I just finished watching the PBS feed of BBC World News, where the lead story was the cockpit footage of the friendly fire attack on a British convoy in Iraq in 2003. This was pretty harrowing viewing, particularly after having seen American Soldiers last night. Among other things the film deals with National Guardsmen put in extremely sensitive situations for which they were never properly trained; and, as far as I am concerned, that is the "story behind the story" in this friendly fire incident.
Rumsfeld may be out of the Pentagon, but apparently his ghost is still with us. Here was the quintessential businessman of the 21st century, counting every bean with the goal of providing our country with a "lean and mean" fighting force. Somehow those questions of experience and training (first cousin to that other Bush administration "priority" of education) seem to have slipped off of the balance sheet; and now the United States has one more ass to cover. It is bad enough to consider the resources that have been committed to protecting Kissinger from being prosecuted for his "crimes by policy decision" exacted against such helpless victims as the Cambodians. Now we have to worry about protecting Rumsfeld from prosecution for the damage he has done to not only our military but also those accidental victims of inadequate training. This was yet another example of news that we were not supposed to hear, and it was successfully concealed from us for over three years. How many more stories of the deleterious impact of Rumsfeld's policy will be surfacing over the coming years?
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