How about Rummy HAS to resign because we LOST the war

[Nimrod2005]

Against the dead enders rag-heads? What nobody likes to verbalize is that our army and marines...etc. are being defeated in this war.

We hear things like you can't win this war militarily, this is now a political thing, we should reposition the troops...etc.

Isn't the bottom line that we simply are losing this fight? Why should we not fire the Commander in Chief and Secretary of Defense?

They are embarrassing - they have the best tools (military machine) the world has ever seen!!! and they failed.

[LynnTheDem]

1. We lost this "war" the day America launched this illegal Hitleresque

immoral Pearl Harbor onto a nation that had not been doing one damn thing to anyone, let alone to us.

[teryang]

2. This is the crux of their unpopularity they are losing the war but...

...the problem is two fold, neo-cons don't understand defense economics which requires that a modern empire have a successul industrial base. Secondly, they follow an antiquated and inapplicable Roman model of success as elaborated upon by Machiavelli and Strauss, that as long as troops are fighting on the periphery of empire, you have a strong emperor and growing power or at least consolidating power. In the defective roman model, will and technology are all that matter.

It is inevitable based upon defense economics that we will ultimately withdraw in defeat from Iraq. The squandering of the national treasury to benefit the relatively few shareholders in the defense contractor and energy sectors cannot last. Ironically, the profligate waste of resources upon unproductive defense enterprises damages our military posture all the more by further neglect of our manufacturing base. Defense is not a growth industry. Even much of their manufacturing infrastructure lies outside in the US, accelerating our economic decline. While defense sector industry can only prosper temporarily off of debt funded government handouts, their down cycle of withdrawal and retrenchment are inevitable just as the British withdrawal from India was inevitable.

Even during the doomed Vietnam conflict we were on a much stronger economic footing than we are now. The negative leverage of fighting in a conflict we fundamentally didn't understand, a long way from home with extended lines of logistical effort (acting as negative cost multiplier), with demographic and geographic disadvantage in the battle area, allowed a purported technologically inferior enemy gave us a sound thrashing.

Now we are weaker and our opponent is weaker still in material terms. However, the opponents have the home advantage, they have the cultural (intelligence) advantage, they have the moral advantage (as we are the aggressor), they have the shorter lines of communication and logistics, they have powerful allies and neighbors willing to assist them drive us out, they have the numerical and demographic advantage in young men of fighting age, they have access to virtually unlimited supplies of weapons (from China and Russia).

While their economy is already ruined and they have suffered physical and personal devastation, they are motivated and have nowhere to go but up. Our economic and political devastation is on the way if we continue as we have been, so we still have much to lose, even though we have lost tremendous resources already. It is a cultural and psychological calculus but at bottom, economic. Those politicians who speak of the new technology changing everything about warfare or giving us some unbeatable advantage, are repeating the same blunder heard during Vietnam and Korea. Be assured, we are losing and the outcome is inevitable and predictable as the planetary movements. It's cost benefit analysis, Defense Economics 101.

For years the conservatives crowed "looked what we did to the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan, we gave them their Vietnam." For years the rest of the world will crow, "looked what we did to the former United States in Iraq."

[bklyncowgirl]

3. Roman Generals were required to fall on their swords if they lost a war.

Of course in Bushworld he has not failed because he is doing exactly what Bush & Cheney want them to do.

[ShortnFiery]

4. Nope, but if he does resign, be certain he'll be awarded ...

The Medal of Freedom just like * other cronies: Tommy "OBL not in Tora Bora" Franks, Paul "What 9 Billion Dollars" Bremer, and George "Slam Dunk" Tenet.

Our only hope is if MORE and MORE retired field grade and general officers *continue* to call for this horrid man's resignation.

Please keep up the pressure retired military?

[Nimrod2005]

6. I hope they trip then!!!

[Ice4Clark]

5. I believe I read some where or heard it that Rummy DID

offer his resignation on several occasions to W but W would not accept it. I will try to find my source. It was a while back, a year or more maybe?

edited to add this:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Live Interview with CNN Larry King

LARRY KING: Tonight, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, why he submitted his resignation to the president twice. And when might U.S. troops be coming home from Iraq? And then, Dr. Phil is back, keeping it real and taking your calls as only he can. They're both next on LARRY KING LIVE.

LARRY KING: It's a pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Sorry we couldn't be together in person, but the miracle of satellite produces it. He remains on in the Bush cabinet.

By the way, are you going to stay the whole four years? Is that it for you? Are you going to carry on?

DONALD RUMSFELD: You know, we never discussed that when I met with the president and he asked me to stay on. My wife, Joyce, however, said -- she said, "You're going to know when to quit. And that's when you start trimming." And I haven't started trimming yet, Larry.

KING: Trimming meaning?

RUMSFELD: Oh, being something other than yourself.

KING: Really? In other words, like sleeping late?

RUMSFELD: No, no. Nothing like that. No, I think she had in mind that sometimes people in public life end up altering their behavior to fit what they think to be the circumstance. And my wife's attitude is life's too short for that, so you're -- either you're yourself or you go do something else.