The price of appeasement

I have no idea why Dafydd ab Hugh doesn't have his own blog. His thoughts are certainly worth blogging, and he's a longtime commenter on Patterico's blog as well as Captain Ed's and others. Today he sent email to Captain Ed, which Ed posted to his blog (with permission, of course.) I think Dafydd distills the argument about replacing Rumsfeld to its essence.

Point-missing alert: if the Donald were to die or resign for, say, health reasons, Bush would be free to pick someone who was basically a Rumsfeld clone, insensitive enough to push critical reform through, even if it ends the careers of fine people. I don't know if such a person exists right now, but Bush would have a free hand to seek him (or her), and the war -- which depends upon us reforming how we think militarily -- would remain winnable.

But if Rumsfeld were forced out via the death of a thousand paper cuts, especially if Republican senators succeeded in ousting him, then his successor would be forced upon Bush by those same rebellious senators: the president would have to name someone who would look to McCain for confirmation every time Bush gave an order. Everything would change.

Forget about reforming the military; that's the main, underlying point of contention here, though nobody on the dump-Rummy side will admit it. They want to go back to what is familiar to them... to massed armies ponderously waddled into place -- a tactic that works well when dealing with a mass invasion of one country by another but is utterly helpless in the situation we're in now and likely will remain in for the forseeable future: fighting a war against stateless terrorists who swarm like angry ants first at one spot then another, who have no territory to conquer, no real command and control structure to disrupt, who consist of a series of disconnected, autonomous cells spread across three quarters of the globe, linked only by shared ideology and the internet.

This is precisely the problem. Rumsfeld is shaking up the status quo, and a lot of people don't like that, including some Senators.

Another one of Ed's commenters posed a similar thought the other day.

Sheesh, Rummy must have REALLY shaken up some sweetheart deals with defense contractors. Or cut some 'entitled' pork from some Senator's districts. The long knives are out now.

We're in a life-or-death struggle with militant Islam, who are only one or two security screw-ups from popping a nuke in NYC, and some people are trying to get rid of a kick-ass SecDef for politcal reasons.

He's not as touchy-feely as many Leftie p*ssies would like, and now some mercinary Senators are joining the chorus.

So what do you want from the SecDef? Change that transforms the military and ensures success in the war on terror? Or the status quo - lots of money spent on contracts that fatten the Senators' constituents but do nothing to protect America from disaster?

If you still think Rumsfeld needs to go, then name one person who could replace him and do the same job that he's doing despite the protests of the status quo crowd. Fortunately, Bush is smart enough, stubborn enough and fearless enough to keep Rumsfeld and ignore all the nattering nabobs.