The Army Times demands Donald Rumsfeld's resignation
"It is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”
By AcademicElephant Posted in 2006 — Comments (22) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Here we go again.
The Army Times has an editorial ostensibly appearing Monday but already available on the paper's website demanding the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. I suppose it's time for something like this to happen; it has been about six weeks since retired two-star generals John Batiste and Paul Eaton made a splash by testifying to a panel of congressional democrats that they thought Mr. Rumsfeld should resign. Before that it was Hillary Clinton in early August--and so on and so forth, I think back to mid-2001. This particular episode is gaining traction because the editorial comes from the largest military media outlet, Army Times Publications, which publishes the Army Times, the Navy Times, the Airforce Times and the Marine Corps Times. Eager Rumsfeld bashers, whose hopes were dealt a serious blow by President Bush last week, are exploiting the editorial as evidence that such criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld comes from inside the military (see here, here, and here for a selection). Mr. Rumsfeld's detractors are fond of speculating that he has "lost the military;" the venue of this editorial appears to confirm their worst suspicions.
Read on...
But is this editorial really such an indicator? I wonder. The Army Times is not part of the DoD; it is an independent publication owned by The Gannett Group, which also publishes USAToday. And the Times has not been notably supportive of Mr. Rumsfeld up to this point. No less a source than the "reality based" Carpetbagger Report pointed out that criticism of the Bush administration was already part of an established pattern at the Army Times way back in 2004:
And yet, the Army Times has been consistently and surprisingly critical of the Bush administration and Republicans on many recent occasions, in every instance from a pro-military perspective. Everyone is understandably linking to the Times' most recent editorial, and I'm obviously joining them here, but it's worth noting that this is but the latest in a long line of similar criticisms.
The Carpetbagger Report managed to get one right here. We should not confuse "independent" with "disinterested." Judging not just from Monday's editorial, but from the coverage of the Bush administration over the last six years as well, the editors of Army Times publications have a very strong collective opinion that favors what we might call the "old" military; this would be the group that has viewed Mr. Bush's vision of a transformed military--a vision that the President recruited Mr. Rumsfeld to implement--with suspicion and resentment from the moment it was proposed in 2001. This military looks back nostalgically to the Clinton era, when wars were strenuously avoided and the successive secretaries of defense didn't stay in office long enough to indulge in that "meddling" that makes Mr. Rumsfeld an occasionally problematic taskmaster. A democrat congress that would do its best to bring an immediate end to the Iraq mission and to thwart any additional campaigns Mr. Bush might contemplate over the next two years while simultaneously hobbling Mr. Rumsfeld by tying him up in endless budget battles would probably be in the best interests of this sector of the military. And those long-held interests are what this editorial is designed to promote.
To get a sense of the Army Times' established stance on Mr. Rumsfeld, see, for example, the 11/03 article describing the Secretary's proposed economic restructuring of the military an act of "betrayal." Or its strident call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation over the abu Ghraib scandal. Or the 06/05 "Rating Rumsfeld," which is a thinly-veiled attempt to imply what the Times overtly states in the editorial under discussion here: that the military hates Mr. Rumsfeld (results of the "rating," which had a whopping sample size of 286, can be found here). Or the 12/05 article detailing John Kerry's (D-EU) and Harry Reid's (D-NV) calls for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. Or the widely-cited "poll" from 04/06 suggesting the military thought Mr. Rumsfeld should resign because of the revolting generals (scroll down, there are also results that suggest President Bush is disdainful of the military). Or the 09/06 article in praise of Generals Batiste and Eaton's congressional testimony.
There is a pattern here. And that pattern demonstrates that this editorial is hardly the sea change in Mr. Rumsfeld's support by the military that his critics would like it to be--an impression that is reinforced when you actually read it. The editorial purports to detail military dissatisfaction with Mr. Rumsfeld ("Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war's planning, execution and dimming prospects for success."), but what do we find to support this claim? Just a much-re-hashed and out-of-context quote from General John Abizaid (which he made while sitting next to Mr. Rumsfeld, by the way) and an isolated leaked intelligence report that appeared in the New York times, which are presented as joint evidence that the situation in Iraq is disastrous--and based on this evidence it is surmised that the generals on the ground are breaking with Mr. Rumsfeld. Do you find this logic confusing? So do I. The article goes on to cite complaints by sergeants, captains and majors, as well as colonels and generals, who are unhappy about everything from the status of the ISF to their own funding. But there are no specifics. Who are they? Have their requests been denied? Have they even occurred? Why not substantiate these explosive claims with some actual evidence?
And in the absence of such evidence, why publish this rather shabby little effort at all?
The answer to that question is easy. Politics.
After the President's comment about the job security of Secretary Rumsfeld last week, demanding his resignation is no longer a bold call for a change in Iraq policy. It's not even wishful thinking. Such demands are in and of themselves meaningless; over the past six years they've been made so often and been proven so futile that they've become a cliched code for expressing opposition for the war without all that pesky consideration of the reality of both this mission and the larger state of the military that is part of Mr. Rumsfeld's day-to-day work. By indulging in this little game, the Army Times reveals itself as "playing politics" during an election cycle. Yet managing editor Alex Neill claims that the timing of this editorial on the day before a hotly-contested election that Democrats are trying to make a referendum on Mr. Rumsfeld is pure coincidence.
Hogwash.
The Times has hardly been a-political, either in this cycle or the previous one (see here, here and here for examples), and here's a news flash: Everything that happens over the next seventy-two hours is political. There are no coincidences. Had Mr. Neill wanted to remain above the fray, as it were, he could have held the editorial until Wednesday. But he did not. He decided to go with Monday, and to tease the editorial to various media outlets over the weekend to make sure it got maximum coverage. The Army Times is an independent entity and has a right to express its opinion--indeed, I think it's noteworthy in this context that our military does not control its largest news outlet. The Times is free to criticize both the civilian and the military leadership of the DoD. But it is not beholden on the public to accept the Times' editorial opinion as an unmitigated expression of the opinion of our armed forces.
By choosing to publish this editorial the day before the critical mid-term election on Tuesday, the editors of the Army Times are tacitly announcing that they would prefer a democrat-controlled congress to oversee military policy. While I have no doubt that there is a percentage of the Times' readership that agrees with the paper's political position, and I suspect that these are the readers that tend to take the time to respond to their polls, it seems to me that this is hardly a majority view. I would like to know how the Times explains the 4-1 margin by which Mr. Bush won the military vote from Mr. Kerry in 2004 after the President resolutely refused to heed the paper's "iconic" call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation? I might also propose that the paper ask some of those troops what they think of having senators such as John Kerry in the congressional majority and so shaping Iraq policy. Oh, that's right. They didn't wait to be asked. And that's hardly the picture of a broken and demoralized military that's looking for a change in its leadership.
The Army Times' call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation is about as disinterested and a-political as all the others that have proceeded it. And, judging from this response, this one and perhaps most significantly this one, it will be about as effective. The editorial talks about facing the "hard bruising truth" about Iraq. It seems to me that the ones who are refusing to confront reality are not Mr. Bush and his administration, but the editors of the Army Times. The hard bruising truth is that we are in a long and difficult war, and that the Iraq campaign is challenging. The hard bruising truth is that we have to call upon our military far more than anyone would like to beat back a terrible enemy. And the hard bruising truth is that Mr. Bush understands that removing this Secretary of Defense in the middle of this war to appease political opponents would be the greatest disservice he could do to the military he commands.
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Good points about the Gannett group--and the DoD response is the last link in the post.
"I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like to engage my brain before my mouth." Donald Rumsfeld
To Navy Times, everyone in the Army and Navy knows these magazines are a sort of tabloid rag for the military. Even the most innocuous quotes from a staffer somewhere can be trumpeted. Call it a guilty pleasure.
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us - Voltaire
I wonder if this isn't another in a long series of gaffes by live-in-the-bubble liberals who set out to help the Democrats, but end up doing the opposite.
It happens quite often that even as liberals are admiring their propaganda handiwork and imagining the harm they must be inflicting on their opponents, their opponents are in fact becoming royally ticked off and even more determined to win.
There is another one of these going on right now in the form of Mr. "Never Heard of Him" Evangelical Leader. The liberals are slapping each other on the back, convinced that they have sent the "right wing Christians" into mourning with their, well, stupid propaganda stunt.
Here they come again, this time with a stupid propaganda stunt from their ersatz "military" propaganda organs. But who is fooled? People in the military? Not a chance. Republicans? Not them, either. No, the only people fooled by this are the liberals themselves, who imagine that they have scored yet another Big Victory with their disingenuous media properties.
We can already see the lefties wooting it up with, "See that? Even the military hates Rumsfeld." But no one who isn't already in the liberal bubble sees anything but another coven of lying liberals putting on a dance. It's yet another PR stunt by Democrats posing as journalists.
I don't think these do anything except anger people and make them want to stick it to the media. That is not the effect the embedded Democrats want to produce, but that is the only effect their stunts can produce.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
All this does is give people who already really hate Rumsfeld, a reason to really really hate him. Big deal. It doesn't affect my vote whatsoever.
After all, it's his blog that Drudge linked to break the story. But I guess he's special, because the New York Times liked his most recent book. And because Sullivan is a gay-marriage and anti-torture crusader.
It's yet another PR stunt by Democrats posing as journalists.
What is Sullivan posing as?
He ended up endorsing John Kerry and now he is contemptuous of almost all things Bush.
Yet Sullivan has continued to think of himself as a conservative. And he has been forced to ask himself the question that many conservatives have been forced to ask themselves: If I am a conservative, and I detest many of the things this conservative administration is doing, then what kind of conservative am I and what kind of conservatives are they?
It's notable that in this election season that the New York Times both failed to endorse a single nationwide Republican candidate and also considers Andrew Sullivan to be the authentic voice of Conservatism in America. At least David Brooks does, but he dislikes Rumsfeld plenty also:
The people who are most destructively closed-minded in America are people like Donald Rumsfeld, Ann Coulter and Howard Dean, and they are not exactly religious nuts.
But heck, all things are possible in newspaperland and in the blogosphere -- the Chicago Tribune is refers to The Nation as a "liberal" magazine today. No. The New Republic is a liberal magazine. Newsweek is a liberal magazine. The Nation is a Leftist rag that wouldn't be out of place as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin, if the Kremlin still existed.
You would think Sullivan would get sick of being wrong and having his Fire. Rumsfeld. Now. nonsense so blithely ignored. I for one would find this day in day out demonstration of my own irrelevance a little embarassing.
"I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like to engage my brain before my mouth." Donald Rumsfeld
just think how more irrelevant he will feel after Bush is out of office.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Rumsfeld was one of the big players behind the failed WMD intelligence leading up to the war.
When you invade a sovereign country on a basis (WMD) that later turns out to be false, it kind of makes you look bad.
Has Rumsfeld (or anyone in the Bush administration) ever apologized or taken responsibility for the failed intelligence?
Usually when someone in your company screws up, you find who is responsible, and you fire them. Bush did the opposite.
You're good, kid, but as long as I'm around you're second best. ...
--Edward G Robinson, The Cincinati Kid
but had you been able to hold out a little longer, I'm confident your knowledge-base in this area could have expanded exponentially. It would then be possible for you to debate this particular subject without having to rely exclusively on Known Facts.™
A few points of interest that are seemingly unknown, or that are known but routinely ignored, by the partisan press:
- - The absence of large stock-piles of WMD's does not mean the absence of WMD's.
- - The ISG was unable to complete its mission in Iraq due to adverse conditions on the ground.
- - Less than 10% of the thousands of known or suspected weapons sites in Iraq were actually searched for WMD's by the ISG.
- - Two of the major suspected weapons sites located just south of Bagdad were flooded by Iraqi Intelligence when it became clear the coalition forces would gain access to the sites. They remain flooded.
- - The bulk of the "scientists" interviewed by the ISG regarding Iraq's WMD programs were "in-reality" agents of Iraq's Intelligence Services whose express mission was to obfuscate the current status or existence of said programs and mislead ISG weapons inspectors.
- - Critical infrastructure and most of the leading (actual) scientists involved in Iraq's WMD programs were relocated to Lybia (with Russian assistance) prior to the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces. They have not been interviewed.
- - Large truck convoys and numerous cargo flights entered Syria (with Russian assistance) on the eve of the invasion by coalition forces and those events were documented by credible sources. They were not empty.
So, your evaluation and recommendation regarding Sec Def Rumsfeld's performance and tenure seems to have been based on a false premise and unresolved issues.
History will shed a much different light on Sec Def Rumsfeld than that portrayed by the "Revolt of the Generals" and the partisan press.
I look forward to that historical analysis.
Note: The information listed above was for the benifit of james_sarg, and was meant to provoke analytical thought. I will not rehash the WMD debate in this thread.
***
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
"Rumsfeld was one of the big players behind the failed WMD intelligence leading up to the war."
Really? He was responsible for Bill Clinton and people in his administration saying there were WMDs in Iraq? How did he do that? See below:
"In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now -- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.
If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."
--Bill Clinton 2/98
"Iraq is a long way from Ohio, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeleine Albright, President Clinton's Secretary of State
Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University
February 18, 1998
"No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators."
Madeleine Albright, President Clinton's Secretary of State
Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University
February 18, 1998
How did Rumsfeld make these people say these things?
"When you invade a sovereign country on a basis (WMD) that later turns out to be false, it kind of makes you look bad."
George Tenet said that Iraq having WMDs was a "Slam Dunk." Not Rumsfeld. Tenet was Clinton's guy.
"Has Rumsfeld (or anyone in the Bush administration) ever apologized or taken responsibility for the failed intelligence?"
Yes, the President did take full resposibility for the failed intelligence and asked for an investigation which was done.
But I wish you had made it into a diary entry so that we could recommend it and keep it on the front page for another two days. Because like so many other things in this election, the amount of exposure it gets is never going to be sufficient.
I think we should organize a call-in campaign and/or an email campaign to get this story printed as a rebuttal in the Army Times or, alternatively, through another official channel. Perhaps we can get Taranto to pick up on it.
Please ask the Directors if they'll put their heads together with the other editors and think about doing something along those lines. I was surprised to read -- because I was totally unaware -- that the Army Times is owned and operated by Gannett. Is there a contracting process involved with that?
Thanks Kowalski--I expect the DoD will request some sort of correction from the Times and we shall see what we shall see. As for the publication, I don't think there's any contract with the DoD for the papers; they're independent entitities, and I think they're trying to both express their opinion and sell papers just like any other for-profit media outlet.
"I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like to engage my brain before my mouth." Donald Rumsfeld
So essentially what you're telling us is that David Corn could team up with Michael Moore, Arianna Huffington and Wesley Clark to start a newspaper called "The U.S. Armed Forces Weekly Standard" and it would be approximately as legitimate as Gannett running the Army Times?
...get Jason van Steenwyk to team up with Michael Yon, Fumento and Streiff to start a newspaper called "The U.S. Armed Forcess Sentinel", and it would be more legitimate than Gannett's Milrags. I guess it's all about those distribution agreements, like Rush and the Armed Forces Radio. That he can only get his first hour broadcast speaks volumes to me about the mindset of those in the military who make the decisions on what media is available to our troops.
This is the site where Army/Navy/Air Force/Marine Times can register their views. And, on this issue, boy oh boy have they been registering their views!
As an Army veteran, I feel that Army Times is, in a sense, wearing Uncle Sam's uniform to a political rally. The editors undoubtedly hoped that media coverage of "all the servicemen's papers" calling for the SECDEF's ouster--innocently and apolitically, of course!--might fool some voters into thinking the military was turning on Rumsfeld.
AE said it perfectly. Army Times has every right to take a partisan stand. But, any controversial act 72 hours before an election is per se political. That's the world we live in. I don't care what Army Time pleads. Those editors are not stupid or naieve. They know how life and politics are mixed, especially at this time of year. If they wanted to avoid any hint of impropriety, as AE said, they could have waited until Wednesday. The fact that they didn't makes it VERY HARD to believe that the timing of the editorial's release was innocent.
Soldiers are supposed to be apolitical. Yet, for the past month I've watched an Army sergeant--in uniform--campaign for Jim Pedersen and disparage Jon Kyl. Now, this.
Recommend we address this whole issue a little further, after the election. First things first, though. Let's win this fight.
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
What is interesting is that although these are Army Times and the Military Times, they're a Gannet publication. It makes gullible people think you have are a lot of military people in open revolt against the President, when, in fact, you've got a lot of Gannet editorial writers, which would be thoroughly consistent with USA Today and the rest of the Gannet chain, which I think, if memory serves, does not have a single strong conservative editorial page in the entire chain. The editorial page says it is not intended to affect the elections. BS. It is a political hit piece by editorial writers of Gannet publications meant to influence the elections; not something by military personnel.
Read the response from the DoD:
http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/index-b.html