Much has been said about that memo of Rummy’s that leaked the other day. Here’s my two cents:
Questions about how exactly that memo got out aside.. if the intent of leaking the memo was as I suspect, to discredit the administration’s policy on Iraq and on terrorism in general, it failed.. miserably so.
The left has tried in the past to compare our efforts in Vietnam to our more current situation in Iraq. At the risk of giving credibility to such nonsense, I’ll allow for that comparison for a moment.
Consider the Johnson administration, and Robert MacNamara, and their refusal to do any of the self-questioning that Rumsfeld is clearly doing in that memo. The difference, I think is not that the position of our actions in Iraq are any more questionable, but rather that Rummy is open-minded enough to entertain such questions as a part of the operating process for himself and his teams. A plus, in my book. If viewed on that level, I can’t imagine that even liberals will find fault with it. Thing is, I doubt it will be viewed at that level by his detractors on the left. Liberals will take it as ‘proof’ that even he doesn’t trust the policy.
But if I were Hamas, PLO, ElQueida, or any of the other scum, I’d become quite worried by this memo, when I saw the degree of resolve in solving this issue permanently. I think the (admittedly unintentional) message for the American people from this memo is that this problem will be solved… that this administration is committed to that end.
That alone will make liberals nervous, I think.
