Was he a good Secretary of Defense? I think its extraordinary easy at this juncture of history to give him a knee-jerk failing grade. I suspect that history coupled with time will be considerably easier on him than many are today. He was originally appointed to re-make the American military forces into a very lean mean fighting machine, and then 9/11 happened. While State Representatives and Congressman cowered under cover, Donald Rumsfeld was at the Pentagon helping to rescue the wounded. Call me old fashioned, but I believe loyalty and commitment to the personal well-being one’s subordinates is a very commendable quality in a man.
I know that many current and retired military men in the upper echelon of the American forces have been very critical of his performance as Secretary of State, but I also know a few things about the ethos of generals. One does not get to be a general by not learning how to effectively divert a shit stream. Generals are also very territorial and are not known to taking kindly towards those who attempt to thwart their heart’s desires or shrink the purview of their command. One does not become a general by not knowing how to be a political beast, and as such, generals are not necessarily averse to playing to what they perceive as their base.
Besides who else in the Bush Administration will give such an apt or succinct characterization of the alleged Israeli “occupation’:
"My feeling about the so-called occupied territories," Rumsfeld said, "are that there was a war, Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved in it once it started, they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict."
Or how about this response, when a Palestinian in Munich posed the question to Rumsfeld on why the Bush Administration was worried about a nuclear armed North Korea and Iran but would not do anything over Israel’s nuclear arsenal:
You know the answer before I give it, I'm sure. The world knows the answer. We take the world like you find it; and Israel is a small state with a small population. It's a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood. Many, over a period of time, [have] opined from time to time that they'd prefer it not be there and they'd like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn't been put in the sea.There is nothing I like better than watching msm media political hacks having a full scale meltdown in the public domain and nobody in the Bush Administration did it better than Rummy.
7 comments:
So Rumsfeld is a decent, honest person, who sees things clearly and correctly with regard to Israel. That's good.
However, he was not running the Defense Department very effectively. He tried to wage a war on the cheap, and tried to gloss over any advance planning of the aftermath.
Those were serious, serious mistakes, and they are censureable.
Censure is a reprimand the Congress may use on its own members for commission of non-indictable ethical violations. There is no constitutional provision for censure of cabinet officers. A congressional reprimand to a cabinet-level officer is impeachment.
All that aside, I also find Secretary Rumsfeld to be a refreshing sort of no-nonsense bureaucrat, and I am sorry to see him go. On the other hand I do not think the occupation of Iraq has gone well and someone has to answer for it. Mr. Rumsfeld must accept responsibility as the civilian top dog; there is no way around it.
If I remember General Franks' memoirs properly, he specifically noted to the national command authorities that he was excluding post-invasion occupation scenarios from his OPLAN. Presumably this planning was deferred to another officer or group, and that planning has since proven inadequate.
I am agnostic on whether Mr. Rumsfeld is directly responsible for the mess in Iraq, but -- at the end of the day -- as the man in charge, the ultimate responsibility still falls on his shoulders. And it was appropriate and honourable of him to resign.
A long time ago I likened the Iraqi people to the Hebrews of the Exodus, and assigned the Americans the role of Moses. Unless America was prepared to do what Moses did when he came down from the mount and saw his newly liberated brethen worshipping the golden calf - the occupation would be a complete and utter failure. On the cheap or not.
The flaw in the occupation plan was not that it was done on the cheap but it was not done on the ruthless. Americans had great hopes for the Iraqis to morph their national aspirations into becoming a people who loved freedom, liberty and equality for all - not some.
The Americans did a great thing to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam but they do not possess the kind of ruthlessness or fortitude of character necessary to resist another's pain to do what needed to be done mercilessly. In the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, if the Americans had been prepared to shoot looters on sight and watch their soldiers mow down looters on CNN - order would have been established quickly.
I remember Rumsfeld on CNN saying that these people have been victimized and traumatized under Saddam, we cannot do to them, what Saddam has been doing. I see it as American's innate kindness that was the flaw. The lesson the insurgents (be they general malcontents/bathists/shi'ite extremists) took from that was Americans were weak. What's that old saying - when one is kind to the cruel one eventually becomes cruel to the kind.
Anyway, I saw this quick piece on The Corner today after I posted my two cents and that you might find it interesting. Victor Davis Hanson defends Rumsfeld far more eloquently than I did - I just wanted to raise a 'uhmm' factor as a response to all the bloggers I read who are wiping their feet on Rumsfeld in a very knee-jerk way.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDFjODFhM2Q0MzVkYjRiMGM3NjIyOGY5YzBhYTBhMjU=
"Mr. Rumsfeld must accept responsibility as the civilian top dog; there is no way around it."
That is what I meant by "censure."
I wasn't aware that the word has a specific definition in government.
I too liked Rumsfeld an awful lot.
On the other hand, all the US Army officers I've met can't stand the man & think that he ought to have been let go a long time ago, for his conduct of the Iraq War.
I don't honestly know enough to judge that situation...
Ben, we are probably both in the same boat. Both of us like Rumsfeld and neither of us have enough information to judge. I know that a number of decisions, such as disbanding the Iraqi army, are artributed to Rumsfeld, but in fact that decision was made by Paul Beamer.
And I am not surprised you haven't met an US officer that liked him as his original mandate was to restructure the US forces. Military organizations don't like civilians coming whose role is to usher change.
True, true. They might resent him for the first term reforms more than the war, but just be transferring that resentment.
I liked his comments -- he had a great way of puncturing balloons and saying what most of us might think but not dare to express openly...
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