Even when you read his comments in print, the arrogance and smugness that makes you want to smack the taste out of his mouth oozes through.
And the latest comments from Herr Rumsfeld are just the latest straw on what is most certainly the strongest back in the history of camels. When talking about the most recent unplanned extension of duty for an Army brigade which was on the brink of returning home, he blurted out this gem:
“I’d love to be Santa Claus. I’m not,” he said in an interview with reporters during a flight to Fairbanks.
If it turned out that by December, U.S. commanders in Iraq felt they needed an unscheduled infusion of troops, “our first choice obviously would be to have them be someone other than the people we just extended,” Rumsfeld said. “But I’m not going to get into the promises business. That isn’t my style.”
Santa Claus? More like the Grim Reaper…
This, coming from a man who has the unmitigated gall to tell the troops to their face when confronted about the, you know, lack of basic and necessary armor or equipment told them that “You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
This is a man, who when authorizing torture of detainees who have not been charged with anything (and probably won’t) said “I stand for 8-10 hours a day,” Rummy scrawled. “Why is standing limited to four hours?”
This is a man who, when confronted about the lack of WMD in Iraq said, People say, ‘Well, where’s the smoking gun?’ Well, we don’t want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.”
Oh, but Rummy had a few new gems this past Saturday as well, which are just sickening. Take the following quote, which came from an exchange where he said how the soldiers whose tour was just extended or their families shouldn’t be angry at him:
“These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they’re doing because they want to do it. They’re proud of what they do. They do it very, very well.”
All volunteers. All signed up. No harm, no foul, right. They get what they deserve signed up for, right?
Like these people, who include women well into their 50s, people who have been retired from the military for over 15 years, and even people who are disabled, but were called by the military to return to service back in 2004.
Or the Marines who were recalled after leaving the military. Including, as so eloquently posted by theophilus last week people who are in their early 60’s.
The Army you have…..a hechuva job there, Rummy.
Another reason you are spot on, for the first time in oh, EVER about not being Santa Claus is that Santa Claus would give the troops the equipment and the armor they need to fight this fucking illegal war you rammed down the world’s throat in the first place. But no, what do you, the Grim Reaper do? Allow the equipment used by the military in Iraq to, you know, actually work the way it is supposed to:
Three years after the invasion of Iraq, strains are beginning to appear in the U.S. Army’s equipment arsenal, reducing its capacity to supply its troops with the best warfighting tools available. While the Army has managed to sustain a high level of readiness in Iraq despite equipment strains, readiness for non-deployed units and units outside of Iraq has already been reduced.
In order to sustain the current pace of military operations in Iraq without leaving the nation vulnerable to aggression in other places, the Department of Defense (DoD) must continuously repair, rebuild and replace equipment worn out or destroyed by the war effort, a process known as “reset.” However, normal sustainment patterns have been threatened by the war in Iraq due to the high utilization rates and harsh conditions of the Iraqi environment. The Abrams tank, for example, is operating at six times its rate during peacetime, while medium and heavy trucks are operating at 10 times the typical peacetime rate. These equipment strains currently undermine the Army’s ability to confront new challenges overseas or cope with disasters at home and threaten to impede operations in Iraq over the long term.
Oh, and one last reason why you are not Santa Claus. Santa Claus isn’t real, and unfortunately, the fact that you are (still) Secretary of Defense and in charge of running the world’s most powerful military into the ground – not only from a morale standpoint, but also ruining the equipment, not providing proper armor, stretching them too thin, instituting a “back door draft”, authorizing torture (and was personally involved in torture cases at Guantanamo), and countless other comments or actions that have made our military less safe, as well as Americans around the world – is all too real.
This man isn’t even fit to be a figment of someone’s imagination, let alone the nightmare that he actually is for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are serving in the military, let alone millions of other people around the world.