nt

Rumsfeld tried to quit, Bush wouldn't let him.

Rahmbo tried to quit, Obushma wouldn't let him.

Would TFBFP (The First Black Fascist President) go full circle and hire Rummy?

Yeah, I can see that... *cries*

And John Yoo can give advice about implementing the new indefinite detention policy. After all, as Clemons writes, he "has quite significant insights into the struggles that the Pentagon and White House are working through now." Amirite?

From the article:

"Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow, but the fact of the matter is this. It will still grow. In fact, the defense budget will still be larger than it was toward the end of the Bush administration. And I firmly believe, and I think the American people understand that we can keep our military strong and our nation secure with a defense budget that continues to be larger than roughly the next 10 countries combined."

Uhhhh ... make it 15, dude.

Career progressives indeed! Drink all the koolaid and then quibble about the details to show your savviness. Clemons, like any good member of the elite, does not question American empire. He accepts it as a given. But empire is an elite project. As I have said before, it does not serve the interests of the 99% and, in fact, steers many resources away from them. So having intentionally missed the larger point, Clemons shows us his "savvy" by discussing what imperial wars the empire should be preparing for and how best to prepare for them.

His choice is, of course, laughable. Yes, Rumsfeld is a war criminal. But also an incredibly inept one. Iraq and Afghanistan were train wrecks that both occurred on his watch. And Clemons is wrong. While both were cast as COIN, this was only afterwards. Neither started out as COIN. Both were fairly straightforward invasions. Afghanistan by less conventional means, Iraq by more conventional ones. COIN came in later precisely because genius war criminals like Rumsfeld completely screwed up. Afghanistan should have been a strike to remove al Qaeda bases and then out. 6 to 9 months tops for the whole operation. Iraq should never have been done at all. But here again there is a point to make. Rumsfeld wanted to go in light into Iraq. The same basic invasion but with far fewer troops. Remember Shinseki lost his job for saying that such an invasion would take up to a half a million soldiers. What Shinseki understood, and what COIN later tried to fudge, was that the actual invasion is only one component of the operation. You have to hold what you take. All morality aside, there were never remotely enough troops to do this. Plus the relatively light force that did go in was not able to secure weapons and explosives that the resistance used with deadly effect for years afterwards even to the present.

Iraq was Rumsfeld's baby and it is truly a textbook case of what not to do. First, don't do it at all. And second, if you are stupid enough to, don't do anything the way Rumsfeld did it. On second thought, Clemons sounds less like he drank the koolaid, more like he dropped acid.