Is McCain smarter than Donald Rumsfeld? |
Do you think that McCain is smarter than Donald Rumsfeld? Do you think McCain would make a better president than Rumsfeld? Did McCain prove that he was a better strategist than Rumsfeld, and that that proves that McCain would make a better president than Rumsfeld?
McCain said; “I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.”
Rumsfeld > McCain:
Reasons to agree:
1. Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic scholarships.
2. McCain graduated 894th out of 899 (6th from the bottom) from the Naval Academy.
3. Rumsfeld helped reform the military in a way that John McCain never could have.
Reasons to disagree:
1. McCain wanted more troops in Iraq. Rumsfeld wanted to have fewer troops. The surge worked, which proves that McCain is a better strategist than Rumsfeld.
What mistakes were made in Iraq? What have we learned? Here are some of the mistakes that were made. What would you add to the list of things that we could have done better:
1. Shortage of soldiers
2. De-Ba’athification,
3. Disbanding the Iraqi military,
4. Lack of body-armor,
5. Leaving the ammo-dumps unprotected,
6. Falluja,
7. Abu Ghraib,
8. Haditha,
9. Destruction of stuff from the Iraq Museums.
10. Securing the oil fields first, but not securing other stuff.
11. Letting people riot.
Which of these were actual mistakes? Which were unavoidable? What was done right? Mitt Romney is brilliant at strategy. A couple of his kids have MBAs. I hope they go to work on figuring out the cause and solution to the problems in Iraq. I wish I could have the kind of conversations that he is able to have with smart people, but you will have to do. What books would you recommend that Romney and I read, now that we both have a little more spare time?
I think Iraq’s problems with De-Ba’athification can be used to show why we need people like Romney. People rejected Romney because he was not pure. People were rejected from working in the new Iraq Government, because they had been members of the bath party. They were not pure. So they put a whole bunch of people without any experience in charge of the government (think Barak O-Bambi). The new government was falling apart, and people were angry in the streets, not because the people running the government were bad people. Arguments could be made that they were better than the members of the ba’ath party. But people were angry in the streets because the government was not competent.
That is the best argument for Romney: Romney showed in many situations that he was able to fix problems. He was competent.
Maybe comparing Romney to the ba’ath party isn’t a good idea, but who cares? We no longer have to worry about saying something that will embarrass the campaign. There is no campaign. So say whatever you want.
