Political Commentary

Finally! It looks like we can all look forward to hearing about poor, defenseless
Donald Rumsfeld from an increasingly shrill
right-wind punditry. The mid-term elections
have not been kind to Bush’s White House,
and as soon as control of the House of
Representatives was returned to the Democrats word passed down from on high that Rumsfeld was to resign from his post as secretary of defense. Requests for his resignation have been flying from members of both Democrats and Republicans in congress, military officers, and most recently the Military Times group of magazines. He has been an instrumental architect of the war in Iraq, and is responsible for approving of the interrogation guidelines currently used in military prison camps. Now, that he’s out of office, and the Democrats are in control of both chambers of congress, he can look forward to a difficult next few years.To start with, he might be facing international prosecution from, of all countries, Germany. The Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild are seeking war crimes indictments against Rumsfeld for his role in the now notorious prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib using the concept of universal jurisdiction. It is highly unlikely that Rumsfeld will see jail time for any of this, of course, or that he will even appear in a German courtroom, but none of that matters at the moment next to what the requests for indictment represent, so soon after the mid-term elections. Now that the balance of power has shifted in Washington, the men behind the war are much
more likely to face real consequences for their mistakes. Impeachment for the president is now at the very least a theoretical possibility even with Nancy Pelosi’s assurances that the option simply is not on the table at this time. Men like Rumsfeld might have just become fair game.