your sparkling defense of torture as de facto American military policy.

Rumsfled is not the problem. The problem is the attempted domination of the Arab world by the US. If he stays or if he goes make little difference in the long run. This war could go on for the next 100 years, but as the principle on which it is being fought is fundamentally mistaken. I just hope one of my family is not called up to participate in this idiotic enterprise.
(small point: I suppose if he goes it might prevent a few Americans from being tortured in the short run.)

“I suppose if he goes it might prevent a few Americans from being tortured in the short run”

Like Danny Pearl?

Or the 3,000 innocents of some two dozen nationalities who were given the choice of being roasted alive or jumping to their deaths?

“I just hope one of my family is not called up to participate in this idiotic enterprise.”

Don’t worry. Muslim or infidel, Bush-supporter or Bush-hater, whether you live in Spain, or Indonesia, or Manhattan, or North Africa, or infidel France-that-banned-the-veil, or if you just happen to fly across an ocean now and then, you won’t need to be “called up.” You’re already a target. For it is written.

But if it pleases you to pretend that this is a “war against the Arab world”, hey, who am I to trifle with someone else’s therapeutic fantasy?

Robbo- Tombo is a troll.

When logic fails and sarcasm runs dry, reach for the “Troll” charge.

As to Robbo’s evasions, he seems to want to forget his lame attempt–one might call it a straw man– to equate “Nazis” and “Iraqis.” He will not speak to the latest deathporn video from Al Qaeda; neither can he answer my question as to what those rising fascists Uday and Qusay would have wrought, both in Iraq and beyond Iraq’s borders.

I concede the point about the wretched screw-ups at Abu Ghraib. For the record I have no wish to deny either the magnitude or the horror of what some of our troops did there, which is why I deliberately chose the analogy of the Red Army’s rape of millions of German women. The point is simple, though perhaps too complicated for Robbo: war crimes are of course not justified, but neither do they invalidate a just cause.

Does Robbo think that an acceptable alternative to war was maintaining the vile sanctions regime that Saddam, with help from his UN and French and Russian pimps, manipulated to cause many thousands of Iraqis to starve? Or would he have followed the oilmen’s preferred route and done business with Saddam? More likely the latter. After all, in Robbo’s fantasy world Saddam was as harmless as an Inuit. Zarqawi, whom Saddam harbored in Iraq before the war and set loose to slaughter US diplomats, Kurds and others, does not exist in Robbo’s world–even when Zarqawi’s followers execute infidels in his and Al Qaeda’s name.

Dear Robbie, you seem to think that the Islamist fascists make a distinction between smirking Bush-haters like himself and those who support the war. Sorry to break it to you, but those who slaughtered French engineers in Karachi, German tourists in Tunisia, Spaniards in Al Andalus and partiers of all persuasions in Bali will gladly saw off your neck as well as mine.

This war is yours as much as it is mine, or Danny Pearl’s, or those Parisians who are in AQ’s gunsights for offending the holy veil. Deny it all you like, but no amount of smirking will change the fact that you’re on the front lines now.

Best regards,
Tombo

It’s as if the headlines in early 1945 were clogged with (true) accounts of millions of rapes of German women by the Red Army. Did those far far greater crimes invalidate the Allied victory? Would Germany have been better off had we and the Soviets, in an orgy of self-flagellation for certain troops’ wickedness and inhumanity, have withdrawn from Germany in April of 1945?

Of course Germany would have been infinitely better off if the Soviets, who actually did the raping, had withdrawn in 1945 instead of 1989. Once an occupying army starts behaving like that, almost anything is better. There is also the small point that the misfortunes of Germany, and Germans, after the war, were the consequence of losing a war of aggression which they had started. I don’t remember Saddam’s invasion of the USA, or even Britain.

“There is also the small point that the misfortunes of Germany, and Germans, after the war, were the consequence of losing a war of aggression which they had started.”

Iraq started, and lost, a war of aggression.

“I don’t remember Saddam’s invasion of the USA, or even Britain.”

I don’t remember Hitler’s invasion of the USA, or even Canada.

Robbo,

I’m glad to see you try to grapple with the difficulties of Iraq instead of putting forth more sneers and smirks. I’ll respond first to your charge re the Coalition:

“Funny that you refer to my “evasions” Tombo while carefully tip-toeing around how you faked the Middle Eastern countries participating in the Coalition of the Willing”

You seem to specialize in building straw men. I did not say that Iran and Saudi and Syrian fascist/fundamentalist regimes see equate our intersts with theirs. What I did say was that 1) Saddam was a major threat to the peace and stability of the region; 2) Saddam was harboring terrorists (such as Zarqawi, who slaughtered a US diplomat in Jordan several years ago) who, along with his agents (such as those identified by Dick Clarke and other Clinton NSC staffers as behind the spread of chemical weapons to E. Africa–read Clarke’s book) were spreading mayhem far beyond the region.

Add to the above the fact that a major portion of world oil supplies were under this psychopathic mass murderer’s control and you have a problem–for us, for the nations of the region, and for the industrialized world– that could not be kicked down the road indefinitely.

Which makes it incumbent on anyone who criticizes a policy toward Iraq to offer a solution to Iraq.

The sanctions were a cruel failure. Lifting the sanctions would have been even worse. The only decent policy was to overthrow Saddam, which was of course to displace the Kremlin and the Elysee’s msot lucrative middle eastern client.

Of course you’re correct that not all of the neighboring regimes’–note emphasis on REGIME, not people, esp in the case fo Iran– interests are aligned with ours. The Saudi wahhabis and Iranian fundamentalists (and of course the Ba’athist regime in Syria) have their own designs on Iraq, and will wage a proxy war on our soldiers there in order to advance the partition that they fervently desire. To point this out is to support not a progressive or liberal policy but the cynical, and failed, Kissingerite policy pursued by the so-called “realists” surrounding GHW Bush. It failed morally, by failing to prevent Saddam’s slaughter of at least 50,000 Iraqis every year; it failed strategically, by failing to prevent the creation of a central terrorist hub in Iraq (and winking at the terrorists’ bankers and evangelists in Riyadh).

Adding to this was the dark farce that was the French and Russian concern for “international law” even as they flouted it in exchange for multi-billion $ oil deals (truly “blood-for-oil”) and millions of dollars in kickbacks to French and Russian politicians.

So in short we have a pro-status quo “coalition,” as it were, of:
–cynical Cold War realpolitikers in the US State Department and around Bush’s father
–corrupt French and Russian politicians determined to preserve a mass-murdering client
–arab and muslim fascists and fundamentalists whose fear of Saddam was matched only by their determination to support terrorist attacks on US targets around the world.

In view of the above it’s clear that overthrowing Saddam was the morally superior course of action.
My anger is directed at those liberals who supported the Franco-Russian-Annan sham while spouting the facile Scowcroft/Kissinger realpolitik slogans about “stability” that led us into this mess. To me such talk is far more distasteful, and more dangerous to us over the long term, than supporting the Clinton/Bush war that overthrew Saddam and that, despite the media orgy of deathporn imagery, is leading inexorably to the first shot at elections and a normal life in 40 years for 25 million Iraqis.

My business is software, BTW. I am a liberal-to-moderate Democrat and was an early and strong supporter of Bill Clinton. I agree that Clinton’s options were limited because of the weakness of his position via-a-vis the military. Does this mean that you would have supported an invasion if Clinton, or Gore, or another Democrat, had ordered it?

Rgds,
T

Andrew Brown,

“Of course Germany would have been infinitely better off if the Soviets, who actually did the raping, had withdrawn in 1945 instead of 1989. Once an occupying army starts behaving like that, almost anything is better.”

Agreed. Which is why the analogy bears close scrutiny and why it’s clear that we, unlike the Soviets, have been a positive force on the emerging Iraq.

Start with the obvious: rape, torture, and murder by Red Army soldiers were routine in Germany throughout the war. These crimes were not highlighted or punished by Soviet authorities. The tortures and murders committed in Iraq by a few of our soldiers have been highlighted, and are being punished, by our authorities. These acts are not at all typical of our soldiers’ behavior. We have been and continue to be extremely scrupulous about civilian casualties, even where, arguably, massive force would be advised.

Despite numerous screw-ups of all kinds, the overall impact on Iraq’s infrastructure, courts, and schools of our development projects, training and political advice has been favorable to the emergence, for the first time in nearly half a century, of a normal, moderate, reasonably democratic Iraq.

The Soviets looted most of Germany’s industrial plant and equipment –literally hauling it off to the Urals — and then put their own toxic political system in place. Are you seriously trying to suggest that the Soviet influence on Germany?

“There is also the small point that the misfortunes of Germany, and Germans, after the war, were the consequence of losing a war of aggression which they had started.”

There’s also the larger point of Stalin’s complicity in aiding Hitler and thus his responsibility for the war that his duplicitous ally launched. Had the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact not been signed, ie, had Stalin not sold Russia’s allegiance to the highest bidder but instead made common cause with Britain and France, then Hitler, facing a two-front war, might not have launched WWII.

Again, the Soviets’ cause in WWII was, from a moral perspective, deeply tainted from start to finish. Does that mean that their victory over German fascism was not legitimate?

“I don’t remember Saddam’s invasion of the USA, or even Britain.”

Welcome to the 21st century. You don’t need to invade nations in order to determine the outcome of their elections (3/14/2004), wreak havoc on their economic and financial or military command centers (9/11/2001), or reduce an entire nation to a starved, medieval prison state like the Taliban’s Afghanistan.

Again, the question incumbent on those who oppose the Iraq War is how, if at all, they would have resolved the security and moral nightmare created by the Saddam-Uday-Qusay slaughterhouse.

Sanctions were a cruel failure. For everyone but an oil exec or a French or Russian pimping pol, lifting the sanctions would have been even worse.

Invasion was the least bad choice, and the only choice that any true liberal could support.

brilliant in strategic and organizational matters.

Considering that you’ve faulted Rumsfeld for not putting enough troops on the ground, I fault him for not putting enough troops on the ground, and, much more importantly, that military critics like General Shinseki predicted just these very problems before the invasion (and got nothing but the back of administration’s collective hand) I suggest that the Secretary’s strategic and organizational skills are something less than brilliant.

Good question—haven’t made up my mind yet.

You don’t know why he should’ve been replaced months ago, but now isn’t the right time to replace him? The only reasons I can think of are that A) you believe his unique talents in some other area presently mitigate his ineffectiveness in prosecuting the war effort, or B) you believe his dismissal might damage his or his administration’s prestige, a prestige more important than the war effort. If I’ve neglected something, tell me.

By the nature of his office, Rumsfeld is complicit in whatever happens in Iraq. His personal complicity I can’t speak to, though I suspect it’s rather high if the practices at Abu Ghraib were the result of implict or explicit military policy. Pile this damage to the war effort atop the results of his “organizational genius” and well, I can’t think of an organization in America he wouldn’t be fired from.

Invasion was the least bad choice, and the only choice that any true liberal could support.

Look, if you’re a smart guy (and you seem to be) and you really care, then you must know that it was never that simple. Maybe war was ultimately inevitable, but the time and the means certainly weren’t. Disregarding the fact that the war didn’t have to happen as it has, and merely asserting that any “true liberal” must have supported this war won’t convince anyone who wasn’t convinced already. Fine if you want a shot of moral righteousness, otherwise not so useful.

tombo: j’ai mal a croire que tu parles francais neanmoins pour le plaisir. Cette guerre ne peut etre gagne, pas plus que les israeliens n’arriveront a eliminer la menace constante du monde arabe. Ce que tu proposes est donc de mener une guerre a resoudre ces problemes, qui restent irresolus depuis les croisades. Tu es comme tout le reste des intellectuels moraux, une croyance aveugle en la supremacie de ta moralite et a ta capacite a l’imposer par un rationalisme base sur des faits non-prouvables. Tu es l’anti-these de l’humanisme par le fait que tu ne vois la solution que par la force. Je quitte la civilite pour te convier mon degout profond de ta pense.

t sur la t –

Ce que vous lisez en Le Monde, c’est pas la verite.

This war is in fact being won. As I type, Iraqi forces trained and led by US Special Forces are routing the thugs of Al Sadr. This indicates that

1) Al Sadr and his militia are not only completely isolated politically but also nearly finished militarily; and

2) Iraqi security forces, with US training and support, are beginning to step up to the challenge which awaits them after the handoff.

You won’t read this in Le Monde, and you have struggle to find it in the back pages of the New York Times, but the fact is that Iraqis are already holding local elections in the south and Kurdistan, and most of Iraq’s governmental ministries are already being managed by Iraqis. Schools are open and flourishing. Sales of all kinds of consumer goods are soaring. Iraqi courts are preparing, with US and European assistance, to try Saddam, Chemical Ali and other gruppenfuehrers. The simple fact is that, despite many screw-ups, we and the Iraqis are defeating the fascists and are creating a normal and representative democracy there.

Do many, perhaps most, Iraqis resent us for occupying their country? Sure. Do most Iraqis feel a sense of humiliation that they could not overthrow a mass-murdering tyrant and were forced to rely on yankees to liberate them? Sure.

Does this sound like a country you know, t?

Recent rantings by Sen Ted Kennedy strongly supports the notion that he’s the biggest bombastic moron in the Democratic party..

Now that’s saying a lot when one considers that moron is synonomous with liberal thinkers everywhere.

I firmly believe that liberals are visitors from another planet
or more likely, another galaxy, far, far, away.

Barnacle