Let's fire Rumsfeld!
September 18, 2003 1:15 AM   Subscribe

Let's fire Rumsfeld! Moveon wants him fired and so does Truemajority. Considering the White House has been looking for a fall guy for Iraq for some time now, can the constituents help Bush decide? I guess we can debate the effectiveness of petitions but photos like these are just impressive.
posted by skallas (28 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
I am as angered at the treatment my citizenship has received at the hands of this administration as (it seems) most of MeFi, but you know this sort of post isn't going to do anything productive, skallas.

Either no one will comment at all, or people will just get pissed because there is no content, only anti-bush opinions, and 3 links, two directed at quasi-commonknowledgebeentherebeforeinamillionposts sites and one at a jpeg. Gotta have some content, maybe a.....ummmmmm..... new idea.

And that photo is not impressive. It's just a photo. Now THIS is impressive.
posted by lazaruslong at 3:07 AM on September 18, 2003


the sun rocks
posted by shoos at 3:59 AM on September 18, 2003


I feel defeated today, therefore I tend to agree with lazaruslong. I mean, nothing seems to shake the American public out of their slumber, not Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, not Rumsfeld closing the deal on the sale of bio weapons to Iraq, not Rumsfeld lying through his teeth, nothing (sigh).
posted by acrobat at 4:26 AM on September 18, 2003


That was some photo in the FPP, though. Only we can prevent forests.
posted by alumshubby at 4:53 AM on September 18, 2003


That is an impressive picture lazarus.
posted by a3matrix at 4:54 AM on September 18, 2003


Rumsfeld is a symptom.

Next November, let's fire the cause, Mr. W, and hire somebody else.
posted by alumshubby at 5:06 AM on September 18, 2003


Fire him, his wicked and incompetent cronies, and most of all, his boss. Our employees are robbing the till and grounding the ship—what's the question here?
posted by rushmc at 5:11 AM on September 18, 2003


not Rumsfeld closing the deal on the sale of bio weapons to Iraq

Cough! prove it. Closest one can get is that US companies supplied a whole bunch of dual use materials to Iraq, at a time when there were no laws prohibiting such trade and the materials were available from suppliers the world over.

The 1983 visit was about intelligence sharing to make sure Iran didn't win the Iran/Iraq war. (At the time a US diplomat remarked "It is a pity they can't both lose.") Rumsfeld was mildly critical of Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iranian infantry.
posted by ednopantz at 7:12 AM on September 18, 2003


Shrub is but a symptom too. We the people allowed them in. We're the problem.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:46 AM on September 18, 2003


the sun rocks

Mmm, as they used to say "in my day," the sun is far out, man.

Meanwhile, back on our lovely planet: Yes, considering the Clinton impeachment, 2000 Pres "election," and today's California, I start to wonder just what other surprises the Not-so-Grand Old Party has in store. (Betcha at this time next year, the Admin declares we are in Code Red.)

Meanwhile, if you're a fan of through-the-looking-glass surrealism, it's fascinating to observe ShrubSpeak. Pro-pollution laws equal Clean Air bills. Tax cuts for rich benefit poor. Anti-Constitution laws are Patriot Acts. The war is over as more people die. Bush is an heroic aviator. The economy's in the crapper - let's spend a gazillion rebuilding a country we destroyed for no good reason.

The sky is yellow, grass is burgundy, backward is forward.

And I again wonder how even 4.5 percent of Americans could support these Assholes of Evil.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:22 AM on September 18, 2003


By "we the people" do you mean SCOTUS?

By 'we the people' I mean we as a population stood idly by and allowed people to abuse the system to take our accumulated voice away from us. Whether intentionally or by sheer accident any and all of the fiasco election happened, the fact is that our vote, our voice was compromised by technicalities, and then ignored in favor of a judicial decision. The present governor of America was not voted in by the people. He doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He was sworn into office and that's all that really matters. So. We don't matter. We have become the problem, because we have allowed this and other events to transpire, chipping away at our voice and our liberties. Maybe not you as an individual, but we as a whole.

And now there is a precedent. It has now happened before. It can happen again. Those in power now know our level of toleration. Ever heard about the lobster cooked in lukewarm water? Raise the temperature slowly and the poor thing won't know it's cooking to death until it's too late. Same thing's happening to us as a people. As a democracy. As a society and as a culture. Not just republicans. Not just democrats. Not just the rest of us. All of us. One degree at a time our inalienable rights are being steamed away. And our present government's approach to foreign policy is adversely affecting many parts of the world, so "we the people" can even spill out past the confines of what it really means to be an American.

We're letting it happen. We are the problem. Men and women have spilled blood for what we take for granted, so that we can today be complacent and lose everything they fought for, because we're just crustaceans in a sauna.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:41 AM on September 18, 2003


Fine, forget about Iraq. Let's talk about North Korea. Is it any wonder that Rumsfeld can't give a straight answer or hatch a toothful set of policies to deal with them?

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors.

Or is Fortune just an organ of the damn lib'rahl media?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:00 AM on September 18, 2003


Good point, Ignatius.

I'd like our Secretary of Defense to start mouthing off to a nuclear armed starved and angry country with a mercurial leader who has on not a few occassions threatened to nuke cities in the US and who has the missiles to do so.

FIRE RUMSFeLD FOR KEEPING QUIET IN THE FACE OF THAT. WHERE IS HIS BOMBAST? WHY IS HE EMPLOYING SUBTLTY?

Gadzooks, people. Gadzooks.

IT'S DAMN BAD THAT WE TOOK THE HUSSEIN REGIME AND DEPOSED THEM. Now, American servicemen and women are dying so that the French and Russians can't get sweet Oil deals, while Iraqis are dying at a rate far below that cited under the sanctions. Iraqi lives are being saved. Stupid Americans! What an unsubtle policy.

Now, the power isn't on all the time in the Sunni triangle. Shoulda just left things the way they were. Damn Rumsfeld! Damn him!

(This outburst brought to you by the "you people can turn anything into an attack on Bush and Company with about the same bombast and logical coherency as this post" society)
posted by swerdloff at 10:20 AM on September 18, 2003


Rumsfeld was mildly critical of Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iranian infantry.

Well, that let's him off the hook right there.
posted by y2karl at 11:26 AM on September 18, 2003


FIRE RUMSFeLD FOR KEEPING QUIET IN THE FACE OF THAT. WHERE IS HIS BOMBAST? WHY IS HE EMPLOYING SUBTLTY?

Subtlety? how about covering his ass? Where was the subtlety when he was helping a communist power set up their nuclear weapons program? He wasn't too nuanced about making a $200 million profit for his employer.

I'm glad that you live in a binary world where the only options in Iraq were unilateral invasion with no plan for the post-invasion and complete pacification of Hussein. Now let's pretend that's not complete and utter bullshit--and that no third option was ever presented--does not the same simple principle apply to Korea? That you can call people Saddam sympathizers because they think things could have been handled better, but give a complete reprieve to an American Secretary of Defense who set up the nuclear weapons program of arguably our biggest enemy just further reinforces the irony of this statement:

"you people can turn anything into an attack on Bush and Company with about the same bombast and logical coherency as this post"

Maybe "we people" think that if a nuclear armed starved and angry country with a mercurial leader who has on not a few occassions threatened to nuke cities in the US and who has the missiles to do so exists, then those who set up their weapons program in the first place are not the best choice to be spearheading our current attmpts at national security. For fuck's sake, if those bombs go off, does no responsibility rest with the company who set up the factories in the first place? Do you really think that this guy is wholly motivated by the notion of keeping Americans safe? How do you explain that incongruity?

If you can't see this, you are being purposefully blind. Is this driven only by a desire to be a contrarian on this website, or you do you really reject the fundamental concept of cause and effect?

And all that aside, what is the compelling reason to keep Rumsfeld? He has no military experience, and his most significant civillian dfense experience was helping a Communist dictatorship develop the bomb.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:32 PM on September 18, 2003


Oh, how embarrassing for me. I stupidly forgot the most important reason that we need to keep Rumsfeld around: he knows where the weapons of mass destruction are!

"The area in the south and the west and the north (of Iraq) that coalition forces control is substantial. It ... happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC's This Week. "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."

Man, I can't wait until they turn up, and all of Metafilter's Saddamites will be eating crow along with their homolefty tofu burgers.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:59 PM on September 18, 2003


IJR is de' man! Excellent work Mr. Reilly!
posted by nofundy at 1:16 PM on September 18, 2003


Can poelpe pselae sotp uinsg ctiapal ltreets in tiehr wdros? It's hrad to raed.
posted by ZachsMind at 1:40 PM on September 18, 2003


I hope you people realize that light-water reactors can't be used for weapons, because you are all sounding like a bunch of morons.

The idea with the light-water reactor was that they would get this thing going, and then dismantle their current 'bad' nuclear reactor. If the plan had succeded, N.K. would not be able to make nukes, but the plan did not succeed and N.K can make nukes. In fact, the light water reactor never even got built.

Tying rumsfeild to NK's weapons program is as moronic as claming that a couple hydrogen making trucks and a burried motor count as 'WMD'.
posted by delmoi at 1:48 PM on September 18, 2003


blah blah... rumsfield blah bush bad blah blah. pathetic. preaching to the choir has rarely been as monotonous as with the anti-bush crowd. even the america-is-the-best crowd is more colorful.
posted by bokononito at 2:32 PM on September 18, 2003


I hope you people realize that light-water reactors can't be used for weapons, because you are all sounding like a bunch of morons.

I hope you realize that spent and even active fuel for light-water reactors can be used in weapons, and that light-water reactors are easily modified. While it is true that a large amount of the lightly enriched uranium used in LW reactors would need to be purchased in order to effectively reprocess weapons-grade material, it is also now the case that North Korea has a very legitimate reason to buy the stuff. But you knew this, as indicated by the level of knowledge in your comment. Personally, I'd rather be a moron than be pointedly obtuse, but for the moment I'm pretty sure I'm neither.

bokononito:
It is doubtful that anyone sets out to preach to the choir, and I would not agree that that happens here. Here is a thread about the Rumsfeld/ABB situation in which links and facts are exchanged in lieu of invective. It might be an interesting lesson about the value of counter-arguments. Unless one has some position of remarkable status, it is customary to support your assertions with something substantive, or at least with something.

As for whether light-water reactors pose a nuclear weapons threat... That is a contentious issue, to be sure, and it would be dishonest for any of us to say that we know the answer for sure. This paper [or as html], published by Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research, suggests that the worries are two-fold [p. 17]:

1. LWR's reliance on uranium enrichment (a technology requiring tools which can also be used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level).
2. It's production of fissile materials, including plutonium.

The paper concluded that the likelihood of success in making weapons-grade plutonium from a light-water reactor is very small, though not out of the question. It is also worth noting that the paper overall was assessing whether LWR was an optimal technology, not whether it could serve nefarious ends under less-than-ideal circumstances. That being said, the risk of North Korea producing really dangerous plutonium from their LWR was always likely very low.

The paper does say the threat posed from the uranium enrichment technologies is salient:

Therefore, it is not the LWR creation of plutonium in its SNF that poses the primary proliferation risk; it is its reliance on uranium enrichment. Continued improvement in enrichment technologies (through advanced instrumentation and control, robotic manufacturing and operations, and the development of corrosion-resistant materials) increases the possibility of nuclear weapons proliferation. Given the lack of intrinsic (technology-inherent) controls over this proliferation risk and given that reliance on extrinsic (institutional) controls (e.g., through the International Atomic Energy Agency) cannot be assured for 500 years, the LWR fuel cycle cannotbe considered socially sustainable based on this criterion.

That sounds more complicated than delmoi lets on, and certainly infinitely moreso than bokononito's brilliant poo-pooing would suggest.

Please back up your points. The ABB/Rumsfeld issue is certainly not cut-and-dry, so why let on like it is?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 3:47 PM on September 18, 2003


Both TrueMajority AND MoveOn want Rumsfield out?

Wowee-zowee, fellas, now THAT’S what I call a true groundswell of popular opinion!

It runs the full gamut – from the partisan-Democrat-organization-posing-as-an-independent-voice-left...all the way over to the wacko-fringe-fruits-nuts-n-ice-cream-left!

I bet Donnyboy's real scared about now!
posted by nobody_knose at 5:47 PM on September 18, 2003


Well, I'm convinced. Well-reasoned defense of Rumsfeld, nobody_knose. Of course, one could note the success of a recent cause in which MoveOn was involved prominently, but that would just be leftist babble.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 7:03 PM on September 18, 2003


IJR:
too bad nobody knose wasn't attempting in that comment to defend Rumsfeld.
posted by shoos at 7:42 PM on September 18, 2003


Yes, it is too bad. Instead, he just dressed up the old "stupid lefties" argument and applied it to MoveOn instead of Metafilter. Otherwise, the discussion might have actually, you know, benefitted.

I give up on this thread, so now is the time to call me a pinko without fearing the wrath of my wit.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 7:51 PM on September 18, 2003


pinko.
posted by soyjoy at 9:12 PM on September 18, 2003


Avast me mateys, this scurvy dog has been hornswaggling us far too lang - I say let's keelhaul the cur and hang 'im from the yardarm.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:14 PM on September 18, 2003


preaching to the choir has rarely been as monotonous as with the anti-bush crowd. even the america-is-the-best crowd is more colorful.

As opposed to the yawning, jaded, holier-than-thou, above-the-fray poseurs for whom the adoption of any stand requires just too too much effort—they're not only tiresome but irrelevant.
posted by rushmc at 8:29 AM on September 19, 2003


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