Everyone is focused on the elections. We have done what we could do to bring the truth forward to our fellow citizens. Tomorrow we will do everything we can to try to wrest back our country from the gang of criminals and perverts who have commandeered it.

The various “Times” newspapers published by Gannett papers produced an editorial demanding the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

As we noted here, Mr Rumsfeld has created his own private webpage, financed with taxpayer dollars, to fight back at the rising tide of criticism of his woefully inept, incompetent and arrogant stewardship of America’s armed forces.

Yesterday Mr Rumsfeld struck back at his critics with a number of false and fraudulent arguments. You can read the entire exercise in propaganda here, but we will only excerpt the response and point out some of the explicit and implicit lies. It is a very long document, short on specifics, but plentifully supplied with smoke, mirrors, misstatements, obfuscations, and in some cases, outright lies. Like all documents created by Bu$hCo for public distribution it is a political document, an exercise in polemics, rather than facts.

On Saturday, Nov. 4, the Army Times released an editorial titled, "Time for Rumsfeld to go." It is important to first note that the "military papers" that have run this editorial are not owned, managed, or controlled by the U.S. military. They are privately held newspapers forming part of the Arlington, Va.-based Gannett publishing chain.

Not part of the military. So what? Where is this contention valid as a refutation other than in the cloud cuckoo land in which Mr Rumsfeld lives? As many of our readers know the military Times papers provide a vital and appropriately balanced view of life in the military services, detailing specific items of personal interest, military heroism, promotion board results, news of events at home that involve the families of US troops assigned overseas. We can specifically remember seeing analyses of pay raises voted by the Congress appearing in Army Times well before any official Adjutant General memo announcing the raises. We can also specifically remember a time when active duty soldiers were permitted to “trade” overseas and CONUS assignments with others in equal pay grades and MOS, with the concurrence of all commanders involved. If you were somewhere you didn’t want to be, the Army Times was the place to look for a trade.

CLAIM CHALLENGE THOSE WHO CLAIM ADMINISTRATION OFFERED A ROSY SCENARIO: We challenge those who say the Secretary has ever painted a “rosy picture” to provide his quotes as well as the full context of those remarks.

RESPONSE

Any war with Iraq would be swift and not require a full US mobilisation, says US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

He said war was still not inevitable, but noted that 12 years of international diplomacy had failed to disarm Iraq.

RESPONSE

"It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months," he said, speaking at the American air base at Aviano, in northern Italy.

CLAIM THIS IS OLD NEWS MASKED AS NEW NEWS: The new “chorus of criticism” noted by the editorials is actually old news and does not include commanders in the field, who remain committed to the mission.

RESPONSE
The arrogant disingenuousness of this claim is breathtaking. The UCMJ specifically prohibits active duty officers and EM criticizing their superiors in print and voice communications, either in public or private settings. The only officers or enlisted men who can safely criticize Mr Rumsfeld’s insanity are those who are relatively safe from reprisal.

CLAIM INSULTING MILITARY COMMANDERS: The assertion, without evidence, that senior military officers are “toeing the line” is an insult to their judgment and integrity.

RESPONSE
See above response. Making the above claim is itself insulting, as it sneers at on duty commanders in Iraq fighting a war they cannot win.

CLAIM IRAQIS ARE RISKING THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY: Iraqi security forces are making slow but measurable progress. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have made themselves and their families targets and put their lives at risk for their new country. They are increasingly taking the lead in operations. The disparagement of these forces is completely unfounded.

RESPONSE
The Iraqi security forces are heavily infiltrated by Shia militias. Some estimates have placed the level of infiltration at as high as 65%. The “slow but measurable progress” is accounted for in the daily news items detailing the numbers of dead found each day after sunrise. It has been estimated that Iraqi casualties due to fighting range from 45,477 to 655,000. It is true that the higher estimate has been challenged, but invariably the attack has been made on the figure rather than the methodology. Spokespersons of the Bu$h malAdministration have claimed the study is about politics and not death, which has to be the ultimate in parody. As GEN Tommy Franks said “We don’t do body counts” which accurately reflects Mr Rumsfeld’s indifference to the havoc he has wrought in Iraq.

CLAIM CHALLENGE POSED BY ENEMY IS TOUGH: As long as the enemy is determined to thwart a free and democratic Iraq the stability throughout the country will fluctuate. However, the security situation is not monolithic across the country. Many parts of Iraq are relatively peaceful.

RESPONSE
A cursory reading of news from Iraq for a week’s time would inform any reader that the country is not opposed to “a free and democratic Iraq” but rather to an illegal and incompetent occupation that violates the Rules of Land Warfare and the Hague and Geneva Conventions. An it is true that the security situation is not “monolithic.” It is in fact “perilous” and worsening by the week.

CLAIM WE WILL GIVE TROOPS WHAT THEY NEED TO WIN: This country and the leadership of the Defense Department are going to ensure that our military forces have the resources to successfully carry out their mission. To suggest otherwise is simply wrong.

Failure to supply sufficient troops to perform an effective occupation has been reinforced by the recent revelation that a 1999 wargame study of an occupation of Iraq would require in excess of 400,000 troops. Mr Rumsfeld detailed 130,000. The troops were supplied with defective and inadequate armor, helmets, insufficient ammunition, inadequate food, spolied food, bad water , and even their ID information has been stolen.

In sum, Mr Rumsfeld, representing the Bu$h malAdministration, continues to abuse his position as a paid employeee of the taxpayers of the United States, lying his head off in classic Republican denial of his incompetentce and malfeasance.