Letters to the Editor
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Somebody slap me; I want to wake up!
RUMSFELD HIMSELF SAYS HE REGRETS CALLING IT A "WAR ON TERROR"?
Geez, I must be dreaming. IF ONLY Dubya and the rest of his rapidly dwindling cadre of supporters could admit the same truth -- that you can't wage war on a TACTIC.
Now we get to anticipate Tony Snow's skills at spinning away this unusually clear statement from Rumsfeld -- HOW will he be able to convince all of us once again that up is down, black is white, and that Rumsfeld really ISN'T saying that he and Bush should never have proclaimed we're engaged in a "Global War on Terrorism"?
I can't wait -- bring it ON, Tony!
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What To Call A War, Part Nine
It just dawned on me that Rumsfeld and Bush don't want to call Iraq a Civil War, because the Geneva Conventions apply to Civil Wars. Did everybody except me already realize that?
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He must have driven his parents nuts
Donald Rumsfeld as a young boy:
Part 1, at the dinner table.
"Are there vegetables still on my plate? Why good golly, yes!"
"Do parents want their children to eat these vegetables? Oh, yessiree! Most definitely?"
"Are vegetables good for me? Well, I don't think any parent can know or not know whether vegetables really are good for anyone?"
"Will I eat my vegetables? Look, that is just one of those unknowns that can only be known after dessert."
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1 Us journalist?
ahem, Sean Hannity is NOT a journalist. He is an inflated monkey-man right wing bloviator with no prior experience in the journalistic profession. He is a liar and a bully and let's face it, an asshole of epic proportions. he is NOT a journalist.
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If only he had spoken up earlier
By far the biggest mistake made by George Bush was to declare, only a few days after 9/11 that the rest of his presidency would be devoted to a War on Terror.
The reasons why it is futile to declare a war on Terror are obvious to all, and always have been, but where were Bush's advisors when he really needed them?
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That would have made all the difference!
If only the Bush administration had hired better political linguists, everything would have been so much better! Just think, had we called it the "Extremist War", we probably wouldn't have lost one soldier. The execution of the war on the ground would have been planned so much better if we'd called it "Operation Let's win in Iraq". We would have actually had a post-war plan in place if we'd only called it the "War to provide Democracy to Iraqis".
It's a clear indication of how out of touch Rumsfeld and the Bush administration at large are if the only regret they have right now is vague terminology. It's also a clear indication of where our media is right now if we're calling Hannity a "journalist" and giving him exclusive access to the Secretary of Defense.
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rummy's regret
Sean Hannity is many things.
Journalist is not amongst the list.
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I think we are seeing
a strategy forming here. The "new direction" Bush will expouse before Xmas will be premised around a clandestine "stay the course" but will be nuanced to depict the "war on terror" as not a war, but a "struggle for freedom", and Iraq as not, "the center" of the front, but a component. This way Bush can stay the course forever relying on spun venacular verbalized by idoits like Snow to keep eveyone off kilter for two more years when he can dump the whole thing on someone else and become an Elder Statesman. Boy, talk about a "winning strategy". I think we should give Bush a going away present: Impeachment.
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Rummy's Iraq Visit
I'm confused by this article. First the author says that Rummy was accompanied by just one U.S. journalist, and then mentions Sean Hannity by name. Hence my confusion: since when has anyone thought of Hannity as a journalist? A mouthpiece for the administration, yes. A liar, yes. A divider of people. Of course. But a journalist? An early ho-ho-ho on that one.
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"Is there anyone who is smart enough to prove it is or it isn't?"
Wow - what a wonderful defense of the Secretary of Defense's choice about troop strengths - even though the outcome has been 3,000 dead and 30,000 (give or take) wounded on our side, 100-600,000 dead Iraqi's and we are on the verge of declaring the "the central front on the war on terror"(GWB April,2006) unwinnable,
"NO ONE IS SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT I SCREWED UP" -(paraphrasing).
Mr. Former Secretary - I quite distinctly disagree. The military expression FUBAR could quite reasonably apply here. I hope that we get you before you do a Pinochet - dying before you can be tried and incarcerated for crimes against humanity.
my .02
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If you're going to say something, then just say it, jackass.
Will I miss that stupid device where Rumsfeld responds to a question with another series of questions directed at himself, which he then answers? No.
Do I think that this passive voiced mechanism is condescending to the listener and a needlessly verbose complicated construction designed to evade responsibility and easy quotation? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.
Should Donald Rumsfeld let the door hit him in the ass on the way out? No.
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Selling this war
The only way the Iraq invasion was going to be accepted by the American public was to hitch a ride on 9/11 and call it a war on terror. Therefore, I do not believe for one moment that Rumsfeld regrets calling it a war on terror. I'm just happy as hell that we no longer have to endure his sociopathic double-talking bullying that has somehow passed for "answers" to journalistic questions. God is good!
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Now who cleans up the NeoCons' mess?
The neocons first made a mess of the rhetoric, and then made a mess of the world. Was the phrase "police action" -- which is what the so-called War on Terror is and was -- really so radioactive a phrase that they couldn't call a spade a spade? The terrorists are international criminals who happen to have an ideology, and should have been pursued as such. Calling this a "war" not only validated and united the "enemy," but it brought the fog of war, and unsurprisingly huge mistakes were made. Now who's accountable? What's sad is that it doesn't really matter. The mess still has to be cleaned up, and those of us who were horrified and spoke out from the beginning have little satisfaction and lots of work to do.
And so we get to watch the neocons walk sheepishly away, some with tail firmly between legs.
Wolfowitz, possibly the smartest, got out early and took his high-profile/low-impact position as beggar-in-chief of the World Bank. Karl Rove's name will be forever linked to Scooter Libby's. Discredited Daniel Perle has allegations of impropriety to refute and his "Who's next?" comment to live down. Doug Feith stands accused of using the military for partisan political ends and is too visibly close to the Israel lobby. Aside from Cheney, who never took direct responsibility for anything, Ashcroft might be sitting the prettiest of this group, perhaps because he was taken the least seriously from the start.
And this leaves Bush, the man-child, adrift and realizing that father knew best.