Rumsfeld Corrected by US Troops - An Embarrassment

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

8 p.m. Bad day for Henri. He has been flat all day. No appetite – so unlike Henri who ALWAYS loves to eat. Not even is favorite—bread—got him to rise from the dining room floor at noon. He did go out and took a potty break. I watched him straining and some diarrhea. Poor guy. In 3 weeks of treatment this is the worst he’s been. So far he’s been eating well and feeling OK, due to the miracle of modern animal medicine. But today was not a good day. He’s flat on the doorway of my study now, resting and “helping” as always. It seems to be very similar to what people go through with cancer.

The pope has started a furor with comments about Mohammad. Unlike John Paul who was a “uniter,” this one could be a divider. That makes the world even more unstable. Pope Benedict found fault with another religion -- but failed to mention his own church’s role in the Crusades that led to mindless attacks on Muslims by Christians centuries ago, not to mention its pedophile Priest problem (I was raised as a Catholic).

We’ve had a President who has presided over the biggest drop in America’s global reputation of any administration, and now a Pope who is throwing stones. Our ministers like Pat Robertson call for the assassination of foreign leaders. None are building bridges.

Tomorrow I get to go a lunch at which Gen. Colin Powell is speaking. He is a leader I can respect. Gen. Powell is someone we should elect if our country is too succeed. Appointing political hacks to run our agencies (like Michael Brown at FEMA, etc) and prizing blind loyalty over competence does not guarantee success in running a complex world, or prevailing in Iraq. Iraq is a mess because of the incompetent people selected to set it up.

I just read about a military meeting in which Donald Rumsfeld told our troops that 95% of the house searches were now being done by the Iraqis. OUR troops shouted him down, its on video, and informed him that 95% of the house searches are still being done by U.S. troops, not Iraqis. That is how out of touch with reality Mr. Rumseld is –our troops are having to correct him on the actual facts. By keeping him, Pres. Bush is sanctioning his incompetence -- which started with too few troops to guard the ammo dumps and no rebuilding plan. How brilliant is that?

Rumsfeld’s conduct created the Iraq mess. A President who really cares about American competence would sack him, and replace him with someone who knows who is conducting 95% of the searches in Baghdad--someone who is not just another party hack who is clueless about what is going on around him. American taxpayers deserve better than that. All Americans deserve better than that.