How will Rummy be remembered in the history books? Not as a military strategian, certainly. No, it will be his words about "Old Europe" that hit home, and are still being quoted in the European press almost daily. Every so often, a politician comes up with a remark that is serious felt as a major blow by his opponents. Reagan's "evil empire" is another case in point. The Russians still haven't recovered from it and are still quoting it. Rummy's distinction between the malaise of Western Europe and the new prosperity of Eastern Europe was so patently obvious that even the Europeans themselves recognized and felt it at once.

Hang Saddam, what about America?

O.J. Simpson......Michael Jackson.....Black Death Row Inmates....Sadam Hussein...Iraq and White America......what does one have to do with the other?

• Regardless of proof (pre- or post-trial) when white America condemns an individual, a celebrity or a country, a lynch mob mentality sets in and white America moves in deference to the Rule of Law for the kill either through false imprisonment, capitol punishment, character assassination, embargo, economic isolation or military strikes, invasion or other.

• Even if it has been determined by a jury of one's peers or competent U.N. weapons inspectors that there is reasonable doubt as to whether or not there has been an infraction or not, it won't matter for the lynch mob vigilante mentality has set in, and the mob has already saddled up their horses and are riding with guns blazing!

• When in the aftermath white America has been proven to have been overwhelmingly in error in its rush to judgment, white America will say, oh well, the system is not perfect and let's get on with making 'mo' money and being good, decent and civilized people! Er herm!!!

My question is, if the system is not perfect, why continue to repeat the same catastrophic mistakes over and over again that ends us ruining and destroying lives of the innocent and those who are 'unproven' to be guilty?

Comedian David Chapelle said something interesting about reasonable doubt in one of his routines. Paraphrasing Dave, he said that the Rodney King Jury had video tape of the police [mob] beating Rodney King yet they had reasonable doubts about whether the police [mob] who beat him had done anything wrong. So Dave asked, so how come the former O.J. Simpson jury that did not have video tape, could not have had reasonable doubts about whether O.J. Simpson was guilty of the crime that white America had already condemned him for doing?

Perhaps white America should be like Cramer of the Seinfeld show and disband the mob, for at least he came back last night and apologized for his misbehavior at the Comedy Club.

1) When will the American lynch mob, led of late by President George Bush, acknowledging that what they been doing in Iraq, from start to finish (neglecting the U.N. itself), was wrong?

2) When will America end its discussion about whether or not it should continue to stay in Iraq in hopes of somehow salvaging what was innocuously in error in the first place and instead get out of Iraq, apologize and compensate Iraq, and atone to the world for its misdeeds!

And in the future some Americans who are a part of the mob mind-set might consider abiding by the Rule of Law at home and abroad, and then dispense with the 'hang man's noose and mindset once and for all!

P.S. Why does a lynch mob rush in (even those led by George Bush), could it be that in addition to the lynch mob already having it's mind up, it simply wants to exact the punishment before anyone can display evidence to prove that the accused is innocent of doing anything wrong?

Great topic and some nice comments here. Just want to add that when assigning blame we should put the mainstream press particularly the editorial boards of the papers that are supposed to be looking a little closer at policy, i.e., Washington Post and New York Times. If it had not been for the rah-rah cheerleading by nearly all members of the mainstream media I think things would have gone differently. I am not only speaking of the invasion itself but afterwards as well (remember the press banned the most obvious expert on WMDs in Irac, Scott Ritter from commenting because he did not believe the governments allegations) . It wasn'nt until Katrina scared the material within the lower colon out of the ruling elites that the mainstream started looking more closely (the Post editorial board is still in denial though) at the situation did I see a shift of tone. The Bush administration could never have had such an astonishing run of absurdly corrupt incompetence if mainstream journalists had thought of something other than their careers.

When are we going to stop talking about wars? Basically, it's a bunch of guys sent to another country to kill people and take their stuff. How primitive is that? All the excuses are just so much nonsense, no matter how much breast-beating and fear-mongering is employed. In this nuclear age, there is no excuse whatsoever for war, and it's time men stopped talking about it as if it were the ultimate sport, and recognize it for what it is--an exercise in futility, that does as much harm to one side as it does to the other. Nobody wins, no matter whose flag goes up. Give it up, guys! Enter the new millenium. Let's all get along. Thank you.

I'm curious: how'd all that net-centric warfare stuff work out for Pat Tillman?

Alex posted:
"PJ, violated the constitution ? war crimes ?
dont hold yr greath, better yet, lets move on instead of doing the " we'll impeach everyone and throw them all in jail" I think the dems are pretty smart and will ignore this rabid segment of there base."

AH! AH! What a good fellow you became! SO the the Reps were pretty dumbs...dems should actually leave it to the international community to prosecute those who masterminded and ordered those war crimes. Are Rummy, Gonzales travelling anytime soon to old Europe? |

Mr Arkin,
The paper is good. But I find it difficult to understand the residual deference you seem to have for this mediocre and arrogant man,Rumsfeld. he mistook technical guidelines of maintenance (what 'transformation' is really about) and a grand theory of war. Without even pretending to be 'grand' an acceptable theory of war should minimally recognize that war itself is only a technique or a tool used to pursue, as Clausewitz put it, politics by other means.

last but not least, let's remember that being the SecDef is one thing, handling and resolving Iraq is another.

There were floaters before the election that Iraq was mainly Rices' baby, and that Rumsfeld wasn't responsible for securing the country after the invasion. Rumsfeld, if he was responsible for anything, it was the DoD...but what is the DoD *for*? What are its goals, what is its mission? How is it to accomplish those goals, that mission?

When Iraq becamse part of those goals, then Iraq became Rumsfelds' problem, and if he needed to get Rice involved in the solution, then he should have done that much earlier, and in the end, he should have gotten Congress involved, and really he should have had a lot of people involved. Instead of trying to weed out those who wouldn't do what he wanted to have done, he should have found a way to get them to do it willingly.

If he had done that, he would still be SecDef and Iraq would be OUR problem not his. Doesn't mean that the situation would be any better. But it does mean that we would have tried some other ideas other than what Rummy wanted to do (and by extension Chenney and Bush).

Definitely, when you are the guy calling all the shots you are the one who will take the fall when they miss the mark. Especially if everyone else does their job, in following your orders. By refusing to share authority he took all the blame on himself. But just as much the blame rests on the shoulders of the man who kept him there in the first place, when most of DC was calling for his head.

The problem here now is that that man is still in charge.

He has jettisoned his figurehead. But there is no question that GW is still in power.

And until he goes Iraq will not change significantly. That is my bet.

first, let me say that this is a great topic.

Then with regards to this, this is the central problem. How to spend DoD dollars and the lives of American soldiers.

"but what they either just don't understand or refuse to admit, is that Rumsfeld actually planned to pay for his "transformation" by cutting actual forces: Reducing the Army by two divisions, the Navy by two carrier groups, and the Air Force by many squadrons. (For example, despite their success in Afghanistan and Irag as conventional bombers, the active B1B fleet has been cut by a third. "

Exactly and that was the point of putting Rumsfeld in charge. That he would not prioritize "having a given number of B1 bombers or carrier groups" over the most effective use of DoD resources.

Case in point: in Iraq AFTER the invasion, these would have been totally useless.

Rummy would read this and say, "if they'd only let me finish the job, we'd have more troops and they would be better armed and armored, and more mobile, with better information".

The question really is how many troops do we need to have in Iraq, to achieve whatever our goals are, there?

And what do they need to have, to do this?

And what should those goals be in the first place?

I think that Rummy got caught between vines. But part of that is that the vine he was trying to reach, was unreachable at any point in time during his term as SecDef (he had to swing with the vines he had, not the vines he wished that he had).

Maybe in a way he pushed those vines away, instead of grabbing them when he had the chance.

But, still.

This is not entirely Rummys' fault. But by the same token maybe it couldn't get done with him in charge of DoD. The problem now is to see exactly what we want, and how to get there. I don't see how GW is going to solve that problem, do you?

the ultimate lesson is that mistaking arrogance for wisdom is a huge mistake.

same with mistaking good intentions for great ideas.

to say that Rummy was wrong, but that doesn't mean the opposing opinions were right, is the ultimate in anti-logic. If Rummy was wrong, then the correct answers are to be found in those who do not think like Rummy did....does...whatever. Who wouldn't run DoD like he used to. And Cheney. And Bush. Who proved his inability to be honest, in his method of dismissing Rummy.

It doesn't mean that all of their detractors are right...but certainly some of them are.

"take the reigns", eh? I always take the reins when riding a horse.

Dear Mr/Ms Coop,

I prefer the Swedish model.

Yours,
Che

Flip-flopper?

And let us never forget that Vice President Chaney makes a lot of political hay out of making John Kerry appear to be a flip flopper, when it was John Chaney who was the first, between the two of them, to flip flop.

During Bush 41's Administration, from all indications current Vice President Chaney was reportedly against taking the war into Baghdad.

Ironically, by the time that Bush 43 got into office, he flip-flopped and wanted the war in Iraq to take place!

Is it only John Chaney and George Bush who are permitted to flip-flop and misled the American people? Mr. Kerry did not mislead America; he got better intelligence information like the rest of America did later and changed his mind.

No amount of information will ever permeate or change the minds of Bush and Chaney, they simply have an agenda, and light will never penetrate either of these black holes in space. And regrettably, the whole world suffers given the denseness of these two burned out less than stars!

I was at Boeing when Rumsfeld became SecDef and brought Wolfie, who had been dean of my grad school, and the rest of the gang with him. I watched as they casually threw out the normal contracting rules, first for missile defense, and then the boondoggle of all times, the centerpiece of "transformation", "Future Combat Systems", which was to give the Army and Marines, "generation skipping", net-centric" technologies. A glossary is useful: "Generation skipping" means that instead of procuring current generation or even follow-on hardware (e.g., Strykers), we'll spend billions of dollars for R&D for hardware who feasibility is not yet proven. That will be paid for out of procurement for troops in the line now, i.e., the army that we have. "Netcentric" means that instead of the model of operations that has served the American Army (including the Confederate Armies) well for two centurries, in which local commaders make operational decisions, we'll go to a techno-Soviet model in which the high command will be able monitor and control all movements, down to the fireteam level.

A lot of Republican politicians and the rank and file are convinced that Bush-Rumsfeld saved us from a declining military, but what they either just don't understand or refuse to admit, is that Rumsfeld actually planned to pay for his "transformation" by cutting actual forces: Reducing the Army by two divisions, the Navy by two carrier groups, and the Air Force by many squadrons. (For example, despite their success in Afghanistan and Irag as conventional bombers, the active B1B fleet has been cut by a third.

Five and a half years many billions later, has yet to produce a full-up prototype, let alone a a new generation of weapons for troops in the field. All the new weapons systems that have been fielded for this war were advanced in the Clinton Administration: The Strykers got emphasized after Somalia showed we need air-transportable armor, the JDAM (i.e., cheap smart bombs, basically conversion kits for existing iron bombs)were rapidly developed after the Balkans air war and the no-fly zone operations in Iraq demonstrated we needed far higher volumes at affordable prices of air-deliverable precision guided weapons, and even the basic design and development of the interceptor missiles installed in the "test beds" to intercept N. Korean missiles was advanced during the Clinton Administration as the GMD program.

Rumsfeld Bush never took the war seriously, except as a prop for Karl Rove's politicking. If they had, instead of tax cuts, they would have increased and supported the war fighters. Rumsfeld plan to cut the current military persisted even after 9/11 up until the rise of the Iraqi "insurgency". They even deceived the American people about military pay: They boasted of an "across-the-board" increase, but, as with tax cuts, what a straight per centage increase for all really works out to is that the well-paid general officers got thousands of dollars more while the same percent increase forprivates and specialists, whose hard-luck stories of dependence or food stamps were used to sell the pay increase, got only a couple of hundred dollars.

(Lets not forget that the tax-cuts and budget deficit has helped fuel the Communist Chinese economy, paying for their military expansion and their grab for global resources, including diving up the price of oil, which only helps the jihadists.)

Che,

If you "hate capitalism", what form of government are you looking for in 08?

Has the elite media already told us who will be their preferred candidates for '08? I hate capitalism, don't you?

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The Buck neither stopped with Rumsfeld and the Military.....nor will the buck end with Mr. Gates.

Mr. Arkin said that the ultimate lesson of the Rumsfeld doctrine is that technology and firepower can not substitute for people The American military ultimately shares an equal blame for what happened...!

Both conclusions by Mr. Arkin seem to place the blame for the debacle in Iraq on the former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and the military, which is simply incorrect. To attribute America's failure in Iraq to Rumsfeld or the military represents just one more failure, by a very bright American, to understand what is really wrong in Iraq.

The real reason that America has not prevailed in Iraq is because of America's convoluted justifications for going into Iraq in the first place. The fact is that America never should have been in Iraq for any of the reasons that were given; there never was a just cause. Folks, when countries go to war, one country has either somehow offended the other country, is in an alliance with either country's enemies, or one country has simply chosen to attack the other either to conquer, exploit or to occupy it. Colin Powell tried to explain what should have been considered, in pre-analysis, before going into Iraq in the first place. And we all know that his sage advice was summarily ignored.

The real reason that America has failed and continues to fail in Iraq begins and ends with the President and the flawed and convoluted reasoning that he used to send the military into Iraq in the first place.
How does a nation define victory when there have been so many lies put forth as to the reason that it entered into war in the first place? How will that nation know when the mission is accomplished if no one really knows what the mission is?
Here are some of the reasons that we were told that we must go into Iraq.

1. America is in danger because of an Iraqi threat given Iraq's, WMDs.
2. Iraq is in violation of numerous United Nations Resolutions, including the possession of WMDs.
3. To bring democracy to the Iraqi people by
4. To fight the war on terrorism
5. To stabilize the region
6. To prevent Iraq from falling in civil war and having some outside agitator to come in and take advantage of Iraq
7. To stabilize the region

If any of you will recall, Bush declared the mission accomplished in Iraq not too long after Mr. Rumsfeld's quick plan to take down Iraq succeeded. Well think about it, if the mission was accomplished why we didn't leave?

The answer is that America is stuck in Iraq because of the fantasies put forth by the President of the United States. America's failures really have and have had nothing to do with the Military or even Mr. Rusted. America's troops are chasing after a ghost! They cannot find it, and even if they could find it they could not do what they were trained to do, kill it. You can't kill a ghost. The solution to the problem of Iraq is not in Iraq itself, the real problem that must be solved resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC.

The Bush lies and misrepresentations are causing Iraqi and America lives to be sacrificed each and every day. To the extent that the American people, Mr. Gates and others recognize the problem and begin to address the problem at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, we can begin to resolve the American problem in Iraq.

Along with Jaxas and many other Americans I listened to Senator McCain this past weekend in several venues. McCain's problem is that he wants to become President and insert more troops into Iraq? He doesn't seem to understand yet that we are chasing a ghost. If he simply wants to go in conquer the Iraqi people, America can do that! But the answer is why Mr. McCain, the Iraqi people were never the problem; they are not bothering the United States and never have? Instead Mr. McCain, you must come to realize that America is its own problem in Iraq. And the solution to the problem has nothing to do with adding troops.

We made a mess of a once sovereign nation. Again, the Iraqi people have not done anything to America? What we have now is a broken and innocent country that America (not any so-called terrorists) broke. The citizens of Iraq want there country back and for all of the invaders to get out so that they can restore their lives and their country. They are the victims that were simply caught in between American insolence and American arrogance!

The only moral solution, unless America wants to further oppress or kill the indigenous people of Iraq using the military to do so, is to get out of that country and to begin to pay to have that country restored!

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Please boycott Microsoft and download Mozilla at http://www.mozilla.org/

November 13, 2006 -- Anonymous guest column from a long time player in the computer programming business:

KILL "SKIL" BILL! BOYCOTT MICROSOFT NOW!

Chairman Bill Gates testified before the U.S. Congress that Microsoft will need to expand H1b visas to meet demand for it's software. Unemployed U.S. workers did not receive an invitation to Congress. The Cornyn-Shadegg "SKIL Bill" is being attached to an Omnibus Appropriations bill in this lame-duck session of Congress. If the SKIL Bill passes Congress, U.S. high tech workers will be flooded with foreign competitors undercutting their wages and professional development. No other profession has been so unfairly treated by the U.S. government and it's corporate masters. MICROSOFT claims that these jobs pay 100K annually and that the workers they need are not here in the U.S. It's a lie! There are very few (virtually no) engineers getting paid 100K per year and the U.S. educates numerous engineers annually who have to compete with the absolute lowest paid tech workers on Earth for their jobs. If we allow MICROSOFT and other corporate powers to dictate our future we will not be capable of having engineers in the U.S. who are not imported under H1b visas. The price of the software will be as high as now or higher even though they will be exploiting foreign labor against the interest of the U.S. citizen. Wages of U.S. software engineers have actually dropped by 12% over the last 5 years due to outsourcing.

If this bill passes during the lame-duck session then consumers will have the privilege of supporting foreign workers over the futures of our own, and the futures of our children. Fewer and fewer U.S. workers have the ability to compete with workers outside the country, where the cost of living has been lower - there is little we can do to control that situation at this time. However to claim that U.S. workers do not have the skills to do the very jobs which we created right here in our own country - is hypocrisy only corporate America could generate. We are calling now for a complete boycott of all MICROSOFT products and sending a warning to all U.S. high tech corporations that you may be next on our list. The exploitation of U.S. workers via the intent of a corrupt lame-duck congress is an outrage.

In this age of push button war, internet political action, widespread government data theft, BLOGGERS, and home pages, can it be right to put this power only in the hands of gigantic corporations and governments, who willfully exploit U.S. workers?

PJ, violated the constitution ? war crimes ?
dont hold yr greath, better yet, lets move on instead of doing the " we'll impeach everyone and throw them all in jail" I think the dems are pretty smart and will ignore this rabid segment of there base.

Thimblerig...... we have been had folks!

It doesn't matter that Mr. Rumsfeld is reportedly out or that Mr. Gates appears to be in. And it does not matter that the Democrats have taken control of both the House and the Senate, albeit the aforementioned could be a step in the right direction.

The problem is that we still have a cunning President who makes a habit out of misleading the American people. The reporter at last week's press conference should have asked a follow-up question. Mr. President, he should have said, can you tell us just how many times in the past you have misled the American people?

Here is Wikipedia's definition of the Shell Game, it sounds just like the game that Mr. Bush has been playing with us, even with the changes that he made in his Administration this past week.

The game should not be mistaken for an honest game. It is not possible for a victim to win, even if they know how the trick is worked, or even if they "accidentally" pick the shell that actually has the pea under it.

Through very skilled sleight-of-hand, the operator can easily hide the pea, without the victim seeing. Any player who is suspected of understanding the trick, or does not place a bet and just wants to watch, will be quickly edged away from the table by the shills.

The shell game set-up and lay-out is quick and simple, so that in the event of trouble, or if they are signaled that authorities are approaching, they can remove all traces of the game in seconds.

I believe that the pea is still hidden, and that it will take awhile to assess just what Mr. Bush is up to, perhaps we should check downstairs in the White House (anybody seen Ollie North lately). I visited DC this morning for the MLK groundbreaking ceremonies and Mr. Bush was present.

I can read people fairly well... folks its not a slamdunk, this man is up to something!

Besides, given today's announcement about isolating Iran, it is clear that Israel still has Mr. Bush's other ear and look how quickly he reacted without the Donald!

Understanding War wrote:
--While everything that was published here was partially correct one extremely large piece of information was left out. The fact is that even with all the high tech weapons and the most intelligent soldiers the US will never be able to "win" another war.--

I have no idea what you are talking about. We won Iraq, and in a matter of a couple of months, not years. You're confusing occupation and nation building with war. We're very good at waging war and defeating enemies. We're really bad at occupying an unfriendly nation, mainly in the case of Iraq, because we made ourselves the enemy through Pentagon policy. I don't think anyone is blaming the troops or the media for that. The blame goes squarely on those who allowed it and did not prevent it because they made no plans beyond the war itself. I'm speaking of the Bush administration and the Pentagon lead by Rummy. The media however allowed the American people to see what these idiots were doing and the voters decided on a change. Now maybe with the actual mess no longer hidden by Bush/Cheney's reassurances, brighter people will come in to clean it up. Only problem is Bush remains as president and he might constrain Gates, leading to the course being stayed. Hopefully Congress will actually watch Bush and not let him have his way as he's had for the past 6 years.

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1424.shtml

Filling a gap in Robert Gates' resume

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor

Robert Parry, writing in The Secret World of Robert Gates, gives us a dark portrait of the fair-haired Gates, 27-year veteran of CIA wars. The mild-looking president of Texas A & M University rounded out his violent career in his revisionist memoirs, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War. Certainly, with a little help from the home-boy from the Bush inner circle, Gates, they won.

Among Gates' many offenses mentioned in Parry's article, perhaps the most pernicious was corrupting the intelligence process itself by politicizing it. That is, turning objective scholarship and truth gathered by loyal analysts into agit-prop that politicians wished to use for their agendas. This legacy, Parry points out, "contributed to the botched CIA's analysis of Iraqi WMD in 2002, a most formidable failure whose results we are now living with.

In fact at Gates' confirmation hearings in 1991, ex CIA analysts, most notably Kremlinologist Mel Goodman, came out of the shadows to accuse Gates of politicizing intelligence on his watch as chief and then deputy director of the analytical division.

The former intel officers said with one voice that the "ambitious Gates pressured the CIA's analytical divison to exaggerate the Soviet menace to fit the ideological perspective of the Reagan administration. Analysts who took a more nuanced view of Soviet power and Moscow's behavior in the world faced pressure and career reprisals."

Thus in 1981, Carolyn McGiffert Ekedal of the CIA's Soviet office was handed the bombshell assignment to gather analysis on the Soviet Union's alleged support and direction of international terrorism. Parry points out, "Contrary to the desired White House take on Soviet-backed terrorism, Ekedahl said the consensus of the intelligence community was that the Soviets discouraged acts of terrorism by groups getting support from Moscow for practical, not moral, reasons."

Ekedahl herself said, "We agreed that the Soviets consistently stated, publicly and privately, that they considered international terrorist activities counterproductive and advised groups they supported not to use such tactics. We had hard evidence to support this conclusion."

Yet Gates raked analysts over the coals, accusing them of trying to "stick our finger in the policy maker's eye," Ekedahl testified. Gates, unhappy with the terrorism assessment, put his hand into rewriting the draft "to suggest greater Soviet support for terrorism and the text was altered by pulling up from the annex reports that overstated Soviet involvement."

In his memoirs, From The Shadows, Gates denied politicizing the CIA's intelligence product. He admitted only that he was aware of [William] Casey's "hostile reaction to the analysts' disagreement with right-wing theories about Soviet-directed terrorism." In fact, Casey and Gates undermined the whole intelligence process.

As a result, the roof fell in on the analysts who prepared the Soviet-terrorism report. Ekedahl pointed out that many analysts were "replaced by people new to the subject who insisted on language emphasizing Soviet control of international terrorist activities."

Thus, a war broke out inside the US intelligence community. Some top officials who produced the analysis fought back against Casey's willingness to tamper with the truth. They warned that politicization would undermine the processes' integrity and "risk policy disasters in the future."

Gates cum Casey also took part in a group of institutional changes that gave Casey more control of the analytical process. Casey asked that drafts had to pass clearance from his office before they would be passed on to other intelligence agencies.

Casey named the ever-ready Gates as director of the Directorate of Intelligence [DI] and firmed up Gates' power over analysts, also appointing him chairman of the National Intelligence Council, another major analytical body.

Ekedahl commented, "Casey and Gates used various management tactics to get the line of intelligence they desired and to suppress unwanted intelligence." Their job became the dumbing down of intelligence facts for political fictions.

Careers Trashed

Gates was soon peppering the analytical division with fellow travelers, so to speak. They were known as the "Gates Clones," according to Parry. Peter Dickson, an analyst who concentrated on proliferation issues said, "One of the things he [Gates] wanted to do . . . was to shake up the DI. He was going to read every paper that came out. What that did was that everybody between the analyst and him had to get involved in the paper to a greater extent because their careers were going to be at stake."

Dickson managed to get himself in trouble in 1983, when he banged heads with his superiors over his conclusion that the "Soviet Union was more committed to controlling proliferation of nuclear weapons than the administration wanted to hear." When he stood by his evidence, his psychological fitness was questioned. Other pressures were applied that caused him to leave the CIA. Is this reminiscent of what Bush has done to the media -- gotten them all on message daily -- regardless of how phony that message is? Those that don't are disappeared, e.g., Dan Rather.

Dickson was also one of the fearless who balked at Pakistan's nuclear weapons development, a sore point then because Reagan-Bush needed Pakistan's help in channeling weapons to Islamic fundamentalists who were battling the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of overblown intelligence about Soviet power and objectives was to create a monster by allowing the Islamic world to develop a nuclear bomb. It made training Islamic fundamentalists in sabotage techniques look like the Boy Scouts.

This corrupt logic continued to wreak havoc: "while worst-case scenarios were in order for the Soviet Union and other communist enemies, best-case scenarios were the order of the day for Reagan-Bush allies, including Osama bin laden and other Arab extremists rushing to Afghanistan to wage a holy war against European invaders, in this case, the Russians."

Also, as the Pakistani's drove towards a nuclear bomb, Reagan-Bush & Company played word games to avoid anti-proliferation penalties that would be imposed on Pakistan. "There was a distinction made to say that the possession of the device is not the same as developing it," Dickson told Parry. "They got into the argument that they don't quite possess it yet because they haven't turned the last screw in the warhead." Ultimately, it would be the world that would be screwed as the Pakistanis developed their bomb and shared their know-how with "rogue" states, such as North Korea and Libya.

The more you read, the more we seem to be the authors of our daily disasters.

Mel Goodman summed up the Gates-Casey offenses to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1991: "the politicization that took place during the Casey-Gates era is directly responsible for the CIA's loss of its ethical compass and the erosion of its credibility . . . The fact that the CIA missed the most important historical development in its history -- the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the Soviet Union itself -- is due in large measure to the culture and process that Gates established in its directorate."

In essence, the CIA was so busy distorting intelligence to sabotage our perceived boogeyman, the Soviet Union that was collapsing under the battering . . . so busy doing this that it missed the very creation of what would become the bugaboo of Muslim "terrorism," replete with its own atomic bomb. Mr. Casey, wherever you are, Mr. Gates, right here and now, take a bow for a noxious job too well done. But is this really the man we want running the Defense Department and to be a key player supposedly in ending the Iraq war?

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

With Bush's comments at the Joint press conference with Olmert, he is, at this time, still mouthing his "Axis of Evil" line. While he has violated Federal Law and the Constitution which qualifies him for impeachment, another big reason to get rid of him is that he is incompetent, and I don't think the Republicans or the Democrats will want Iraq or Bush hanging over the 2008 election. He can be counted on making a mess out of the Middle East and leaving our troops hanging out to dry.
I saw on CNN that Germany has a warrent out for Rumsfeld arrest, if he sets foot there. Any country who signs the Geneva Convention is bound to take such action against war criminals who set foot in their country.
I believe that the Democrats, and some Republicans will support the rebuilding of our forces. We need a large standing army, that can project over whelming force on at least two fronts as we did in WWII. If al-Qaida succeeds in taking over any national government that government goes down. I am not worried about governments or organizations who pursue what they consider their own national aspirations within their own country, or have disputes with neighbors that do not go beyond regional boundaries.
I don't want an idiot like Bush in charge of that force. He is too ignorant, and therefore dangerous.

While everything that was published here was partially correct one extremely large piece of information was left out.

The fact is that even with all the high tech weapons and the most intelligent soldiers the US will never be able to "win" another war. The problem lies with media and the general public condeming our troops for doing their jobs, that being to kill the enemy, its supporters and destroying its infrastructure. We are far too politically correct to allow our own soldiers to protect themselves or the American people. Rules of engagement have to change in order to win this war. Also, who ever heard of a war that we won where we immedietly turn the country back over to its people? None. The last war we won was WWII and they way we did it was we were more ruthless than our enemy and once we had their country, we cut it up and took control of their lives.

War is not rocket science, people have been doing it for thousands years.

When one says that Rumsfeld's transformation plans did not survive the first shot, it seems to imply that none of his transformation efforts were successful.

If that was the intended meaning, that is an inaccurate assessment. One of the reasons that the flag officers have been so upset with Rumsfeld is that he DID succeed in transforming many parts of Pentagon culture.

As one example, someone cannot be promoted to flag officer from field grade without successfully completing a tour with a joint command or with a different uniformed service. This is a huge change, particularly for Navy. It is also a MUCH NEEDED change -- selecting flag officers who are able and willing to cooperate across service boundaries and to think/act jointly. Many have tried to make that change in culture and thinking. Rumsfeld was the first to have any success with it.

As a second example, the new National Security Personnel System (NSPS) is being stood up in most of the DoD. The better performing DoD civilians that I know are mostly cheering for NSPS because it enables people who work harder and deliver on committments to get ahead on a merit basis, rather than forcing everyone into a time-in-grade promotion system that ignored whether someone was working hard and being successful at their job. Perhaps more tellingly, the DoD civilians that I know who are not top performers are changing their ways for the better because they realise that pay-for-performance is likely to be the new reality.

Rumsfeld the person will always be controversial. It is too soon for anyone to try to write the history. History will take care of itself in due course. However, it is flat wrong to suggest that Rumsfeld did not significantly transform the Pentagon, both the uniformed side and the civilian side.

Arkin wrote:
--Let's get one thing clear about Robert Gates as secretary of defense: He is not going to change anything, reverse any program, abandon any plan or stake out any new territory. With barely two years to work, giving how long it will take to get settled in and the dead zone that will come as the 2008 election looms, his mission is singular: It is Iraq, stupid.--

Yea, its Iraq, but we didn't get into this situation with Rummy simply barking orders and military generals blindly following them. There are many in the Pentagon and on the ground in Iraq who were placed their specifically to carry out Rummy's policies, people who believe in those policies and could be an impedement to policy change. So Rummy's influence is not just in policy, its in the people he's placed over the last 6 years into positions to carry out his policy. If Gates is going to be effective, he needs to start cleaning house of the Rummy brigade and bring in fresh people who will do Gate's bidding. If we do not see high level personnel being replaced within 30 days after he is sworn in, I'm afraid we will not see anything change.

You are correct that he likely only has two years and this will constrain him to focus on Iraq, but even two years to turn around the Pentagon's Iraq strategy is not a long time. And then there is Bush, Rummy's boss and the one who directed Rummy. He is now Gates' boss and the one who will direct Gates. Unless Congress rolls up its sleaves and gets directly involved with overseeing Gates I don't see much that will change the "stay the course" policy over the next two years unless Gates takes this as hs mission and stands up the Cheney/Bush ineptness. We can hope, but we need more than hope. Vote more republicans out in 2008.

Perhaps John McCain has given us a glimpse as to what we might be in for. In his interview with Tim Russert on MEET THE PRESS on Sunday, McCain let slip a little gaffe that everyone seems to have missed: In his own version of a Bush-Rove "with me or against me" bit of logic, he offered up two mutually oppsable alternatives: Either send in more troops or just get the hell out.

McCain's version may be more on the mark than the original Bush-Rove bit of absolutism. It seems pretty clear that short of a full scale Soviet type of occupation of that country with massive military forces, it is headed for a civil war. Thus, it seems the only real alternative is to leave.

The only question is how to sell this lost war to the American people and the rest of the world to avoid humiliation. Frankly, I think we are well beyond that futile wish.