First, let me start out with this interesting fact. The latest CNN Poll says that 30% of the country believes George Bush should be impeached. The latest CBS News-New York Times Poll has George Bush's approval rating at 36%. There are almost as many people in the country that want George Bush impeached as people who approve of his job performance. It's only a matter of time before the impeachment number catches up to the job approval number.
These are awful numbers. And they indicate a public that is beginning to get comfortable with the idea of firing the President.
Now, on to the worst Secretary of Defense this country has ever had. Today we found out that Donald Rumsfeld said before the war that he would fire anyone who even dared to mention post war planning in Iraq. That has to go down in history as the single largest act of incompetence by any Secretary of Defense.
I would say that it is the worst act of incompetence by any United States government official ever, except that there are several Bush officials with dogs in that hunt. The other reason I hesitate to label it as such is because I'm not convinced it was incompetence.
Brig. General Mark Scheid, who was one of the five or six original war planners at Central Command, has come out and explained why the Secretary of Defense didn't want any post war planning. It seems clear from Scheid's comments that Rumsfeld had a specific intent in preventing post war planning - make sure we go to war no matter what!
Please read all of Brigadier General Scheid's comments for yourself here. But this is the most important part:
Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.
Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.
"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.
"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."
In other words, we are going to go to this war no matter what the consequences are, no matter what the American people think - and we'll keep the truth away from them if we have to.
Does any reasonable person still have any doubt that these guys lied us into this war? How can you? How can any rational person read that (along with everything else we have read) and still think they were simply acting based on the best evidence they had?
My God, here's a clear admission that Secretary Rumsfeld blocked any planning which might bring out information that could prevent the war. Only the pathetically self-deluded can still hold on to the idea that the Bush administration didn't really want to go to war, that war was thrust upon them by the intelligence and the evidence.
At this point, we all seemed to have gotten used to the idea that our president lied to us about why we needed to go to war and invaded a country that had nothing to do with attacking us. If any of you believe the Republicans wouldn't have tried to impeach Clinton over that, there are no words to describe how disingenuous or gullible you are.
But let's put that aside for now and focus on this: 1. We have a Secretary of Defense who has gotten us mired in a war in Iraq for the last three and a half years -- at the cost of thousands of American dead, tens of thousands American injured, and hundred of thousands of Iraqi dead. 2. One of the main reasons we are in this mess is because he specifically ordered that there be no post war planning. 3. The President absolutely refuses to fire him or change direction.
This cannot stand. This is not the straw that broke the camel's back. This is the two by four that smashed the poor camel's head in. You are looking at the deadest camel in history and President Bush is still trying to ride him to victory.
The President leaves us with no recourse. By refusing to fire the man who purposely did not allow post war planning, he is endorsing that decision. The President is telling us that it was a good idea to not plan for what would happen after the initial combat operations in Iraq. That is beyond unconscionable. If he will not fire this grotesquely incompetent and purposely malicious Secretary of Defense, we must fire the President.
I am not saying this for political reasons. In fact, I think it's a bad political idea to start talking about impeachment two months before an election. But what else are we supposed to do?
Every day more American fighting men and women are killed in Iraq, more Iraqi civilians are murdered by all sides of the civil war, more terrorism takes place throughout the world - and we have a president who refuses to fire the guy in charge. Are we supposed to sit by and watch all those American kids die because we thought it might be bad form?
Are we so vain that we will not change our leader simply because it makes us look bad, even when we know it's causing the deaths of so many more people? Is there anyone left in the country who honestly believes this administration knows what it's doing in Iraq?
If their incompetence (again it's kind to call it that, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt for the purpose of this argument and simply assume they are the most incompetent people we have ever had in office) is getting people killed, can you really live with yourself if you didn't support some sort of change?
And if the President will not change on his own, then perhaps change must be thrust upon him. I'm not sure, we have any other choice. If the President doesn't fire his Secretary of Defense, we must consider firing the President.