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Goodbye Donald Rumsfeld
The first major newspaper in this country has just called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign or be fired.
The San Jose Mercury News (Knight-Ridder, of course), did that yesterday in a lead editorial, singing "go away little...Rummy.".
So although The Donald wants to keep on singing "you say torture, I say body massage, let's not call the whole thing off" to his critics and "yes, we have no body armor, no body armor for you" to the soldiers under his command, let's ratchet up the pressure so that he changes his tune to "hello, I must be going."
The Studmuffin has petered out. Here's the main points of the SJMN editorial:
Close the book on Rumsfeld's reckless, feckless leadershiptop
San Jose Mercury News Editorial
April 18, 2006
The military brass who have spoken out recently have got it right: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should go.
His bold strategy led to a lightning victory in Iraq, but his strategic blunders since have bogged us down in a debilitating occupation. His arrogance and autocratic style have poisoned relations with commanders in the field and undermined military morale...
...The generals' condemnation is neither scapegoating nor an attempt to deflect attention to their own mistakes. It reflects long-seething resentment over what Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, in Time magazine, called ``the casualness and swagger'' with which Rumsfeld and the neo-conservatives committed U.S. forces to Iraq. They remain furious over the public humiliation that Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, received in 2003 when he predicted ethnic strife without a large military force to keep the peace in Iraq. Shinseki proved prescient, but his outspokenness shortened his career.
The generals also are apprehensive about the future in Iraq, with political pressure on Bush to bring more troops home balanced by the peril of civil war. That is why Newbold called for ``fresh ideas and fresh faces.''
If anything, their bluntness is years late. Rumsfeld should have been forced to resign when it became obvious that key decisions -- to disband the Iraqi army and to send insufficient U.S. troops -- had backfired and fueled an insurgency. He should have resigned after revelations about the Pentagon's complicity in the torture at Abu Ghurayb. He should have resigned after Bush's first term, with a face-saving exit.
It's too late for that now.
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