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
a step forward on the path towards restoration of human rights for detainees.
I’m happy to see the “Junior Caligula” label catching on!
of you as I wrote it. Hola amigo
A “nice” compilation of Rummyspeak, Manny.
to add any other nuggets of poo that you recall. While a majority of folks probably thought about Iraq when they heard the news about Rummy’s ouster, my mind went straight to the torture issue. This could have huge implications to recalibrate our compass.
Now if we could just get rid of AG AG…
Wait a minute, Arthur Gilroy might be cryptic sometimes, but that’s no reason to . . .
Oh wait, you mean Attorney General Abu Gonzales.
My bad.
Never mind.
(Heh, just havin’ a little fun, Arthur)
heh, yeah I thought of that after I posted it, but wanted to see if anyone would bring it up.
You win! What do you win? A bicameral Democratic majority! <cue trumpets>
Well, I was hoping for a pony, but I’ll take my country back if I gotta. 🙂
(I’m in a good mood today.)
Well I’m in a good mood too, so here!
If I was going to give them a pony I’d certainly point the other end at them 😉
I had that thought too, but I only had a picture of this end.
Well I guess we’ll just have to use this picture of a pony tail.
OMIR would say, “from your fingertips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s eyestalks”
Well, actually to His noodly eyestalks, but thanks for the shout. 🙂
and lots more HERE, including this lovely specimen:
ha..I was waiting for someone to put up that truly Rumsfeldian classic(I was too lazy to do it myself). The minute he uttered that little odyssey into doubletalk is the minute he should have been fired and laughed out of existence by the ‘liberal’ press.(ala the Dean Scream)
You could say that quote pretty much sums up why the Iraq war is the mess that it is and was from the start.
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
Mayor
As Mayor of the Munchkin City, In the County of the Land of Oz, I welcome you most regally.
Barrister
But we’ve got to verify it legally, to see
Mayor
To see?
Barrister
If
sheMayor
If
she?Barrister
Is morally, ethic’lly
Father No.1
Spiritually, physically
Father No. 2
Positively, absolutely
Munchkins
Undeniably and reliably Dead
Coroner
As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined
herhim.And
she’s not only merely dead,she’s really most sincerely dead.Mayor
Then this is a day of Independence For all the Munchkins and their descendants
Barrister
If any.
Mayor
Yes, let the joyous news be spread The wicked Old Witch at last is dead!
reminded me of the Dood’s classic Wizard of Oil
How long before Rummy is appointed to the Bd. of Directors of a large corporation, or two?
Arthur said yesterday in a comment that I’m too lazy to find: “Chess”
That’s what it seems like as we watch these people move themselves around the board.
shame on you…oh I forgot because W’s Administration likes to use street fight rules..it is okay to kick rummy when he’s down because he might try to get-up and kick our ass…
So here we go:
1)signed letters to families of dead American Soliders with an auto-pen..a fake signature. He was too busy or thought so little of those soliders he could not sign a letter of greviance to the families.
2) Iraq will be a long hard slog..
is too busy making sure as many detainees as possible are waterboarded before he leaves to notice that Lady Justice is doing the kicking.
My all time favorite was:
“As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want,” Rumsfeld said.
What an absolutely ignorant thing to say. I am so glad he is gone. Next!?
dominoes, now that sounds like a fun game to play
I don’t have an exact quote, but this afternoon at the announcement with Preznit, Rummy and the new guy, did anyone else hear him basically saying that we mortal citizens just hadn’t grabbed the complexity of what is going on in Iraq, but that someday history would make it all simple enough for our small minds to understand? I’m paraphrasing a bit, but that’s what I heard.
the media coverage of everything yesterday (thank the FSM), but it would not surprise me one bit to know that the Arrogance lives on.
These quotes and more also available in AUDIO at the BBC’s Rumsfeld “tribute” page.
the world has been screwed by their policies. George can’t speak at all and Rummy speaks too much!
Here’s another (from James Fallows’ article in the Atlantic Monthly of November 2002):
At a Pentagon briefing… Rumsfeld asked rhetorically, “Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if Iraq were similar to Afghanistan–if a bad regime was thrown out, people were liberated, food could come in, borders could be opened, repression could stop, prisons could be opened? I mean, it would be fabulous.”
that’s a classic one, I hadn’t heard it before. I’ll just quote The Princess Bride in response to Rummy’s fabulous comment:
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”