AMERICAN ARMY MUTINY QUELLED BY THE DEPARTURE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENCE
Today he became the former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the American military rejoiced.
Rumsfeld didn't go because he wanted to. He went because if he hadn't, the United States could have very likely faced a mutiny within the senior command of the American Army.
The United States' most powerful generals and colonels wanted Rumsfeld's head on a stick, they got the next best thing. His exit.
On November 4, the highly influential Military Times publications issued a joint editorial titled "Rumsfeld Must Go".
From the Military Times :
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.If Rumsfeld hadn't quit, or been removed, then Bush would have had to have faced some incredibly embarrassing, and dangerous, consequences.
Imagine ten thousand current Iraq War veterans blockading the Pentagon or Congress.
Rumsfeld went because the generals and the colonels and most of the Army demanded that he do so.
He handed in his resignation and Presdent Bush accepted it, literally, within hours of a joint editorial from the influential Military Times publications that demanded his resignation hit the news headlines.
That President Bush has now named former CIA director Robert Gates as the new defence secertary is yet another sign of just how much the president's father - former president George HW Bush - is doing to save his son from the clutches of the NeoCons.
Henry Kissinger is regularly advising Bush and vice president Cheney, former Secretary of State, James Baker III, is heading up the Iraq Study Group to examine Iraq War withdrawal options and strategies, and now Robert Gates will be in charge of the Pentagon.
The NeoCons are history, their doctrine of pre-emptive war and American World Rule By Force is toast. Rumsfeld, however, will not be the last casualty. Dick Cheney will also quit, before he is forced to testify in any number of hearings and investigations the Democrats are planning in the next year. Cheney has already stated he will not testify before the Democrats.
Gates, meanwhile, is expected to begin serious negotiations with Iran over winding down the Iraqi insurgency and allowing the United States to begin its program of near-total withdrawal from Iraq :
In the summer of 2004, Gates and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski co-chaired a task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations that argued for opening a dialogue with Iran.
The task force’s report contended that the lack of American engagement with Iran had harmed American interests, and advocated direct talks with the Iranians.
“Just as the United States has a constructive relationship with China (and earlier did so with the Soviet Union) while strongly opposing certain aspects of its internal and international policies, Washington should approach Iran with a readiness to explore areas of common interests while continuing to contest objectionable policy.”
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