The Agonist: Inside Dope on Rummy

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

The “Big One” is Rummy...has President Bush finally gotten to the point where he sees Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld as a liability, not an asset? You can see evidence for this, if you want.

Specifically, note who has been run out for TV recently defending and explaining Iraq...Bush, not Rumsfeld. The President has been forced to put himself irrevocably on the line, both in public, and with the press, because Rumsfeld has lost all credibility...that’s what our Republican friends say is the “inside word”.

Sources also confirm that the President has absorbed the fact that the professional military has completely given up on Rumsfeld...admittedly a process which began for some “uniforms” even before 9/11, but which has continued to affect...or infect...virtually the whole military establishment today. (Rumsfeld’s contemptuous treatment of the senior brass...including the Joint Chiefs...has become legend, if somewhat under-reported, since these folks are loyal to the institution, if not the man, despite the provocations.)

Some insiders had been hoping that Rumsfeld would take the opportunity of the third-anniversary of the war to step down. But he either didn’t hear the hints, or didn’t care. So it apparently will be up to Bolten to pull the plug, on the President’s behalf.

http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20060330/inside_dope_on_rummy

Note:FWIW

[Olney Blue]

1. I'll believe it when I see it (Rummy leaving).

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I've heard a rumor

that Joe Lieberman wishes to be Secretary of Defense, and that this is why he has sucked up to the Bush Administration. Any truth to this rumor?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Probably a lot.

Especially since Joe is facing the real possibility of having a bad case of being toast.

[babylonsister]

3. "he either didn’t hear the hints, or didn’t care. " Maybe he was asked

to remain, so he could be the (near) future, or history's scapegoat.

[Drum]

4. from your keyboard to God's monitor! nt

[C_U_L8R]

6. But what I really want

is the Inside Rum on Dopey

[cliss]

8. Here's what I've got -

Time magazine recent article on Iraq (how bad it really is): "We cannot understand how Rumsfeld is still keeping his job in light of all the chaos..."

Wall Street Journal front page article about Iraq (the fact that it's going badly): "A present for Donald Rumsfeld". this is a new book written by a Pentagon insider, who claims that the U.S. is "not learning its lessons" like the British did. = meaning, there is a lack of leadership.
- - - - - -

This week on AAR, there was a short news clip of a reporter talking with Rumsfeld. The reporter said, "So, the story is that you are no longer effective at the Pentagon, that some say you have become like an "Old Uncle" who is kept out of the decision-making".

I gasped when I heard those comments. Rumsfeld immediately started attacking the reporter. I thought, "wow, time is really running out for him when people are openly attacking him like that".

I believe that Rumsfeld is finished. They want to get rid of him because Iraq is such a disaster. But they don't know who to replace him with. They're trying desperately to salvage the war in Iraq.

[marmar]

7. The whole f..king administration is a liability...

Take your pick - get rid of any of them and you're still left with a cart of rotten, putrid apples. Horse apples, that is.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I still want to know what the deal was with Rumsfeld pulling all...

NORAD decision-making power into his own hands three months before 9/11, and then all NORAD standard procedures failing on that one day--and only on that day--and him with a fishy story about being "in a meeting." AWOL he was, with our nation's capitol completely unprotected; no one raising the slightest finger to even defend the Pentagon.

I think he may be the worst of the lot. And that's saying something.

If the alarmists at the parallels to Germany 1933 are right (and I am wrong*), he is not about to resign, he is more likely about to head a coup, or, rather, to replace the leaders of the one we have.

----------

*He would certainly be my pick, if that's what is about to happen. (I call him "the Lurker".) But I think that the parallels to Germany 1933 are instructive--very instructive--but not all that directly. For one thing, Germany was on its knees when Hitler took it over, and proceeded to build a mighty military/industrial power. Bad as things are, we are not yet on your knees. The Bushites aren't building anything that I can see--they're just massively looting us. And we are a much bigger and more diverse country than Germany--much harder to govern, and to fool, with the same tactics. I don't think Americans are fooled at all. Look at Bush's approval rating! And where are the "Nazi youth groups" strutting around in uniforms and sieg heiling? Nope. OUR problem is that we have been DISENFRANCHISED--quite specifically and directly, by Bushite corporations having gained control of the vote tabulation with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls. Not enough people know about this yet--nor about the bipartisan corruption and complicity involved--so people are feeling pretty powerless and depressed--but they have by no means bought the Bushi'ite line on any matter. It could be that, down the line, we will be more vulnerable, though. I think that may be one of the current fascist schemes: four years of the Democrats and "liberals" taking all the blame, under Hillary, as all the various Bush-shits hit all the various fans, THEN our Hitler steps in. (I suspect Hillary has made her deal with the fascists, but may be living in la-la land thinking they won't topple her when the time is ripe.) Also, the military and intelligence communities hate Rumsfeld, more even than they hate Bush and Cheney. I don't see them cooperating in a coup, any time in the near future.

-----

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

[PBass]

10. Bush is not going to pick a DEMOCRAT to be his Secretary of Defense

Anybody who thinks that could happen, is seriously deluding themselves.

[0007]

11. 'Tis in the wind. 'Tis on Rumsfeld's face. Rumsfeld is gone.

But he'll be back in time to answer the criminal charges at the Hague.

[sendero]

12. The idea that Bush** has more credibility..

... than Rummy is laughable.

Neither of them have ANY credibility except with the sleepwalking sectors of our society.

[saltpoint]

13. I recall the "Cult of Rumsfeld" from the early days of the assault on Iraq

-- the press corps cozying up to the Sec. of Defense and getting off on his glib, convoluted and we-now-know dishonest comments about the assault, invasion, and occupation of a sovereign country.

DUers alertly and responsibly called Rumsfeld for what he was THEN; it took the press corps much, much longer to renounce their adoration.

If Republicans have a lick of sense -- by no means a persuasive assumption -- they'll get to Bush behind the scenes and Rumsfeld will be replaced. The 06 GOP majority in the House is especialy vulnerable, and even a thickheaded fool like Bush must eventually realize that his domestic agenda, such as it is, goes nowhere without GOP votes in the House. He'll wait too long and then respond to furtive efforts by GOP House members to dump Rummy.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Well, it (getting rid of Rumsfeld) would be much too late--if we still had

a democracy, but I don't think we have much of one left. In a democracy, Cheney would have been dumped from the '04 ticket, and Rumsfeld would have been long gone. That's how a democracy works. People fuck up that big--giving billion dollar, no-bid contracts to a corporation he is still on retainer to, or saying things like, freedom = the freedom to loot--and they are history, real fast.

But that's in a democracy--not in a fascist junta, where MEMBERS and FINANCIAL BACKERS of the junta are 'counting' all the votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls, in a deal put together by the most crooked junta members in Congress.

In a fascist junta, the government is not responsible to the people. There is no such thing as "consent of the governed." The people have no say. There are no checks and balances on ethics or competence. And that, my friends, is where we are at--or very, very close to where we are at.

Non-transparent elections are not elections. They are tyranny.

Because of the large size and cultural variety of our country and its strong democratic traditions (unlike, say, Germany in 1933), the fascists had some unique problems in taking us over. One of them is that the country has a huge progressive majority--60% to 70% (read the issue polls!)--which believes in peace and justice and good government. This majority has resisted the most intense propaganda from the Bushites and from the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, in our opposition to the war, and in fact in opposition to all Bush policy. How do you take over such a country? You do it by, a) stealing elections, and the more obscure and technical you can get about it, the better (re: electronic voting with secret programming), and b) by convincing this majority that it is the minority (one of the main coups of the corporate news monopolies)--the upshot being that the majority of people feel helpless, powerless, isolated.

It's worked so far--but one of the biggest differences with Germany circa 1930s is that almost no one is convinced by anything Bush & Co. says or does--despite 24/7 propaganda on all channels. Really, we are the most propagandized country since Stalinist Russia. There has been an "iron curtain" over the real news, like nothing we have ever seen before, since 9/11. Yet Americans find their way to the truth, by word-of-mouth, by native common sense and intelligence, and via the internet. (It's like we're back to the days of Tom Paine's "Committees of Correspondence"--secret letters passed from colony to colony for independence and against the British).

So, the junta has had to stay in power by the most devious means--by a $4 billion boondoggle called the "Help America Vote for Bush Act," engineered by Tom Delay and Bob Ney and 'passed' by a Bushite Congress during the height of the fearmongering and warmongering, in 2002, designed to corrupt and destroy our election system across the country, with lavish lobbying, and no controls on partisan vendors, no paper trail requirement, no audit/recount controls, no controls on secret industry 'testing' of the new voting machines and central tabulators, and underfunded regulators in a Bush-appointed commission--all to fast-track purchase of insecure and expensive, and Bushite-controlled electronic voting equipment by the states and counties.

One of the Achilles heels of this method of retaining power (electronic voting machines with a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites and warmongers) is the need to pre-program the machines with fraud formulas prior to the election, which is not so easy to change on election day. This leaves the system open to being overwhelmed by big voter turnout. (That's why they did the blatant Ohio vote suppression, in my opinion. Kerry's win was bigger than expected; the machines across the nation were not so easy to access on election day itself.)

So, there is an outside chance that the majority might win. Also, Diebold and ES&S cannot just manufacture an election (not yet anyway), so there DO have to be SOME votes and SOME support to start off with; AND, these corporations need to keep their election theft system in place--and not have citizens throwing their machines into 'Boston Harbor'--so they don't want to get too obvious in fiddling the results. (They were blatantly obvious in '04 in the prez election, because that election was so vital to continued looting--but they have to be more careful now, especially with people getting on their fraudulent voting machines.)

These latter items are WHY Republican Congressmen (and warmonger Democrats) are at all 'worried' about the '06 elections. Their individual hides are on the line--and they know that the potential for a big, big turnout against them is there--for instance, in Bush's 30% approval rating--the American people are good and mad, and they may well turn out in overwhelming numbers to throw out any of the bums they can get their hands on. The majority has a 5% to 10% handicap going in, and has to overcome that just to win. Without that programmed advantage, Bushites and warmongers would be blown away in '06.

They therefore likely do have some genuine concern about the '06 elections. But part of it may also be playacting. The Bushites and the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are good at this--at creating scenarios before the election that explain the foregone conclusion of the results that they know Diebold and ES&S will produce. The gay marriage issue served that purpose in '04; immigration will serve it this year--combined with the "comeback kid" fantasy they are now writing about Bush. He dumps some people--Cheney (18% approval rating), Rumsfeld (hated by the military)--and is stripped of a few more (Scooter Libby, Andrew Card--and probably Rove and Hadley--re: Traitorgate)--and it is all spun as a "resurgence of support" for Bush, for illegal war, for torture, for having an emperor, for an $8 trillion dollar deficit, for massive theft and massive murder.

Since Cheney/Rumsfeld is the actual 'president,' this leaves Bush without his brains, and, if Rove is indicted, without a spinmeister. Bush will (is) making a fool of himself. Bill/Hillary might come to the rescue of the junta. (She's after the main chance--and may have already made a deal with them.) And, mark my words, some such scenario of a purged, chastened White House, combined with their racist "immigration" issue, is going to be used to "explain" the "surprising" Republican gains (or only very modest Democratic gains) in the '06 elections. (--and with "modest" Democratic gains, they will still spin it as a Bush "comeback".)

The "Bush comeback" will, of course, be manufactured by Diebold and ES&S. These issues--immigration, or Cheney's incredible unpopularity and suspected crimes, or Rumsfeld's incredible incompetence (and suspected crimes)--are just side issues and "shows." They have nothing to do with the heart of what's wrong--Americans dragged into a war they didn't want, and fascist global corporate predators using that as an excuse to rob the American people blind in every possible way.

It is the puppetmasters BEHIND Cheney and Rumsfeld (not behind Bush) who are the real cause of all our problems. The war profiteers, the oil profiteers, the medical profiteers, the credit card profiteers, the downsizers of American companies and outsourcers of jobs, the environmental destroyers, the electronic voting corporations, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and the whole gang of ugly global conglomerates that have seized control of our government, including the White House, most of Congress and the Supreme Court.

If they have to sacrifice Cheney and Rumsfeld, they will. They will even sacrifice Bush, and go with Hillary. The point is to keep the looting machinery going, until there is nothing left here to loot. (We may have some rough times at that point. That's how Hitler came to power--in a broken and financially ruined country.)

As I said, in a real democracy--or even in a decently run monarchy--Cheney and Rumsfeld would be long gone. We, the people, not only don't really have a democracy any more, we don't even have a king who is sensitive to public opinion. We have a mean, nasty little goofball who is being manipulated.

Getting rid of Cheney and/or Rumsfeld will NOT be a RESPONSE to public opinion--it is/will be an attempt to create a "sellable" scenario that "explains" the Bushite gains (or minimal losses) in '06.

And neither thing (Cheney and/or Rumsfeld gone) will mean any change in the looting program. The chief looters, the Bushites in Congress and their paymasters, were/are in collusion with Cheney/Rumsfeld crime. They may playact about them now, and blame them for this and that, to preserve their own skins (if they are in close races), to promote the overall scenario of a Bushite "comeback" (compliments of Diebold/ES&S), and to relieve Bush from any responsibility and keep him as a ikon. But neither are THEY responsive to public opinion. They are Bush "pod people." They are in on the looting, and will do anything to keep it going.