Friday, May 05, 2006

Hot Seat

I see your Rumsfeld ended up in the hot seat yesterday, Bush--and it wasn't just the ex-CIA man asking hostile questions. It was audience members heckling and being escorted out in protest. As I think you know, there's many of us find it hard to understand what he's still doing in that office you entrusted him with, while things continue to go badly wrong. Last month, I also heard on this morning's news, was the bloodiest for us since your war began. There was an attempt at retaliation with the broadcast of an outtake from last week's Zarqawi video, which showed the arch-terrorist needing help with his machine gun. I guess the idea was to make him look foolish and incompetent.

Okay, fair game. But we're still not coming off too well ourselves, nor are the Iraqi troops that are being trained to take over the defense of their own country. A strong editorial piece on the op-page of yesterdays Los Angeles Times, Bush, in which Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) made a persuasive case for getting out of Iraq now. He makes a good point about those Iraqi trainees: "The problem in Iraq," he writes, "is not military competence. The problem is loyalty. To whom can Iraqi officers and troops afford to give their loyalty?" The sight of graduating Sunni troops sloughing off their uniforms last week, and basically deserting at the very moment of their commissioning is a case in point: apparently no one had told them that they might be assigned to patrol Shiite areas.

It's a powerful piece, Bush. I trust you'll read it. Check out the full version in the current Foreign Policy magazine. Enough for today, though. Still working on those final proofs...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess the idea was to make him look foolish and incompetent.


You wouldn't think, under the circumstances, that anyone working in our government would consider those to be negatives.

Anonymous said...

why does iraq need to be one country/
let the Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites and Oil tycons all have a piece of Iraq to govern as they see best for their territory.

Anonymous said...

Well, anonymous, I was hoping they would to be honest. It sure would solve a whole lot over there. The Kurds already have boundaries as far as they're concerned. Now the other two, whew!:), that will be a tad dicey...lol. Then too, the Brits and US would be caught in the middle. Don't think we have enough if they get too backstroked ... Rummy didn't look too good up there did he? He was really him hein' around trying to get the right words, and they weren't working! Zarqawi did look a bit incompetent didn't he:)? Oh well, we have Cheney... I don't blame them for saying no I won't go!!! They aren't going to start WW 3, that's what it would amount to if one starts pushing the other around, especially while there is a uniform involved. US isn't stupid, they know that... they have to use every trick in the book to stay over there long enough to get the 'Taj' built and try to get in the oil business too. Just another card up the sleeve. More to come ... film at 11:D.