The time has come. Don Rumsfeld must go.
Some may contend that time is long past. Those people probably haven't had a nice thing to say about Rummy or anyone involved with this administration for the past 6 years. this is not about that. This is not partisan or anything of the kind. the simple fact is that if donald rumsfeld was in any other organization than this administration, he would have been fired a long time ago.
Rumsfeld, while not responsible for any decision to go to war, is responsible for the prosecution of it, especially in the areas of military readiness, which we are in poor shape because of a neglect of the less sexy aspects of his job like making sure the troops have armored humvees and body armor. Instead, friends and family have had to provide thousands of our troops serving in war zones the necessary equipment that should have been procured by the secretary of defense. Funny how the defense department made the common practice of providing our loved ones with their gear illegal because of the embarrasment, but have yet to actually supply the troops properly as promised years ago.
Our reserves are depleted, underequipped and stretched too thin due to unprecedented troop call ups, extended, doubled and tripled tours of duty. Rumsfeld's comments and analysis of actual ground situations have been inaccurate at best and deceitful by some folks measure. the fact that Rumsfeld offered his resignation to the president and was refused over 2 years ago is irrelevant. The situation has changed for the worse and Rumsfeld has refused to bring new people or ideas into the fold, instead opting to do things his way, which has been a disaster.
The mere fact that democrats and some republicans need to go to the extreme measure of calling for a no confidence vote (which pro-administration quack Bill Frist will most likely use his power as majority leader to quietly crush the motion) is a big sign that maybe the administration should save some face and do the right thing.
Of course, everyone knows that a Rumsfeld resignation / firing scares the Bush crowd as it might "embolden the enemy" because we admitted a mistake. Wrong. What it might do is get us closer to being on the right track to finishing the job and moving back to actually defending our nation against the terrible strategy of terrorism currently being exploited by people who have bastardized the faith of Islam for their own purposes.
The enemy isn't getting any bolder. they are emboldened as can be. They have carried out a successful post 9/11 attack (anthrax) of which we have convienently forgotten about. they have carried out successful attacks in our allies nations (which, in a sense, if we look at things fairly and accurately is an attack against us as well) of Spain, Britain, turkey, et al... and have us spending over 300 billion dollars in a country where they weren't in early 2003 and are only there as a nuicance of a couple hundred today. Meanwhile their numbers are dramatically rising in over 60 countries throughout the world. They are recruiting in record numbers. They are even using converted Al Qaeda Americans in their recruitment ads. If anyone pays attention to the drug situation in this country, they would know how "black tar" heroin, commonly sold as opium (which doesn't carry the heroin stigma with new users and can be smoked instead of I.V.'ed.) is EVERYWHERE and is coming out of the record crops Afghan farmers are producing. This despite Rumsfeld's ill conceived plans to spend more than the entire Afghan GDP (he spent 90 billion a year, vs their 80 billion entire GDP) to eradicate the crops.
Bottom line...he must go. If he was in any corporation...ok, maybe not Halliburton or Enron, but most any other....he would be gone a long time ago. It is only this administration's inability to deal with any dissent, adversity or differing opinions that has kept him here this long. Rumsfeld's resignation would not only be a positive step in making sure our military has the tools to deal with threats in the future, it would create an excellent pre-election opportunity to reach outside of the Neocon good ol boys club and get someone in there who can handle the job. Bush could possibly reach across the aisle, he probably won't, but could. But even going outside the neoconservative thinktank circle, he could give Republicans running for office something to campaign on.