Hagel's No - Win Situation : Rumsfeld & Company ~ THE 5TH ESTATE ASIA

Monday, December 01, 2014

Hagel's No - Win Situation : Rumsfeld & Company

Monday, December 01, 2014

The ONLY question here is WHY is this WAR CRIMINAL still walking around free: Hagel, murderer of thousands of U.S. military personnel in the illegal Afghan/Iraq wars will stand trial with his master Obama

WORLD NEWS
By Dallas Darling
11/29/2014

Those claiming the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is a clear indication of the collapse of President Barack Obama's national security team are suffering from memory lapse.

"And we got away with it!"

Remember Donald Rumsfeld, Hagel's predecessor? He was the one who said, "You go to war with the army you have--not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

If this is true, then, you also go to war with the Secretary of Defense which first engineered and initiated that war.

And when that same war turns into a series of major catastrophes, lasting many years and spilling over into adjacent nations, successive Defense Secretaries will find themselves in no-win situations.

Rumsfeld came on the scene in 1975 when he supervised a takeover within the Ford Administration. Known as the Halloween Day Massacre, he, Dick Cheney, and George H.W.Bush seized several key White House cabinet positions.Along with alienating a moderate presidency, Rumsfeld ended detente with the Soviet Union.

WAR CRIMINALS: Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney

Rumsfeld's coup shifted American policy to the extreme right. It also soured U.S.-Soviet relations, bringing an end to arms reduction treaties. According to Henry Kissinger, Rumsfeld was the most ruthless man he had ever met.

Former President Richard Nixon described him as a "ruthless little bastard."(1) Rumsfeld was about to prove both of them correct.

Rumsfeld licking the arse of Saddam Hussein

In the 1980's, Rumsfeld paid Saddam Hussein of Iraq two visits. His three-fold purpose was to ensure access to Persian Gulf oil and prevent the Soviets from acquiring any kind of political-military influence in the region. He also assured Hussein that the U.S. would do "whatever was necessary..." to prevent an Iranian victory.

During a second visit, he overlooked Hussein's use of chemical weaponry against Iranians while promising billions of dollars in military aid, training, and intelligence.(2)

Because of his visit, Hussein would later feel emboldened to invade his neighbor, Kuwait. He would also continue to pursue the production and use of weapons of mass production.

Rumsfeld telling the American public that 2.3 BILLION is missing from the Pentagon - the day before 911

After the Cold War and during the Clinton Administration, Rumsfeld, with other neoconservatives, spearheaded the Project for the New American Century. They called for a return to Reaganite military policies, including the domination of outer space with a succession of new missile systems. On the ground, Rumsfeld envisioned an Americathat would fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous wars in many different regions of the world. He also pressured the Clinton Administration to take unilateral military action against Hussein.(3) His projected policies made it more difficult for the White House to negotiate with other nations and led to a new military and arms race.

Rumsfeld roundly hated by the U.S. military

Once Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense, thanks to a spurious election, he applauded the rejection of theInternational Criminal Court and Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaties. While encouraging the suspension of talks with North Korea over its long-range missile program, he quietly expanded the role and influence of the Pentagon.

To the dismay of counter-terrorist expert Richard Clarke, he also transferred $600 million from counterterrorism programs to the missile defense budget.(4) All of this resulted in a discredited White House that tortured, the restarting of North Korea's nuclear program, the militarization of society, and a lax policy towards pre-9-11 terrorists.

Rumsfeld is responsible for the torture and rape of Iraqi prisoners - many of them innocent - at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison: This prisoner is seen here smeared with his own feces

After the attacks on 9-11, Rumsfeld pushed for a series of criminal wars against Islamic nations, especially Iraq and Iran. According to Clarke, and despite being attacked by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, "Rumsfeld took advantage of a national tragedy to promote his agenda in Iraq."(5) He also envisioned an Iraq without Hussein, imagining a new regime aligned with U.S. interests. "It would change everything in the region and beyond it," said Rumsfeld, and "it would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about."(6) Kissinger's and Nixon's warnings came true. Rumsfeld ruthlessly manipulated 9-11 for his own political agenda. He bastardized 9-11 by launching the invasion of Iraq.

Hagel, seen here with fellow mass-murderer and traitor Martin Dempsey follows in Rumsfeld's footsteps on the way to prison for war crimes, murder and abandonment of U.S. military personnel

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Rumsfeld visited the nation and jubilantly proclaimed (prematurely) "unlike many armies in the world, you came not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate and the Iraqi people know this..."(7) But many Iraqis would never know Rumsfeld's so-called promises of liberation. Millions would instead be killed, along with millions more having to endure as refugees.

Rumsfeld's narrow vision, his failure of imagination, had also planned regime changes in Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, the PLO, and Libya.

War criminals Rice, Bush, Rumsfeld by far worse than Saddam

In other words, the military debacles now occurring in these countries had already been planned. The die had been cast. Hagel was in a no-win situation. Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld caused more damage than Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

He as well proved to be more dangerous than Russia, Iran, or North Korea. (U.S.-Russian relations deteriorated over Rumsfeld's "Rods from God," a desire to deploy weapons in space.) By doubling military spending during the Bush years, by ensuring that the Pentagon usurped the role of the State Department in foreign policy, and by trying to dominate the world through organized violence instead of the free exchange of ideas and democratic values, he has greatly damaged the U.S. He has also caused other nations to distrust America, to view it as an illegitimate superpower and leader of the "free world."

Even more so, the wars and policies Rumsfeld envisioned and initiated have led to grave and unintended consequences. While serving as a magnet for Islamic fighters and defenders, they have threatened the stability of entire regions, even humanity. They have led to larger insurgencies and retaliatory terrorist attacks against American hubris. This is the real transition that has occurred, and will occur, one that the U.S. will never recover from. American hegemony will continue to retreat and decline. Hagel, as Secretary of Defense, merely found himself in a no-win situation. His removal will be replayed again and again as future Secretaries of Defense also face no-win situations.

As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld neglected several principles of war.

First, a nation should only resort to war if it is reasonable and defensive, and if it has a realistic prospect of success.

Second, there is no point in sacrificing lives and resources in vain. This leads to moral and political bankruptcy and economic hardships.

Third, a balance should also exist between the desired end and the likely consequences.

Fourth, a Defense Secretary should emphasize negotiations and compromise versus preemptive engagements which will result in too few available troops and a overstretched military. Because of Rumsfeld events have spiraled out of control. America now faces stalemates on many fronts.

From Iraq to Iran, Russia, North Korea and the Islamic State, Rumsfeld left behind too many military debacles and quagmires. Democracy-something he never quite understood nor cared about-wasn't messy. But his militant policies and narrow political views were. Consequently, Rumsfeld was in good company with millions of other true believers, all sharing the same ideology. Many are still in the highest echelons of government. Because of Rumsfeld & Company, the national security collapse occurred years before Hagel. It will be many years before a Secretary of Defense, even a president, faces a win-win situation. Rumsfeld & Company hastened America's collapse and retreat from the world.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.

Notes:

(1) Stone, Oliver and Peter Kuznick. The Untold History Of The United States. New York, New York: Gallery Books, 2012., p. 399.

(2) Ibid., p. 439.

(3) Ibid., p. 490.

(4) Ibid., p. 497.

(5) Ibid., p. 503.

(6) Ibid., p. 513.

(7) Ibid., p. 525.

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