| Username |
Post |
| nepali_angel |
Posted
on 07-May-04 04:20 PM
"Amidst all the clutter, beyond all the obstacles, aside from all the static, are the goals set. Put your head down, do the best job possible, let the flak pass, and work towards those goals. "
"Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up."
"Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small. "
And finally, my favorite:
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. "
The only wordsmith in the Whitehouse....
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| viswas |
Posted
on 07-May-04 07:22 PM
speaking of the known and the unknowns here is what they say:
> ONE WHO KNOWS NOT, AND KNOWS NOT THAT HE KNOWS NOT
> IS A FOOL, SHUN HIM!
> ONE WHO KNOWS NOT, BUT KNOWS THAT HE KNOWS NOT
> IS SIMPLE, TEACH HIM!
> ONE WHO KNOWS, BUT KNOWS NOT THAT HE KNOWS
> IS ASLEEP, WAKE HIM!
> ONE WHO KNOWS, AND KNOWS THAT HE KNOWS
> IS WISE FOLLOW HIM!
viswas
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 07-May-04 07:52 PM
Nepali_angel:
Rumsfield has always been one of my favorites. His rhetorical skill is just so great. Do you know he was a NCAA wrestling player(champion) when he was at Princeton? And also, he works 15-18 hours a day, a really hardworking person for a lazy president.I also believe Dick Cheney used to be his assistant after he left his graduate skill to work for the then congressman Rumsfield.
I spent sometimes today watching Rumsfield testifying in senate in CSPAN.I don't know how it will turn out for him. He seems resigned to resign.
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| HahooGuru |
Posted
on 07-May-04 08:05 PM
I liked the way Senator Graham of south carolina spoke and asked the
difficult question (difficult in the sense both: RF and Graham belong to same party).
Sometime, RF looked a bit angry while answering the questions. The reason
for resigning should be based on next senator's question on resigning and that
fits reason for resignation. To cool down Arab world and rest of the world,
and for damage control, his resignation is first solution. They can claim and
prove that democracy works and leaders in democracy can be held accountable
and responsible for anything that goes against the rule and law of the land.
RF should resign from moral ground. Moderate peoples in this world will
appreciate USA and in long run it will have help to heal the scar.
HG
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| M.P. |
Posted
on 07-May-04 08:07 PM
Rumsfield's words about "Known Unknowns" remind me of an equally circular and humorous line from Paschim's Gauthali-Bhurtel series:
“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you read is not what I meant.”
Here's another by the same author:
"if you know what I think you know you think what I thought then."
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| ashu |
Posted
on 07-May-04 08:12 PM
As a reader of newspapers, I have a dream . . . a dream that editors of Nepali newspapers will be fearless and independent enough to write editorials like the one below.
I especially like the sentence: "Donald Rumsfeld has morphed, over the last two years, from a man of supreme confidence to arrogance, then to almost willful blindness."
In Nepal too, we have no shortage of such public netas -- both on the steets and
inside Narayanhiti.
Enjoy,
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
*******
Donald Rumsfeld Should Go
NYT
Published: May 7, 2004
There was a moment about a year ago, in the days of "Mission Accomplished," when Donald Rumsfeld looked like a brilliant tactician. American troops — the lean, mean fighting machine Mr. Rumsfeld assembled — swept into Baghdad with a speed that surprised even the most optimistic hawks.
It was crystal clear that the Defense Department, not State and certainly not the United Nations, would control the start of nation-building. Mr. Rumsfeld, with his steely grin and tell-it-like-it-is press conferences, was the closest thing to a rock star the Bush cabinet would ever see.
That was then.
It is time now for Mr. Rumsfeld to go, and not only because he bears personal responsibility for the scandal of Abu Ghraib. That would certainly have been enough. The United States has been humiliated to a point where government officials could not release this year's international human rights report this week for fear of being scoffed at by the rest of the world.
The reputation of its brave soldiers has been tarred, and the job of its diplomats made immeasurably harder because members of the American military tortured and humiliated Arab prisoners in ways guaranteed to inflame Muslim hearts everywhere. And this abuse was not an isolated event, as we know now and as Mr. Rumsfeld should have known, given the flood of complaints and reports directed to his office over the last year.
The world is waiting now for a sign that President Bush understands the seriousness of what has happened. It needs to be more than his repeated statements that he is sorry the rest of the world does not "understand the true nature and heart of America." Mr. Bush should start showing the state of his own heart by demanding the resignation of his secretary of defense.
This is far from a case of a fine cabinet official undone by the actions of a few obscure bad apples in the military police. Donald Rumsfeld has morphed, over the last two years, from a man of supreme confidence to arrogance, then to almost willful blindness. With the approval of the president, he sent American troops into a place whose nature and dangers he had apparently never bothered to examine.
We now know that no one with any power in the Defense Department had a clue about what the administration was getting the coalition forces into. Mr. Rumsfeld's blithe confidence that he could run his war on the cheap has also seriously harmed the Army and the National Guard.
This page has argued that the United States, having toppled Saddam Hussein, has an obligation to do everything it can to usher in a stable Iraqi government. But the country is not obliged to continue struggling through this quagmire with the secretary of defense who took us into the swamp. Mr. Rumsfeld's second in command, Paul Wolfowitz, is certainly not an acceptable replacement because he was one of the prime architects of the invasion strategy. It is long past time for a new team and new thinking at the Department of Defense.
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| lll_lll |
Posted
on 07-May-04 08:16 PM
M.P., I think those quotes more of a mind twister than rhetorics
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| nsshrestha |
Posted
on 08-May-04 07:06 AM
Resignation of Rumsfeld could jeoparadise the electibility of the President. Damage control there is easier than damage control here. NY Times is another arrogant empire in the eyes conservitives, so what Bush cares!
>>It is time for Rumsfeld to go.
He should, but he wil not.
My two cents.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 08-May-04 11:37 PM
ns,
I now think it is inevitable that Rumsfield is going. I was watching a repeatedly played speech of president Bush where he essentially downplayed the fact that WMDs were not found. "Saddam is gone, torture chambers are not there.." Now, the second assertion is no longer a valid one. Even conservative senators seems to be against Rumsfield. Remember that Rumsfield has a very good relation in house.[ American Houses are like fraternity groups: if you are a former senator or congressman, you are less likely to be given trouble there. This was the reason why attorney general Ashcraft got appointed so easily.] In fact, even embittered ex-treasury secretary Paul O'Neal too has favorably mentioned Rumsfield a couple of times , if I remember correctly, in his recently published anti-Bush memoir Price of Loyalty.
Media were so much in love with him. NY Times used to publish his article, now it is asking for resignation. Economist is doing same. Time is bad for him. I personally like him, but to avoid any further disgrace to America, he probably needs to go. Will miss him very much!
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| Robert Frost |
Posted
on 09-May-04 10:03 AM
The key here is George W Bush, not Donald Rumsfeld. Since Mr. Bush took over the White House, he has single handedly toppled the economy to the biggest deficit there ever was. There is no justification for going to war. There are no WMDs whatsoever. The international laws are disbursed.
Mr. Rumsfeld was asked my Senator Kennedy of why he had not informed the President earlier in mid january when the reports first came out of the abuse. Rumself replied by saying Mr. Bush had known about this sadistic and blatant abuse imagies.
So, earlier there was no sneak of any kind by both Bush and Rumsfeld of the problems, not even to the Congress, let alone the entire American population. And when they had to be surprised by CBS's broadcast of this wanton images, both looked utterly disgusted and Bush condemned the pictures. Common!! he had no facial expressions, no voicing of the concern, just plain nothing, whatsoever when he got the reports first in January and all of a sudden, he now gets sick and tired. What a pathetic joke this whole thing is.
While I must applaud Senator Kennedy, I voice my concern of the ever so toppling economy, and growing threat that has just gone greater.Rumsfeld is the apex of an arrogant, military lobby in USA - a bunch of people who have no concern for human rights, freedom liberty and moral values which were seen as the inseparable ideology of USA. The entire Bush administration, with the exception of a few (like Colin Powell) must resign and save the image of USA.
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| ESL student |
Posted
on 09-May-04 11:25 AM
The buck ultimately stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no matter how the Republican hacks decide to spin the fine-print. The question is where the break was in the chain of commands, and whether Rumsfeld's defense,that the defense department is always receiving a barrage of documents on criminal matters which, before this fateful incident, and maybe even now, could not have been processed more efficaciously, is on the money. I was quite surpised at Rumsfeld's candor at the commission hearing, and surprised that he was not in his usual combative mood--his trademark.
However, before he decided to be forthright, Rumsfeld also defended the plight of the Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison cell by refusing to call it torture and abuse. In fact, even in the commission hearing, Rumsfeld not even once uttered the t-word, although, it seemed to me like words like "sadism" were okay in his book. To me, Rumsfeld's obstinacy in not accepting the incident at Abu Ghraib is enough to show him the doors. However, firing him will not be enough. If he is fired, Rumsfeld can still work in the government in the future, but if, on the other hand, he is impeached, he will be barred from holding any gubernatorial positions in the near future.
Furthermore, the precedence was set in Guantanamo, when the administration eschewed rules put forth in the Geneva convention by refusing to give the detainees at Gitmo the POW status, and held them as "enemy combatant" instead. The Geneva Convention mentions that in cases of uncertainty, the captured individuals need to be processed on a case-by-case basis instead of using the one-size-fits-all line of thinking. Also, it seems to me that the Geneva convention, in many instances, is outdated. Expecting uneducated ignoramuses(aka the Taliban) to follow the rules page-by-page is quite absurd. Clearly, to me it appears that the Geneve convention, in many cases is unfair to Third Worlders, in war with developed nations.
Robert Frost, you are correct that George Bush in fact knew about the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison system. In fact, Rumsfeld had briefed him about it in January 17, 2004, according to chronology at foxnew.com. However, let's call a spade a spade. Rumsfeld did not brief Bush about it, when some whistleblower decided to use CBS to promulgate the problem. Many officials in the White House, in fact, heard about it, only after 60 Minutes aired the bit on the maltreatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib. Sixty percent of those detained in Abu Ghraib are supposedly innocent. The sad part of the matter is, the military personnels in Iraq think the Iraqis deserved what they got. To them, I say, to paraphrase someone else's word, ask not what the Iraqis have done to you, ask what you have done to Iraqis. This problem in fact goes back to Fall of 2003, when Bush and Co declared that Iraqis were embracing Americans as liberators, and when Americans soldiers weren't in a quagmire that they are in at present.
Furthermore, Abu Ghraib is a symbol of Saddam's wrongdoings. Wouldn't it be better to take down the structure to give Iraqis a signal that Americans are on their side? This is what I am curious about. Now it's functioning as an American version of Gulag, with unthinkable actions being taken behind closed doors.
Wolfowitz is another willfull senile hack, who has outgrown his usefullness. It's high time to give him the boots, since it was his neocon tenet anyway. While we are at it, fire Scooter Libby too. Scooter is a hidden force behind the current ordeal that people seem to not be privy to.
Biswo, let's not point fingers at Rumsfeld only. Bush was interested in Iraq from the get-go. He was in fact secretly meeting with General Franks, strategizing on how to handle threats posed by Saddam Hussein. In fact, by December of 2001, Bush and Co already had a primitive war-plan. Of course, the rumors were floating around back then. It's what General Franks called "hedging the bets". Nobody would suspect their preparation, since Afghanistan was the focus of attention.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 09-May-04 11:59 AM
ELS student,
I don't have any doubt that Bush wanted to attack Iraq since his early days. His senior secretary, Paul O'Neal, recalls about that in Price Of Loyalty.
However, let's not fall in the pitfall of overly simplifying everything. It is important that we don't obscure good things done in Iraq, and exploit bad things that had happened.
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| Badmash |
Posted
on 09-May-04 12:57 PM
Robert Frost and ESLstudent, excellent analysis. This administration has stumbled in every catogory from economy to war and from immigration to foreign policy since day one. It seems to me that it is more than just a co-incidence. It has lost dependable allies such as Germany, France and even Canada and has created more new ememies than ever. Things just have not gone right with this administration, be it with Bush himself or Rumsfield. I hope Americans are smart enough to oust this administration in the coming election. If Kerrry wins, he will probably have to work very hard to re-establish all the severed ties left by the current administration with many foreign coutries, not to mention the extra burden it will leaving for Kerry to clean up the internal mess.
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| nsshrestha |
Posted
on 09-May-04 01:19 PM
Biswo,
I think you got it wrong. Paul O'Neil was very angered by the DR and Vp because of not getting ample support from them, his ex colleagues in Nixon white house. About Dr, my eyes are more focused on his claws looking hands pointing 45 degrees to the ground than what he says. I often miss the excellence of his rhetoric. But, You pretty much know what he would say, knowing his refractory attitude.
>>It is important that we don't obscure good things done in Iraq.
I think it is better for us to leave it to Iraqis to interpret whether things are better. What we see and read here is definitely an American view of what is better, which cannot be extrapolated to interpret the people of different cultures. But one thing I could clearly see is the rise of illiberal democracy, as in Iran. And there will be a lot of foul plays to acclimate the democracy in American weather. Iraq will be a playground of opposing forces for times to come.
World does not operate as naively as Junior, sounds Texan enough?, thinks. There will always be danger to democracy, so there is always be American presence, so Oily Junior has turned an oil field to a quagmire......My Mahendra Malli on future of Iraq.
Robert Frost,
Still paying dues to Kennedy clan of that recital:)? Indeed it was a typo.
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| confused |
Posted
on 09-May-04 01:26 PM
lets not forget our Mr. Powell :)
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| ESL student |
Posted
on 09-May-04 02:07 PM
We are talking about abuse by American soldiers to Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison. So, whatever good America has done there is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Furthermore, the crimes committed by the soldiers only act as fodder for Al Qaeda and empowers them even more. Furthermore, the international community now respects America even less than it used to in the past. These are blatant facts.
Relevant passages from the Taguba report:
6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;
f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. (S) Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees
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| ESL student |
Posted
on 09-May-04 02:09 PM
Oh, and by the way, "having sex" is a euphemism for rape in the context used.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 10-May-04 12:40 AM
ns,
I don't think Paul has any grudges against Rumsfield in that book. As for having expectation due to company since Nixon era, I think he probably had more of such expectation from his another Nixon era companion: Cheney. Anyway, please let me know if I missed something from the book.
A few weeks ago, I was reading a poll by a consortium of news agency.It should be somewhere in cnn archieve even now.Majority of Iraqis said they were happy that Saddam was gone and that Iraq is a better place. I think leaving Iraq as it is now is a very dangerous idea. I am sure it will go Al-Sadr way, or Al-Sistani way, or even to the civil war due to distrust between several ethnic groups, and the rising danger of intervention from foreign countries like Iran, Syria and Turkey.
See, very few people support the Maoists in Nepal, yet they are able to bring the country to standstill. So, just by judging from the chaos and noise created by insurgents in Iraq, I can't say whether people are happy or unhappy about the changes.
ELS,
Where did you read Taguba report? Ever since Seymour Hersh (sp?) mentioned it in New Yorker report, I am dying to read (probably a part of) it. I have heard it is an excellent report by a very good man.
Again, there is no excuse for abuse of prisoners. However, my point is when we are talking about such abuses, and try to infer some sweeping generalization out of it, then we have to think it in probably more detail.
I personally think there is something neocon ideologues like Wolfowitz and Perle are trying to prove here: that establishing a beachhead of democracy in Arab region will have contagious effect in terms of its spread in Arab nations. They may be wrong, but now that they are half way through it, I think it is better if they go all the way. I want to see a democratic Iraq, and see how it functions, how it changes Arab world, specially the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and vicinity.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 10-May-04 01:14 AM
And for the sake of fairness, here is our good old conservative columnist Bill Safire writing in sajhaite's beloved paper, New York Times, defending Rumsfeld. (Note: I don't support all his arguments)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/opinion/10SAFI.html?hp
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| Rosie |
Posted
on 10-May-04 10:25 AM
I loved reading the discussion that you guys are having over here. Personally, I have mixed feelings for Rumsfeld. I can see how his image has changed over the past few years from a super confident commander to a senile egomaniac, like Ashu's article pointed out. But, wars are never perfect. No matter how sophisticated the army, or how noble the cause of the warriors, it always gets ugly, and abuses happen. Saying that, I also want to mention that abuses should not be justified and the perpetrator should be punished. But, I feel that Rumsfeld is not the only person who should be punished. Yes, he is the defense secretary and those brutalities happened during his office. So, he has to assume responsiblity for the actions of his soldiers. However, the president - the ultimate commander-in-chief- is even above Rumsfeld. So, by the same rule, the President should be the one to ultimately take the responsibility for it all and thus, be punished. If the country demands Rumsfeld's resignation, Bush shouldn't be left behind either.
In the present situation, where the country is still battling over the aftermath of a war, this probably wouldn't be a very practical thing to do. I have to say that the administration is really stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Not to side-step the issue being discussed, but I heard that the whole scene of saddam being captured in a "rat-hole" was orchestrated to reinforce United States' victory. From what I heard, Saddam had already been captured, and was put in the basement on purpose, where he was heavily drugged to make him act so submissive. Have any of you heard anything similar?
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| ESL student |
Posted
on 10-May-04 02:12 PM
You can read the Taguba report at:
http://www.agonist.org/annex/taguba.htm
Viewer's discretion advised-- Some graphic details.
|
| the other one |
Posted
on 10-May-04 02:12 PM
For all the Rumsophiliacs, this is AFT citing a mojour Militery Newspaper:
...The editorial said the soldiers caught in photographs and videos abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison are referred to around the Pentagon (news - web sites) as "the six morons who lost the war."
"But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons," it said.
Responsibility, it said, "extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership."
"The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish," it said.
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set the tone early in this war by steadfastly refusing to give captives the rights accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention," it said.
"From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and accorded no rights whatsoever. The message to the troops: Anything goes."
Read More at the Yahoo news.
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| Poonte |
Posted
on 10-May-04 04:35 PM
Donald Rumsfeld may be a very intelligent man; he sure is a very eloquent speaker, and I do not question his adroitness in the usage of colorful vocabulary; to some he may even be a charismatic leader; yet, some others claim that he is a very effective and skilled bureaucrat. Also, there is absolutely no questioning his patriotism towards the country he serves.
However, when it comes to US foregn policy, Rumsfeld, via his extremely narrow-mindedness and blatant disregard for the global consensus and international laws, time and again has proven himself to be not only a hawk, but a right-wing fanatic. Fanatics, be them Christians or Muslims, or Jews or Arabs, religious or national, pose the greatest threat to global peace and security in today's world. Such fanatics DO NOT deserve any role in the decision-making process of the only superpower in the world vis-a-vis its foreign policy, especially in matters of wars, where the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of men, women and children are jeopardized, military and civilians alike.
If he is not let go of now, come November, I sincerely hope that the American public will fire Bush-Cheney duo, and make sure that their entourage of all the other fanatics go camping in Crawford, TX. The White House deserves a person who is, at the least, NOT a fanatic himself, or does not enlist fanatics in his cabinet!
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 10-May-04 04:54 PM
Poonte,
I think it is wrong to blame Rumsfeld for the war. He is a soldier, not a general. He didn't flout the international opinion, his general did. Chain of command goes higher.
I don't love president Bush and his crazy ideas. But it doesn't mean everything he did was all bad. There are some silver lining in what happened.
Back to prisoner's abuse scandal: I am now starting to believe that the abuse was systematic. Because Rumsfield is micromanaging things, he probably should take the blame. He also says he is responsible for all this. I think he will probably resign in a week. But I would like to see the report: whether Bush knew it or not, whether Cheney knew it or not. We need to know precisely who was responsible before asking his head. Also, I have seen real anger in Senator John McCain, Lindsay Graham and other republicans. McCain even said he wasn't that humiliated in Vietnam when he was POW. In Washington, Rumsfield always had good relationship with the senators and congressmen, him being one of them long ago. It seems that may change if senators and congressmen think he should be held responsible.
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| ESL student |
Posted
on 10-May-04 05:10 PM
Umm, Biswo, Rumsfeld had a big hand in drafting the war plan. He would meet General Tommy Franks on a diurnal basis to come up with the best strategy to tackle the problems faced by Saddam Hussein. However, he forgot all about the exit-strategy. Entering Iraq was a cinch, but how do we get out of the hole we have dug up? That's the question we need to ask. Of course Bush authorized the war, since he is the commander in chief, but do not forget that Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense. It's his job to draft impeccable war-plans with the aid of his subordinates. Tommy Franks reports directly to Rumsfeld. The join chiefs of staff, on the other hand, are only responsible for training and recruiting the troops. Rumsfeld is ultimately responsible for controlling the troops.
As for Rumsfeld resigning, I have my doubts. Bush, only today, praised Rumsfeld, and called him an able leader, etc.
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| esl student |
Posted
on 10-May-04 05:28 PM
face by= caused by
|
| Poonte |
Posted
on 10-May-04 05:37 PM
Biswo,
I was not writing specifically about the Iraq war -- my assessment of Rumsfeld being a fanatic was my personal view of him in general.
Since you brought it up, allow me to address the question of responsibility with regards to the Iraq war. Sure, Rumsfeld alone was not responsible for the war -- I believe Rummy, along with Paul, Dick and George share equal responsibility for the Iraq war. Nevertheless, whether Rummy had any role in deciding to go to war or not, that does not exclude him, in my opinion, from being a right-wing fanatic that he has proven himself to be.
As for the mistreatment of the prisoners in Iraq, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the abuses were/are systematic; and the President himself, as the Commander-in-Chief, should also bear direct responsibility for them.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 10-May-04 05:39 PM
9/11 SAVED Rumsfeld's job, and the war strengthened it.
Other than that, people wanted him out a long time ago.
Enjoy this OLD Slate.com article for some perspective.
*******
Rummy Death Watch No. 3: Possible Replacements Named!
Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, Sept. 7, 2001, at 3:42 PM PT
The Rumsfeld-Must-Go drumbeat continues. Al Kamen reports in the Sept. 7 Washington Post that Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri and Sean O'Keefe, a former Navy secretary now serving as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, are both being talked about on Capitol Hill as possible Rumsfeld replacements.
Skelton is a Democrat who's skeptical about missile defense, but he wants to enlarge the Pentagon's overall budget. And OMB, apparently, has been rolling over Rumsfeld on budget decisions. Kamen says Rumsfeld can't resign before Christmas because that would make his term more humiliatingly brief than the famously disastrous Les Aspin's. But of course, it isn't certain Rumsfeld will have much say in the matter.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt (who used to cover the Pentagon) have sprung to Rummy's defense, portraying him as the victim of a cynical and corrupt Washington political culture.
Ignatius specifically points the finger at New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who labeled him "Rip Van Rummy" for failing to grasp the ways in which Washington grew more vicious between the 1970s, when Rummy last served as Defense secretary, and 2001. ("It takes a certain perspective for a person to characterize 25 years in the private sector as a nap," Rumsfeld retorted. It was a good comeback but had the unfortunate effect of confirming that he'd read the column and felt wounded by it.)
The predominant view toward Rumsfeld, however, echoes Dowd. "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--one of the most skilled fighters in this town in the 1970s--makes Colin Powell's tenure appear triumphant," wrote Al Hunt in the Sept. 6, 2001 Wall Street Journal. This is a bruising allusion to Time magazine's insulting "Where Have You Gone, Colin Powell?" cover story in the Sept. 10 issue. To quote Rick Moranis in Little Shop of Horrors, "the guy sure looks like plant food to me."
http://slate.msn.com/id/1008245
(Timothy Noah writes "Chatterbox" for Slate.)
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| Robert Frost |
Posted
on 10-May-04 05:57 PM
The whole idea of this unprovoked, unsactioned, premitive war of agression is a tremendous catastrophe. Undertaking the war against Iraq with false justification, thrashing the credibility of an institution such an United Nations, not even bothering the effectiveness of Geneva Conventions, making the Guantanamo prisoners or even the enemy troops "unlawful combatants" and therefore are not subject to Geneva Conventions, there are big big holes that has been resounded by this Administration. They are guilty of war because they are among those who believe that others should be violently suppressed to follow the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney way. Which has resulted in disasters of humongous proportions. What more should the public bear? And now this Administration has kept Colin Powell in a dark, making decisions, away from his presence. Cheating the Secretary of State. It is absolutely pretentious.
Lot of people are talking about what would the proportions have been had those prisoners been Americans, can you even imagive what Bush would have done??
Reasons go far beyond the Iraqi abuse revelations on why this administration should go.
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