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Victor Davis Hanson on Rumsfeld
Have we any memory of a man in a suit and tie, nearly three years ago wading through the din and panic amid the morning rubble, assuring millions of stunned Americans that the national headquarters of their armed forces was still intact and capable of defending us after the mass murder of 3,000? And have we no shame in recognizing that should some congressional critics and Washington harpies get their way, Americans will accomplish what bin Ladenâs suicide bombers could not on September 11: remove Americaâs finest Secretary of Defense in a half century.The idea that anyone would suggest that Donald Rumsfeld â and now Richard Meyers! â should step down, in the midst of a global war, for the excesses and criminality of a handful of miscreant guards and their lax immediate superiors in the cauldron of Iraq is absurd and depressing all at once. . . . One final jarring scene from the televised spectacles was the image of the lone, beleaguered Joe Lieberman calling for patience and sobriety, and worried about our troops in the field and the pulse of the war. This decent and honest man reminds us of what the present party of Ted Kennedy and Terry McAuliff used to be. The confidence of a Truman, JFK, and Scoop Jackson â caricatured now for dropping the bomb, a fiery "pay-any-price" speech, and heating up the Cold War â is now nowhere to be found. This is a vital point, because either this year or sometime in the next decade a Democratic administration may well take the reins of power and in matters of national security it will be far to the left of the Liebermans of the world. And the disturbing events that we saw in the 1990s â constant appeasement of Middle East terrorists and their national sponsors, the emergence of a nuclear Pakistan and North Korea, sudden withdrawal from messy places like Mogadishu, a jetting special envoy Jimmy Carter â will return, though made worse through the prism of the present fury over Iraq. If it were not so tragic it would be ironic to see what the present prescient critics are going to say â much less do â when they confront the hideous reality that Iran and perhaps Syria will have acquired nuclear weapons and with them the ability, without a neighboring nuclear India staring them down, to blackmail most of the Middle East and the oil-hungry world at large. We will soon learn what Middle Eastern nuclear honor, atomic loss of face, or radioactive jihad really means. Most who now damn unilateralism and preemption wonât find their beloved but shaken U.N., EU, or NATO at their side. More likely there will come a day when in exasperation they will call up someone like Don Rumsfeld for advice â albeit in silence and off the record. Go read it all, for it is a VDH article, and VDH is always good. I do think heâs a little pessimistic, though--outside of the Beltway, the Democrat establisment, and the media (but I repeat myeself), thereâs no American body of opinion that wants him gone. More important, President Bush doesnât want him gone. Posted by: Mike 2004-05-14 |
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