Blood payments for Flawed Leadership
"As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not
the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
-- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
By Mike Whitney
04/28/06 "ICH" -- - Bad news continues to pile up around Don Rumsfeld like garbage at a land fill. The latest blast came from
an unlikely source, The Army Times”, which conducted a poll
showing that 64% of enlisted men think Rumsfeld should tender
his resignation immediately.
It would be impossible to find a more conservative publication
than the Army Times or a more compelling reason for stepping
down. Still, the recalcitrant Rumsfeld shows no sign of caving
in or loosening his withered grip on the levers of power.
Earlier in the week, an equally devastating article appeared in
the New York Times “Criticism of Rumsfeld Widens to Young
Officers” echoing that younger officers are just as sick of the
glib Rummy as their elders. One anonymous officer noted, “We
have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in
Iraq….The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political
levels." Confidence in the Secretary is deflating more rapidly
than the air leaving a punctured tire.
Most of the grumbling about Rumsfeld seems to center on his two
salient attributes; arrogance and ineptitude, the twin-axels of
predictable failure. There isn’t one part of the 3 year
occupation he hasn’t mishandled, mismanaged or completely
bungled. His tenure at the War Dept represents the greatest
collapse of leadership in the history of the republic.
You’re doin’ a heck-uva job, Rummy.
It was Rumsfeld who refused to commit enough troops to the
original invasion making it impossible to establish order; just
as it was Rumsfeld who left the armories and munitions dumps
unattended, disbanded the Iraqi military, and dismantled the
government through de-Ba’athification. All these proved to be
costly and avoidable mistakes which made reconstruction
difficult and security impossible.
Rummy has brushed aside such idle criticism saying, “Stuff
happens”.
Rumsfeld’s only success has been in alienating the Iraqi people
by authorizing the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib as well as
the gratuitous destruction of Falluja; two events which
galvanized the Iraqi resistance and savaged any chance of
winning over Iraqi “hearts and minds”.
Now, Iraq is in the throes of deadly guerilla war with
casualties mounting by the day and not a glimmer of light in the
tunnel. The responsibility for the deteriorating situation
mainly rests with one man, Don Rumsfeld, the primary architect
of America’s desert “cakewalk”. .
Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton's summarized Rumsfeld’s abysmal performance
best when he said that Rumsfeld was "incompetent strategically,
operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone
responsible for what has happened to our important mission in
Iraq."
The problem with Rumsfeld runs deeper than his failure to
stabilize Iraq. His “Strangelovian” ideas of military
transformation have no place in a democracy. His efforts to
convert the military into a martial-force for private industry
have eroded America’s moral standing in the world and put allies
and enemies on alert.
We can see now that Guantanamo, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib are not
anomalies, but vital gears in a global war machine controlled
from Washington.
A Washington Post article last Sunday “Rumsfeld OKs wider
anti-terror role for Military”, exposed another frightening part
of Rumsfeld’s “transformative” vision. Following the next
terrorist attack on American soil, Rumsfeld plans to deploy
“elite Special operations troops” to conduct military operations
in countries outside of war zones. Under the secretary’s
direction, 53,000 paramilitaries and Green Berets will be
released into sovereign nations in violation of international
law, conducting renditions, assassinations, sabotage, and acts
of piracy. Rumsfeld’s plan abandons all prior constraints on the
military and converts the entire world into a “free-fire” zone.
There’s no doubt that Rumsfeld’s malignant strategy encompasses
the American “homeland” as well. It was Rumsfeld who pushed the
Posse Comitatus law towards extinction by setting up NorthCom, a
military command post within the United States. This creates the
possibility that future military operations will target the
American people, a threat which was anticipated by the founding
fathers. Under new legislation the military is free to spy on
American citizens, deploy mercenaries to natural disasters, and,
in the event of a terrorist attack, arrest citizens without
charges.
All this leaves little doubt that Rumsfeld’s ultimate goal is to
remove the military from all congressional oversight and create
a global policing apparatus for transnational corporations. The
final component of his plan will be set in motion following the
next terrorist attack.
Rumsfeld’s ambitions are worrisome but we should not ignore how
dramatically public opinion has shifted against both him and the
entire administration. Bush’s dwindling popularity is bound to
frustrate any scheme to militarize the nation.
We should also be encouraged by the extraordinary catalogue of
failures that Rumsfeld has amassed in just 6 short years. His
record does not support his lofty dreams of global domination.
We expect he will fail in this endeavor as well.
Regrettably, the price of ambition tends to be quite high. As
Marine Lt. General Greg Newbold opined, “The cost of flawed
leadership continues to be paid in blood.”
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