Dark Star Donald

Donald Rumsfeld is human equivalent of a black hole.

He is sucking up control over federal agencies and like a black hole is succeeding in tearing them apart at a molecular level and scattering them out over the cosmos.

Most human beings seek power for a purpose.
They want to accomplish something, protect something or change something.

The *senescent” Secretary of Defense sole purpose for amassing power appears to be to demonstrate to himself and the world his superlative gift for deplorable judgment, tragic incompetence and inexpert blame shifting.

Armed Forces Gets a Makeover
Rumsfeld’s tenure as the civilian head of the military has been an unmitigated disaster.

He actively deceived the military by disguising a war of aggression as a war of necessity.

The “downsized” army cannot feed, water or house itself without the help of a war profiteer. Our military forces were strung out for days over the Iraq desert waiting for a contractor to catch up to them and bring the gasoline they needed to get into Baghdad.
Imagine what would have happened to those men and women if Sadaam had been the military power Rumsfeld swore he was.

In spite of lowering recruitment standards several times, the military cannot meet its recruitment goals. Potential career soldiers are quitting the military in droves. Many experienced high-level officers have left or were forced to resign because they disagreed with Rumsfeld. At least 8000 military personnel have deserted since the Iraq war began.

Donald is the embodiment of penny wise and pound-foolish. His dangerous frugality has resulted in the costliets war of the last half-century.
He pinches pennies on living soldiers that costs limbs, lives and operational success and spends lavishly on technology of dubious value including Darth Vader like robot infantry.

He steals soldiers from the National Guard because it’s cheaper than training regular infantry. A good portion of the Louisiana National Guard and their equipment were all in Iraq when Katrina breached the levees.

Heck of a job Donald. That saved taxpayers a bundle.

He refuses to include the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the Pentagon’s budget. He prefers to use our fighting men and women as hostages and go begging to congress to “support our troops”. We have the largest military budget in history and no accountability. At least a trillion has gone missing. Donald shrugs and smiles.

While veterans benefits are cut and wounded soldiers wait for care, he spends uncounted billions on bizarre technologies like weaponizing sharks, arming bees and building bombs that are too massive to be delivered in a military setting.
He has tirelessly pushed for exquisitely expensive and useless boondoggle, Star Wars.

His expensive hobby of acquiring lethal technology means that years of training are required to become a competent soldier. The unforeseen consequences are that a military draft is all but precluded. It takes far too long is too expensive to scoop citizen soldiers and prepare them to defend us with Donald’s gadgety.
That’s fine when we are fighting an illegal or unpopular war.
What happens in the case of a real military emergency?

His management of the Iraq war is unprecedented in US history. It includes recommendations for torture, kidnapping, black ops prisons, and suspension of the Geneva Conventions. As a member of the US military, following orders should not result in jeopardy for war crimes. The recent legislation, allowing torture et al is unlikely to stand up if challenged in court. It is both unconstitutional and illegal. It takes a constitutional amendment to change these standards.
It will, however, make interesting reading for the prosecution when the War Crimes Tribunals against the US convene in the Hague.

He has alienated career military personnel and top brass, forcing many experienced hands when they disagreed with his fantastical assessments and autocratic management style.
By treating Iraqis as enemies of the state, he has succeeded in creating an intractable insurgency. Iraq is essentially lost and the distinguished alumni of the military establishment are rebelling.

The Army acknowledges it is at the breaking point and yet the cognitively challenged Secretary of Defense and the preying monkey and in the White House and his keeper are setting their sites on Iran.

The State Department Merges With the Pentagon.

We won the war but lost the occupation. How did that happen?

Traditionally the *State Department manages rebuilding efforts after the military has accomplished their goals. It is their area of expertise and they have a proven track record.

Dark Star Donald fought like a tiger for control over rebuilding Iraq, though apparently he had no strategy or plan for rebuilding in hand.

Rumsfeld won the bureaucratic battle and as a result nearly three thousand US military personnel and several hundred thousand Iraqis paid with their lives. Countless others are damaged for life.
Iraq is a shambles and is descending into civil war, due in no small part to US meddling in Iraqi affairs and the frightening incompetence and stomach turning corruption of the Pentagon run rebuilding efforts.

The only construction projects that seem to be on track are the fortress like embassy and the illegal, permanent US military bases.

Who needs the CIA?
Rumsfeld is busily trying to bury the civilian CIA and substitute his own political hacks in the Pentagon. You know the ones: they are the gang who cozied up to Ahmed Chalabi, and misled everyone on Iraq. They are the same guys who failed to listen to the CIA’s terrorist warnings so long and so hard that terrorists were able to fly a plane into their own building; the most heavily defended on the planet.

Fortunately, or unfortunately the “intelligence czar” and old Iran Contra death squad supporter, John Negroponte is tugging on the other end of the rope, trying to keep the over-reaching, under-performing Rumsfeld off his turf. No matter who wins this one, the American people lose.

Donald Tries Stepping Down
After each protracted lying session with Congress, calls for his resignation echo through the halls.
Donald claims he has tried to resign several times but Bush refuses to accept. It is encouraging to hear that he has tried. Judging by his confused performance at press conferences etc, one gets the distinct impression that he is too confused and his aging blood vessels too constricted to allow him to gain an understanding of the overwhelming rejection of leadership by everyone except Bush and Cheney.
It is discouraging to know that he has failed in this effort as well as well.
One does get the distinct impression that he hasn’t tried very hard.
This isn’t yet “the court of Bush” and the last I heard, Americans still have the right to resign their jobs and if they perform them as badly as Donald Rumsfeld has, they are pushed out the door.

Without a doubt his departure would leave Bush up a creek.
Who else could he get who would turn a blind eye completely and forever to the fleecing of taxpayers by the company Cheney ran into the ground and other assorted war profiteers? Someone has to carry out the Bush war crimes agenda. Who else would try and open up three fronts with the army at the breaking point and the other two fronts collapsing? Who would want to take the responsibility for cleaning up Donald’s messes or be blamed for his many and diverse failures.

It takes a very special individual to undertake a task and do everything wrong. Donald has done his utmost. It is perhaps his only real achievement.

Rumsfeld is like a dark star circling the decaying Bush/Cheney universe. It’s only a matter of time before this whole temporary invention collapses in upon itself, leaving only dust and ashes. Unfortunately too many good people have suffered indulging a small group of lunatics and fools.
Carol DW

*Colin Powell, though far from blameless in the Iraq debacle, was marginalized for the rest of his tenure.
Condi Rice is a weak Secretary of State who, it is said, is dominated by others.
Under her, diplomacy is rare to absent. Her primary function seems to be saber rattling for a bellicose US foreign policy. She is the “stormcrow” of the Bush administration.