No, I don’t think so. But I do think that it is the wrong word for describing the soon-to-be-former Secretary of Defense. Scapegoats are people that get blamed for the mistakes of others. While it was W’s call to take down Saddam and by proxy take over Iraq he’s not the one that was making the decisions on how to actually fight the war. Those were made by Rumsfeld. He’s taking the fall for his own mistakes. That’s called justice, not scapegoating.
The war itself isn’t going away anytime soon. No one realistically expects that to happen, no matter how good that speech sounded on the campaign trail. The Iraqis understand we can’t walk away from them with out creating a new South Vietnam and I doubt our national psyche could stand that. The dismissal of the SEC DEF should not be a sign that W is ready to cave in to the new party in power. This is only an adjustment of how to do business, nothing more or less.
Iraq deserves a chance to live a life that is at least a level or two freer than has been the case for the past couple of decades. The Middle East needs several democratic nations to take hold and thrive. If we are going to be the world’s police force then it was up to us to give them that chance.
We should have been more honest with ourselves about why we were doing it and what it would take to finish the job. But really, does the Army being at war in Iraq even effect your personal world? And since most of you would have to answer no to that question, why did so many elections get won/lost because of it?
Rummy made an ass-load of mistakes in how to run the war. Right from the start he was busy screwing the damned thing up by not listening to the experts on his staff. I do think that he was the right guy when he first took office to make some changes in the Pentagon. There are too many levels of bureaucracy and too many people living off of the government tit in that building. From the start he wanted to streamline things and kill off some sacred cows. Those were good ideas and the nation would have been better off in the long run if he had had the chance to implement them. He was the wrong guy to run a war.
Let’s all agree to that and move on. The guys in digital camouflage deserve that from us.