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The Meaning of “Remain”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has acknowledged and accepted responsibility for the torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans. Mr. Rumsfeld says that he will not resign his position as long as he remains effective. Let’s briefly review the bidding.

First, what has Rumsfeld accepted responsibility for? He has acknowledged his responsibility for acts that he describes as “blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.”

Second, what are the consequences of the acts for which Mr. Rumsfeld is responsible?

Rumsfeld’s boss, George W. Bush has said that they have placed a “stain on our country's honor and reputation.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says that they have caused America “a world of hurt.”

Terrence Hunt quotes "analysts" who say that the acts for which Secretary Rumsfeld has accepted responsibility are “great recruiting tools for al-Qaida and other extremist groups.”

Republican Senator John Warner says that the incidents may undermine "the substantial gains toward the goal of peace and freedom in various operation areas of the world, most particularly Iraq,"

A “worried defense official” says that they are “a time bomb.”

Karl Rove says that “it will take a generation for the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world.”

Republican Representative Tom Cole says “this was a political and public relations Pearl Harbor."

So, Secretary Rumsfeld bears responsibility for “barbaric, sadistic and inhuman” acts that are the public relations equivalent of Pearl Harbor. He has placed a stain on the honor of the nation. He is responsible for having aided Al Qaeda and has thereby harmed the War on Terror. He is responsible for undermining the goal of peace and freedom in Iraq thereby harming the war effort there. In general, he has caused America “a world of hurt.” The damage for which Secretary Rumsfeld is responsible will take a generation to undo.

Still, Rumsfeld will not resign as long as he remains effective. In essence, he wants us to ask, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

In this case, even other than that, the play was lousy. As Fareed Zakaria has written:

The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been "We're at war; all these niceties will have to wait." As a result, we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure. If the world is not to be trusted in these dangerous times, key agencies of the American government, like the State Department, are to be trusted even less. Congress is barely informed, even on issues on which its "advise and consent" are constitutionally mandated.

Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.

For Secretary Rumsfeld to “remain effective” he would have had to have been effective in the first place.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at May 10, 2004 01:48 AM | TrackBack