The Rummy Diary

I listened intently to the secdef Donald H. Rumsfeld's speech yesterday and to the interview on Charlie Rose last night. I'm not a supporter but he has a point about propaganda campaigns on both sides. Iraq is such a distorted norass that there's no way to know what those people think of us and the remodel, but the reporting is accurate in that these bombings continue, people are killed on both sides, and we get the blame for the whole thing while the Islamic nutjobs get carte blanche as the "Noble Savages" wronged by the big bad Americans. What a tragic insult. What a waste of our money. I wouldn't have done this operation for this very reason. That and the fact we didn't have enough information to go in, thus, invited the criticism. Bad move, played out daily in this ongoing nightmare.

The idea that all of our soldiers are torturing the locals is preposterous, but the prison scandals, regurgitated this week, along with isolated incidents like the beating of street thugs, played over and over by the Middle Eastern presses drive this point home to the huddled masses. It's blatant propaganda. Reporting "good news" isn't the answer either since this is insignificant in my view. It's always easier to blame foreigners. Unfortunately we've played into that trap perfectly. And that's all it is.