The White House and media are framing the torture debate solely in terms of "should Rumsfeld go?". The hope is that if the people of the US and the rest of the world get into an argument over whether Rumsfeld should stay or go, they will ignore the more dangerous question of whether the war itself should go, and whether the real masterminds of that war, Bush, Cheney, Wiolfowitz, Perl, Rice, Powell, et. al. should go.

The goal of the White House is to protect the NeoCons, Bush, and their planned wars, even if it means staking Rumsfeld out for a public turkey shoot. And rest assured, if Rumsfeld does eventually quit, the White House will then proclaim the torture issue over, protecting their war in Iraq and then proceeding to the next one.

Now, I am no fan of Rumsfeld. I think he should go, but only as part of a package deal. There is no reason to single him out other than he is the convenient cutout to protect Bush and the NeoCons.

The creators of the "Rumsfeld Rhumba" are trying to recast the torture scandal as an isolated incident that Rummsfeld "allowed" to happen under his watch. This is nonsense. The soldiers torturing the Iraqis were ORDERED to to do. They were given TRAINING in torture methods by CIA experts and hired Israeli "consultants". The US went out of its way in the months leading up to the war to secure for itself and its military personel exemptions from war crimes prosecution, proving to all the world that the current use of torture is no accident but is intentionally planned and instituted POLICY. If Rumsfeld is replaced, that planned and implimented policy will continue. Nothing will change. The killing will go on, and the world will continue to hate Amricans for it.

So, don't be a sucker. Don't dance the Rumsfeld Rhumba to the White House tune. Don't get suckered into framing the issue in terms of whether Rumsfeld should go, because it is all of the warhawks who must go, and in the end it is the war itself that must go.