Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding

Friday, December 15, 2006

CUTTIN' RUMSFELD


Later today, in a special ceremony in Washington DC, Donald Rumsfeld will be frog-marched down the front steps of the Pentagon. In the month since he announced his retirement, my initial glee has eroded to a mere stump. The resignation of the disagreeable Defense Secretary, along with the quieter disappearance of the hardcore neocon architects of the war gave hope for a moment, and the results of last month's midterm election and the formation of the Iraq Study Group heralded a possible change in policy. Since then, the same complacent congress that acquiesced to our harebrained Iraq scheme has buttered up and squeezed the obsequious Robert Gates through the Senate Arms Services Committee, and unanimously approved him to replace the disgraced Rumsfeld. It appears that the old Secretary is little more than a convenient fall guy, and it's looking more like a return to business as usual, with the administration continually postponing any announcement of a “new strategy,” meanwhile diverting blame for the current state of affairs on Rumsfeld and, especially, the Iraqis. Bush seems reluctant to shoulder any responsibility for a plan that was doomed to failure from the beginning, and maybe that's as it should be, for the region will surely see no shortage of volunteers to cast blame our way for the aftermath of “Iraqi Freedom” for decades to come.
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RUMSFELD CARTOON watercolor & ink 7" 9"

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What Rummy and the rest of the Bush clan doesn't seem to get is that the American people DO have the stomach to fight a bloody war, just not this war. If we had truly gone after the people that attacked us, i don't think many people would be balking at a protracted war. The targets should have been the Saudis and the Al-Qaida in Afghanistan. We started to prosecute that war and then suddenly shifted to an illegal war in Iraq. Will the reason ever be revealed to us ? Probably not for a very long time. Typical of the far right, if you're against the Iraq war, you're portrayed as weak. To me, weak is deposing a lame dictator like Hussein, letting a maniac like Osama go free, and creating a hotbed of terrorists in Iraq.

2:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aww, put a little rummy in your eggnog, kick a Bush once or twice 'cause somebody couldn't hit a vein on a convicted killer, and get on to enjoying the holidays. War, famine, general meaness, and the good old bah-humbug attitude are around all year long.

Wishing you a very happy holiday season!

12:26 AM  

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