What We Have

“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” Wilson asked.

A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

“We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,” Wilson said after asking again. Wilson's unit is about to drive into Iraq for a one-year tour of duty.

Rumsfeld replied that, “You go to war with the Army you have”, not the one you might want, and that any rate the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.

Today Don Rumsfeld finally got a comeuppance of sorts from the brave men and women who actually fight this war. The headlines:

*US troops slam Rumsfeld over shortages
*Defense secretary gets his own ‘talking to’ from disgruntled GIs
*Rumsfeld hears gripes from angry US troops
*Troops' Queries Leave Rumsfeld on the Defensive

Ain’t it interesting how, with all the Cabinet members and Administration officials coming and going of late, the architects of this war—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz—they of the Grossest Miscalculation of All—maintain job security?

“You go to war with the Army you have.” But the Army we have is one under the command of the so-called Rumsfeld Doctrine, accurately described by the Times’ Tom Friedman as:

“Just enough troops to protect ourselves, but not Iraqis, and just enough troops to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in Iraq, but not enough to make things go right.”

In Iraq, because of our misguided Defense Secretary, we went in with too few troops, beginning the fight with one hand tied behind our back. This was a conscious decision, made against the advice of our own military. (Whether we should have gone in at all is a wholly separate question.)

While Rumsfeld’s inability to accept responsibility for what occurs on his watch is rather appalling, it is standard fare for this crowd. More unacceptable is his boss’s inability to dish it out. This is the President of the United States, for chrissakes! Whatever happened to The Buck Stops Here? Or is that expecting too much?

Why did we try to fight this war on the cheap? We skimped on troops, armor, and plain old-fashioned common sense, not to mention our own homeland security, while giving away billions in tax cuts to the folks who need it the least. This is the country we have become. The only folks who make sacrifices are the poor kids over in Iraq. These are our priorities, ones we will come to deeply regret.

Rumsfeld should have been fired long ago, long before Abu Ghraib, and I call for his head once again. Let us ask Google:

Results 1 - 10 of about 114,000 for hire rumsfeld. (0.21 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 584,000 for fire rumsfeld. (0.07 seconds)

It would seem that the answer is obvious.

You go to war with what you have. It’s worth pondering, then, what we have with this war.

N/P Pelican Australasia 2XLP