"Why I Think Rumsfeld Must Go" By LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)

[maddezmom]

A military insider sounds off against the war and the "zealots" who pushed it
By LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)

Posted Sunday, Apr. 09, 2006
Two senior military officers are known to have challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the planning of the Iraq war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a full-throated critique:

In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem Won't Get Fooled Again. To most in my generation, the song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders, who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture—who became career members of the military during those rough times—the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again. From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq—an unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long enough.

am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.
more:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181587,00.html?promoid=rss_top

[gulliver]

1. Junior won't accept the resignation, and no one asks why.

Could it be that Bush won't accept Rumsfeld's resignation because doing so would admit (in effect) that the war has been a failure?

The little fella leaves Rummy in power for that reason. The famous "loyalty" of the Bush family is nothing but a code of silence ... a code of loyalty to their klan that supercedes their loyalty to country. And the Bush klan "loyalty" isn't even loyalty. It's a front, a posture that plays itself out in other people's blood and misery.

[Demeter]

2. They ALL Have To Go, Including The Supremes

Chop the head off this stinking fish and feed it to the cats.

Scalia is senile, like Reagan. Probably due to lots of TIA strokes.

[cliss]

3. Here's what Stan Goff (a retired special forces

sergeant) who is now a Pentagon critic:

"The generals sharpen their knives and gauge the distance between Rumsfeld's ribs". That just about says it all.

There is no man, not even Cheney, who stirs up such anger in me. There is something so sinister, so breathtakingly wrong with that man, that it's hard to describe.

I look at his chiseled face, his elegant features, even at his age (76). Next, I look at his squinty eyes which have become quite near-sighted. He almost looks like a little hedgehog. As soon as he starts talking, out come the hands. They're large, expressive. He waves them around to make a point.

If you look at the mouth, however, there is a sneer. His lip is curled up slightly, and betrays a sadistic, egotistic nature. As he turns his head, you can see it more clearly. There is narcissism evident in his face.

His voice betrays his real nature. It's whiny, petulant. You can hear some childishness in it. After he's been talking a while, his energy wears off and now you see unvarnished anger, fury. Rumsfeld gets tired of explaining things.

He's tired, period.

[glitch]

5. This description also applies to Cheney and Bush. Tired sneering old men

with their tired sneering old ideas. Bush prematurely old, with a brain old from disuse.

[RedEarth]

4. kr........ very good