Donald Rumsfeld; High Honors For A Job Poorly Done

On Friday, Donald Rumsfeld received very high honors from an elaborate Pentagon ceremony from the President who fired him for his inept job performance with his botched planning and execution of the Iraq War. Never has anyone so fired received such an elaborate send-off. Normally a fired executive just puts their things in a box and walks out the door.

Rumsfeld was a main planner of this war as a member of the Project For The New American Century, the neocenservative organization comprised of defense industry executives, lobbyists and major stockholders who have been campaigning for the Iraq War since at leat 1997 according to their posted documents at www.newcentury.org which allows you to follow the trail of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bolton and other member's documents which proves no linkage to 9/11 unless these guys were psyhic way back in 1997 and 1998.

American foreign policy has suffered a world credibility problem because the lies seem to roll so easily off the lips off this administration, especially when President fires Rumsfeld, then both Bush and Cheney sing his praises as "the greatest" Defense Secretary ever. Just like the worn out over use of hysteria and fear for political purposes by this administration, their words are so cheap now that only the very simple or partisan could be swayed by them.

The fact of the matter is that Iraq is not more secure as a result of this 2003 Rumsfeld/Bush/Cheney war. Iran is now more powerful in the region and with a nuclear program stands to gain immensely from from the Iraq mess. Iraq now sees about 1,100 incidents each day according to the report of the Iraq Study Group, taking at least 3,700 civilian lives a month. More than 100,000 Iraqis. most civilians have died so far since the 2003 war, and more than 2,900 Americans have lost their lives, with another 21,000 wounded. with the only real result far less stability in the MidEast.

Despite all of this failure that can be laid at the feet of Donald Rumsfeld, he was highly honored yesterday in an event never before staged for a fired and failed executive leader. At this absurd rate, we might even see Britney Spears so honored for going "commando" recently, which seems to show nearly as much military skills as did Rumsfeld in his grossly failed role.

A Defense Secretary needs to make wise use of our military forces, and carefully plan for their safety and for missions that achieve worthwhile U.S. interest goals. Sending poorly equipped American soldiers in Humvees to their deaths instead of sending them on a better planned mission, with clearly defined goals that actually achieve something, and adequate personal and vehicle armor and equipment is no reason at all to praise a job well done or praise Rumsfeld as the "greatest" Defense Secretary ever. This is a definition of failure. Hopefully Robert Gates will serve our nation and troops far better than Rumsfeld. It's hard to imagine anyone could have done much worse.