Get Rummy???

Is that the answer or the alibi?

On August 6th, I wrote that

The demand for Rumsfeld's head represents the last desperate bastion of scoundrels seeking to cover their complicit asses from the unmistakably deepest debacle in American foreign policy in history.

I also wrote that these are the voices who are whispering over Bush's shoulder the familiar old Vietnam era refrain,

'Send more troops.
Pst!
Send more troops!

Yesterday, we heard both messages from Neo-Republican, Joe Lieberman on CBS' "Face the Nation." The Connecticut Senator called for more troops and then said,

Yeah. I think there's--three years ago in October on this show you asked me and I said that I believe that it was time for new leadership at the Pentagon. I think it's still time for new leadership at the Pentagon. With all respect to Don Rumsfeld, who has done a grueling job for six years, we would benefit from new leadership to work with our military in Iraq.

Of course, that's not the tune he was singing when he wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal on May 14, 2004, Let Us Have Faith: Why Rumsfeld must stay:

Many argue that we can only rectify the wrongs done in the Iraqi prisons if Donald Rumsfeld resigns. I disagree. Unless there is clear evidence connecting him to the wrongdoing, it is neither sensible nor fair to force the resignation of the secretary of defense, who clearly retains the confidence of the commander in chief, in the midst of a war. I have yet to see such evidence. Secretary Rumsfeld's removal would delight foreign and domestic opponents of America's presence in Iraq.

The cry for Rumsfeld's scalp is the screed of those leaders in both national parties who did not exercise the timely due diligence assigned to their high office by the Constitution; who went along with George Bush's jingoism, "Let's get Iraq while we're at it." Now that the un-provoked, unnecessary, largely unilateral invasion and unplanned occupation of Iraq (UULUIUOI) is going from bad to worse - and worse still - they understandably have buyers' remorse. But, instead of admitting their error on the war, our misled leaders obfuscate the issues with the alibis that the UULUIUOI's implementation or implementors were wrong.

This same thread of obfuscation is becoming prevalent in Israel. Amir Peretz is their neophyte defense minister whose performance has been pilloried as amateurish, overconfident and inconsistent.

The names are different but the artless evasion is the same: stay the course, only fire the Defense Secretary/Minister and (Psssst!) send more troops.