The Rumsfeld Diversion
Diane Feinstein has joined the chorus of Democrats and generals calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. Given her long history as a warmonger and a war profiteer, this should immediately raise a red flag to any leftist that there is something seriously wrong with how this issue is being handled. And, in fact, there is. That's because this desire to punish Rumsfeld for what is going on in Iraq completely misses the point, and, more importantly, it illustrates once again how utterly misguided the Democratic Party is with respect to the Iraq war.
The push behind getting rid of Rumsfeld is based on the notion that he has incompetently managed the war in Iraq, either by ignoring the advice of his military commander or otherwise bungling the situation. But the problem with the Iraq war is not, and never has been, that it was mismanaged. The problem is that we shouldn't be fighting the war at all. To criticize someone simply for mismanaging the war is to implicitly accept the legitimacy of the war. In fact, this is precisely the tack that Kerry used in his 2004 campaign, where he argued that he would manage the war better than Bush; Kerry would send more troops to Iraq, Kerry would use more force in Fallujah, and so on. Meanwhile, during the last week or so of his candidacy that year, after Lancet published its study on the massive human toll of the war, Kerry was silent on that issue, while instead he went on about a missing arms cache or some such nonsense--as if anyone cared. The point is that, for Kerry, the war was all about running the war competently, not about the morality of the war. This has been the typical Democratic Party approach to the Iraq War, and it is utterly contrary to the belief that antiwar movement holds that the war itself is wrong.
Punishing Rumsfeld for the war going badly would miss the point entirely. Rumsfeld would only be taking the fall for the wrong reasons, and more importantly, it would not affect Bush's presidency or his continuation of the Iraq war. And it is opposing the war as a whole, not just how it is being managed, where the antiwar movement should be focusing its energies.
The push behind getting rid of Rumsfeld is based on the notion that he has incompetently managed the war in Iraq, either by ignoring the advice of his military commander or otherwise bungling the situation. But the problem with the Iraq war is not, and never has been, that it was mismanaged. The problem is that we shouldn't be fighting the war at all. To criticize someone simply for mismanaging the war is to implicitly accept the legitimacy of the war. In fact, this is precisely the tack that Kerry used in his 2004 campaign, where he argued that he would manage the war better than Bush; Kerry would send more troops to Iraq, Kerry would use more force in Fallujah, and so on. Meanwhile, during the last week or so of his candidacy that year, after Lancet published its study on the massive human toll of the war, Kerry was silent on that issue, while instead he went on about a missing arms cache or some such nonsense--as if anyone cared. The point is that, for Kerry, the war was all about running the war competently, not about the morality of the war. This has been the typical Democratic Party approach to the Iraq War, and it is utterly contrary to the belief that antiwar movement holds that the war itself is wrong.
Punishing Rumsfeld for the war going badly would miss the point entirely. Rumsfeld would only be taking the fall for the wrong reasons, and more importantly, it would not affect Bush's presidency or his continuation of the Iraq war. And it is opposing the war as a whole, not just how it is being managed, where the antiwar movement should be focusing its energies.
There is talk of replacing him with Joe Lieberman.
I like your analysis of that issue. As if there would be a head of DoD you'd like.
Posted by
Frank Partisan |
2:40 AM
Post a Comment