Old soldiers never die… they keep hanging on as consultants.
Actually Donnie Rumsfeld was not a soldier – he just played war at the Pentagon, using real soldiers to work out his neo-con, ideological fantasies about nation building in the Mid-East. And what a heck of a job he did! Some 3,000 Americans died on Rumsfeld’s Iraq watch, some 22,000 have come home maimed, as many as 600,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, 2 million have had to flee their country, and the U.S. tab for this misadventure now totals at least $1.2 trillion.
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Meanwhile, the Iraq economy is a nightmare, the so-called “constitutional democracy” that the Bushites fabricated is a joke, the Shiites and Sunnis are at each others throats in a gruesome civil war, our soldiers are trapped in the nightmarish crossfire of that civil war, the country has largely become a theocracy aligned with Iran, Iraq is now a terrorist training ground, and America’s moral reputation around the world has been reduced to rubble.
So, after voters emphatically rejected the Bushites’ war folly in last year’s elections – Rumsfeld was made to walk the political plank. But, wait – who’s that skulking in the shadows of the Pentagon, clutching sheafs of top-secret papers? Why, it’s Rummy! Supposedly, he was fired by Bush, but there he is in a government-provided office, working for the Pentagon as a “non-paid consultant” – a status that let’s him keep getting secret documents.
And he’s not alone in his bunker. He has two military officers, two enlisted men, and three other staffers working for him – all paid by the Pentagon. Word is that Rumsfeld thinks he still has “a lot to contribute” to policy debates over new ideas for Iraq and national security.
This is Jim Hightower saying… If so, do it on your own dime! You’ve been fired, Rummy – don’t go away mad, but please do go away.
Sources:
“Rumsfeld’s transition raises questions,” The Washington Times, January 25, 2007.
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