While I sound utterly despondent in the last post (at my blog), my mood improved dramatically as this is clearly the first step in major changes afoot in D.C.
In honor of the demise of Donald Rumsfeld, I bring you some of the Gremlin of Defense’s Greatest Hits:
August 2006:
“It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among western democracies, when those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and Nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored,” said Donald Rumsfeld.
The secretary said today America faces a new type of fascism that, just as in the 1930s, can not be accommodated or appeased.
“This enemy is serious, lethal and relentless,” he said. “But this is still not well recognized or fully understood. It seems that in some quarters, there is more of a focus on dividing our country than acting with unity against the gathering threats.”
Originally, Geneva Conventions protections were stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But later Rumsfeld himself, impressed by the success of techniques used against Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led to their use in Iraq, even though that war was supposed to have been governed by the Geneva Conventions.
Ultimately, reservist MPs, like those at Abu Ghraib, were drawn into a system in which fear and humiliation were used to break prisoners’ resistance to interrogation.
“I thought he [Bush] explained it exceedingly well this weekend in his presentation. He is very sensitive to the importance of privacy issues, just as we are at the Pentagon. As a matter of fact, I got a number of prominent Democrats and Republicans several years ago to serve as a panel to monitor what we do in the Pentagon with respect to certain activities and give us advice on the subject of privacy because we feel so strongly about it.
“As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want,” Rumsfeld said.
He added, “You can have all the armor in the world on a tank, and it can [still] be blown up.”
A Defense Department spokesman said last night that the March 2003 memo represented “a scholarly effort to define the perimeters of the law” but added: “What is legal and what is put into practice is a different story.” Pentagon officials said the group examined at least 35 interrogation techniques, and Rumsfeld later approved using 24 of them in a classified directive on April 16, 2003, that governed all activities at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has refused to make public the 24 interrogation procedures.
With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.” – meaning Saddam Hussein – “at same time. Not only UBL” – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.
The Secretary of Torture has fallen. The Democrats, with their new majority status in the House of Representatives, have the opportunity to make it clear to our troops, intelligence agents, military police, the flippin’ janitors for all I care, that the Geneva Conventions will be adhered to strictly. No more gray area.
Make George veto it. I doubt Junior Caligula would dare.
Update [2006-11-8 18:36:20 by Man Eegee]: More:
“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
King: you’re not retaliating.
Rumsfeld: No. It’s not retribution or —
King: Or revenge?
Rumsfeld: — or revenge. In my mind. Goodness no. That’s not what I’m about. What I’m about is we’ve got a wonderful conflict, and thousands of Americans were killed, and they were killed by people who have vowed to do it again and again and we can’t let them do that. We simply are not going to change our way of life. We’re free people. That is what we are. We’re not going to live in a fortress and we’re not going to live underground in tunnels, and we’re not going to spend every minute of our waking days looking around for someone afraid they might kill us. We can’t function that way.
BILL O’REILLY: Let’s hope so. Where is Osama?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Um, you sound like my wife.
BILL O’REILLY: [LAUGHS] I hope that’s a compliment.
DONALD RUMSFELD: If I knew I, I wouldn’t tell you.
BILL O’REILLY: No, do you have any general idea where he is?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, everyone thinks he’s in Pakistan, but uh …
Nine days into the Iraq invasion:
SEC. RUMSFELD: No, I don’t. “Prolonging the war” is a fascinating phrase. We’re nine days into this war. This is not the ninth year. This is the ninth day of the war.
I think it’s important that — first of all, we’re going to win this war. Let there be no doubt. We’ve got a good plan and it’s working very, very well. There are a lot of second-guessers, but believe me it’s going to end and it will end in victory.
No, I do not get into politics at all. It’s the season. That’s life. We can live with it.
heh
Crossposted from my humble blog
