The Firing of Donald Rumsfeld - A Straw Man Falls

In debate there is a tactic known as the "Straw Man Argument". This is a device in which you contort your opponent's position into a "straw man" which doesn't necessarily reflect his actual views, and then knock it down, thereby diminishing his actual argument. It is a very useful device, and when handled properly, very effective.

The recent firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld smells strongly of a straw man. First, Democrats and then the public at large focused on Donald Rumsfeld as the cause at the heart of all of America's disappointments in Iraq. This hue and cry finally crescendoed in the firing of Rumsfeld and the appointment of another Bush I warhorse, Robert Gates as the new Secretary of Defense. Now I in no way want to be seen as defending Rumsfeld's tenure at the Defense Department. The man bungled his way through 6 years of pointless bloodshed and bad decisions, all the while seeming as though he alone knew what was really going on. He will not be missed and we can probably do little worse with Gates in charge at the Pentagon.

However, the true architects of the Iraq disaster are still in charge in Washington. Bush, Cheney, et al still control policy there, as seen by Bush's recent rejection of the Iraq Commission Report and his obvious disagreements with his incoming Secretary of Defense over whether we are winning in Iraq. The problem here, as laid out succinctly in the book "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks, is that no one in this administration has a clue how to win in Iraq. Whatever "Strategy" they come up with next will suffer from the same defects as all of their other plans. When you are asking the wrong question, you are almost guaranteed to come up with the wrong answer.

America had an opportunity to throw out the incompetents that gave us Iraq two years ago. Instead, we succumbed to fear and re-elected the "Decider" and his cronies to four more years of bungling and incompetence. Now we, and more importantly the soldiers and marines in Iraq, are left to pay for the mistakes of our fear-based decision making. I can only hope that in two more years, America will look past our own inflated terror of evildoers and choose a leader that is worthy of name.

So cheer yourself hoarse that Rumsfeld is gone, pat yourself on the back, safe in the knowledge that finally Iraq will get on the right track now that the evil Donald is gone. Just don't be too surprised or disappointed if in two years we are exactly where we are today, albeit with a few thousand more soldiers and marines dead.