Letters to the Editor
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His crystal ball is pointed in the wrong direction
. . . the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way.
Sure, now he says that. It's not at all what he was saying when his team was making the case for invasion. If there were people who expected a quick conclusion to the war, maybe it's because that's exactly the way it was sold:
The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. . . . Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that. --Donald Rumsfeld, November 2002
It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months. -- Donald Rumsfeld, February 2003
They must think the entire country suffers from short-term memory loss.
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...and one more thing
RUMSFELD: Well, it's not a "war", nor is it necessarily "terror", and actually, you know what? I wouldn't even say it's "on". I think "on" was the most wrong part of the "war on terror" statement. "Around" may have worked better. Or hmm... maybe "whereby?" Or perhaps "through?" But definitely not "on". Which moron slipped THAT into my speech? They should've fired him instead of me.
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One Regret?
How about nearing 3,000 regrets for our troops who won't be coming home or 25,000 regrets for those soldiers severely injured in this neocon wet dream or 700,000 regrets for all the dead Iraqis or 26 million regrets for the Iraqis left to deal with the mess and countless other regrets for the next how many thousand years of the effects from all that depleted uranium?
But I guess semantics trumps all that.
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Hannity
Sean Hannity is not a journalist. He is a propagandist.
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The rhetorical legacy of Robert S. MacNamara
"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."
Robert S. MacNamara has been held responsible for a lot of things, and perhaps in some ways he's gotten a bum rap. But one thing he did do that hasn't been thrashed enough is this pithy bit of wisdom he dropped in his book and in Errol Morris' documentary:
"Don't answer the question that was asked. Answer the question you wish they had asked you."
Oooh, isn't he clever! Rummy has studied him well.
Of course I don't ever expect to see Rumsfeld as the subject of a sympathetic documentary like "The Fog of War."
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Rumsfailed
Is he a mendacious megalomaniac? Yes. Is he complicit in war crimes? Yes. Will he land a seven figure consulting job by the time Santa slides down the cosmic chimney? Yep.
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Am I glad that Rumsfeld is gone?
Absolutely. Is his resignation too late? Oh, my, yes. He has had ample oppurtunity to run this ill-conceived war into the ground. Is there anybody smart enough to prove that there aren't enough troops in Iraq? Well, golly, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure there isn't anyone who is half as smart as Rumsfeld thinks he is. Is it possible that Rumsfeld actually believes that the Iraq War is going well? Who can say? Perhaps it's a "known unknown". Does he accept any responsibilty for the state of Iraq and the prosecution of this war? Probably not.
Will I miss this preening, posturing, incompetent asking and answering his own inane questions?
No. Not at all.
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War on Terror
The question is: Who are the terrorists? Anyone who conducts an illegal war aigainst a sovereign state commits an act of terror, especially if the attack is named shock and awe! Even the lame excuse of nonexisting WMDs, does not justify an ex-, sorry ,incursion like this. And Rumsfailed as the organizer of this act of terror (shock and awe ,remember?) is as guilty as his boss the vainglorious George the Turd of committing this crime against humanity (remember Nuremberg?). What is even worse that this jerk made this trip on the money, no increasing debtload of the people,schutzpah to the nth power.
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Sean Hannity finally made it to Iraq -- we'll never hear the end of it
Since the war started, I'd venture a guess that at least half of all Sean Hannity's hate mail included a variation of "If you like the fucking war so much, why don't you get your cowardly ass over there!"
Well, he finally did you yammering left wing defeatocrat surrender monkeys. So there! Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!
Never mind of course, the fact that he was hiding under Rumsfeld's brigade-sized phalanx of heavy firepower and didn't see or hear anything other than what Rummy wanted him to see and hear.
But Hannity won't let that small fact stand in his way now. You can bet that he's already telling war stories to his snot-rag shill co-host alan colmes.
If you can stomach watching the H&c show, you can bet there will be lots of chest thumping and "I WAS OVER THERE WITH THE TROOPS" boasting.
If nothing else, Hannity just gave Ellen over at News Hounds (We Watch Fox So You Don't Have To) enough for about twenty thousand column inches over the next few months.
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Slippery Rumskull
Rumskull said :
"Do I know that the right number is there? No. Do I think it is? Yes. Is there anyone who is smart enough to prove it is or isn't? No."
Wrong! There WAS someone smart enough to know that troop levels were insufficient - Gen. Eric Shinseki. But Rumskull and his gang were stupid enough, or arrogant enough, or both, to overrule experts like Gen. Shinseki.
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NO one gets a pass on this
The people of Iraq did nothing to us and we have killed them - children, women and men - by the thousands. Mocked them as we watched the history of their culture being vandalised, stolen and destroyed. Criticize them for being weak and not standing up to "sectarian violence" (as if any of us even knew that term three years ago.) And now fail to protect them when they simply line up for jobs to try to restore their country, their homes and their lives.
God, I'm so angry. At Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Perle, Rice and, yes, Powell - at every one of these bastards and their self-serving roles in this atrocity. If it was a corporation, they'd all be in jail.
No one even remembers anymore that the State Department had prepared a 1300-page plan - in advance of the "war" - predicting this entire mess. And it was treated like a doorstop.
If Bush isn't impeached then what the hell is impeachment for?