Opaque Lucidity

A Servant Underserved

Yesterday was Donald Rumsfeld's last day on the job as Secretary of Defense. On Monday, Robert Gates will take his place. Gates will inherit a Pentagon at war, not just with Islamic terror, but with media opinion. Although future events may prove me wrong, he does not seem up to the task.

Sec. Rumsfeld was not well-liked, even by some people who worked closely with him. He rode people hard and expected everyone around him to work like he did---12 hours a day, nearly every day. He was in his Pentagon office on the morning of September 11, 2001 when a plane crashed through the walls. He became the Secretary of War that day, a title this nation stopped using after the Second World War because it was too, well, aggressive. But the Secretary was under no illusions as to what his job would become.

Contrary to what those in the media would have you believe, the Secretary of Defense works at the pleasure of the President. That means he takes orders and carrys them out, just like the Admirals and Generals who work for the Secretary. So when the decision was taken to go into Afghanistan and then Iraq, it was not Donald Rumsfeld who cooked up the plans in secret and then released them on the world. Rather, he was given orders to secure those two nations with (yes, I'm going to say it) the military we have.

Sec. Rumsfeld made some serious mistakes during his time in office. I believe he underestimated the strength and resolve of the terrorists in Iraq. If you remember, he kept saying they were "dead enders", meaning they were the remnants of the Republican Guards and other Saddam loyalists. In reality, few of them are Iraqis at all.

There were other mistakes, like the way Falujjah was handled. But one must keep in mind that he was not given a free hand in Iraq, in the same way that Robert McNamara was not give a free hand in Vietnam (I'm not comparing the two; McNamara should never have been in the office in the first place). Political correctness has created many of our casualties in this war, not the actions of the Secretary of Defense.

There's a scene at the end of 'The Caine Mutiny' in which Barney Greenwald, the man who defended the officers of the 'Caine' despite the fact he thought them guilty of mutiny, makes a drunken speech during their victory celebration. In it, he tells the men that while they were planning their lives and going to college, it was men like Cmdr. Queeg who were doing the dirty work of keeping the country safe. Essentially, they got rid of Queeg because they decided they didn't like him and his eccentricities.

Rumsfeld is no Queeg. He's a wealthy man and he will undoubtedly make millions more after leaving his post. He hasn't worn a uniform since the 1950's when he flew for the Navy. He's probably never been shot at or spent the night in the dirt. But he was fired not for being incompetant, but because the media decided early on that they didn't like him. He was smarter and didn't suffer fools (as most of them are) gladly. Thus, they shaped public opinion against him, just as they did the war in Vietnam. When the time came and the poll numbers had to be improved, he was the sacrificial lamb. And in the years to come, I believe we will all be poorer for it.