A caller to a discussion show this morning asked this: "Why did the White House authorize a multi-million dollar investigation by a special prosecutor if they knew all along what had happened and that, because the information was declassified or declassifiable by the President, there('s) nothing to investigate?"
John Belushi was a comic genius. It frustrates me to no end that he threw his life away in a speedball overdose some years ago. A complete and utter waste.If I was to try to imagine what went through Belushi's drug-addled brain in the moments before his death I see all sorts of psychedelic visions of flying ponies, talking hamburgers and, more than likely, Donald Rumsfeld talking about Iraq's "known unknowns." Listening to Rumsfeld is just about that surreal of an experience.
I can't for the life of me remember an administration appointee from ANY administration that came into office with as much hype as Rumsfeld only to fail so miserably. Rumsfeld was going to modernize the military and bring it into the 21st century. Left unspoken was that his concept of modernity was the stuff of Star Wars fantasy. Literally. A missile defense shield which fails even fixed tests that he convinced the President was ready to spend billions of dollars deploying in Alaska. No doubt he had to promise the President he'd get the first lightsaber.
Don't even get me started on his approach to the human element of the military. If there was a way to cut costs and go it on the cheap it, especially at the expense of our men and women in uniform, he'd find it. Cut down on support. Check. Cut armor for humvees. Check. Cut benefits and hazard pay. Check. The man is obviously more in love with technology, especially unproven, over the health and well being of the actual soldiers who serve under him.
In public he comes across as a sort of bespectacled Mr. Spock, more computer than man. This is supposed to demonstrate his value as Secretary of Defense. Coldly and impeccably logical. Cool in the face of danger. A slave to reason. All complete bullshit.
There has been nothing in our strategy towards the war in Iraq that has been logical. From the lack of appropriate numbers of soldiers at the start of the war, to the allowances for looting, to the disbanding of the Iraqi military because of worries about Sunni officers-- it's been one downright stupid move after another.
So I found Rumsfeld's public jabs at Condi Rice amusing on a couple of levels. The first is that Rumsfeld wants to play a semantical game. Rice referred to mistakes in Iraq as "tactical errors." Because she's talking about the bigger picture and not the actual prosecution of the fighting by our military I assume she ment to say "strategical errors." In military terms "strategy" is the planning made by generals and above before and during the war to achieve victory. "Tactics" are what the troops on the ground put together to implement the strategy. Rumsfeld is pretending he doesn't understand Rice and, in the process, is being too cute by half:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he did not know what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was talking about when she said last week that the United States had made thousands of "tactical errors" in handling the war in Iraq, a statement she later said was meant figuratively.
Speaking during a radio interview on WDAY in Fargo, N.D., on Tuesday, Rumsfeld said calling changes in military tactics during the war "errors" reflects a lack of understanding of warfare. Rumsfeld defended his war plan for Iraq but added that such plans inevitably do not survive first contact with the enemy.
"Why? Because the enemy's got a brain; the enemy watches what you do and then adjusts to that, so you have to constantly adjust and change your tactics, your techniques and your procedures," Rumsfeld told interviewer Scott Hennen, according to a Defense Department transcript. "If someone says, well, that's a tactical mistake, then I guess it's a lack of understanding, at least my understanding, of what warfare is about."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502269_pf.html
McKinney Trial Moved to The Hague
4/5/2006
EWM- (April 5, 2006) Succumbing to the reality that the U.S. legal system is not up to the task of handling the “trial of the century,” officials announced today that the cop-beating trial of Rep. Cynthia McKinney will be reclassified as a war crime and moved to The Hague.
McKinney is accused of striking a Capitol Hill police officer who accosted her for bypassing a security checkpoint in the Longworth House Office Building. McKinney, a black woman, says it was a case of “racial profiling.” The burley cop, who was not injured, says his “feelings were hurt.” A tourist who witnessed the incident says, “Christ on a cross, can these morons just get over it?”
Judicial officials say the sheer enormity of the incident justifies the tribunal being moved to The Hague, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, because of its global implications.
The incident began when McKinney walked around a metal detector used for visitors that are not part of the “royal class,” otherwise known as Members of Congress. When the officer failed to recognize her as a Congresswoman and grabbed her arm, she allegedly stabbed at him with her cell phone.
Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can't bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq's leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires.
It occurs to me that part of the reason it often feels that when we engage the other side in debate that we're arguing with a bratty, spoiled, five-year old child throwing a tantrum while holding his hands over his ears is because we are (pdf doc).
The blogsphere, especially the lefty side of the blogsphere, seems rightly excited about the political demise of Tom DeLay. Atrios even goes so far as to do a Snoopy happy dance.
If you're hankering to watch Russ Feingold tear apart a strawman faster than flying monkeys, then head on over to Crooks and Liars and watch Russ send the straw Chris Wallace throws at him in the form of "congress was briefed" nonsensicals.
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