The Donald and His Bloody Ankles

Between the so-called insensitivity demonstrated by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the bogus autopen “controversy,” there has been quite a bit of news about “the Donald” in the last week and a half.

The problem with the mainstream media is that so few of them are (or recognize) real men, that such foreign beings actually frighten them. Real men communicate with each other (and everyone else) without the…er…nuance that characterizes the exchanges between more neutered types. So when the SecDef says something like this to a National Guardsman,

As you know, 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. [bold mine]

…the two men know the statements reflect a mere military axiom (regardless of whether the precipitating question was planted or not). However, the mainstream media types--and, unfortunately, some Republican US senators--who are more accoustomed to weasel-worded lip-biting drivel, squeal “Insensitivity to the Troops!” as if they gave a rat’s hairy behind about any of the troops. (Who was the last US Senator to visit the troops? Probably this one, ironically.) That the factual and mutually-understood statements were also lifted out of their more clarifying context is just gravy. (Okay, thinking of Christmas dinner makes my metaphors more…culinary.)

To add more babbling into the mix, Mr. Insensitivity jetted off for a Christmas Eve vacation to those known luxury spots: Mosul, Tikrit, Fallujah and Baghdad. How insensitive of him! Would that his critics were so “unfeeling.” (It's either his seventh or eighth trip to Iraq since March 2003.)

Speaking of insensitivity, has any of Mr. Rumsfeld’s more "empathetic" critics—especially those that brewed up the autopen BS—noticed anything about the SECDEF’s hands?

Does anyone remember how old Mr. Rumsfeld is?

Could it be that he was using an autopen to sign the letters because he has one of the most common ailments known to people over the age of seventy?

If Mr. Rumsfeld does suffer from arthritis, you can rest assured that he’d never tell it. He’ll just go on ahead and sign those letters, pain and all, for two reasons. First of all, he doesn’t appear to be the type of man who makes excuses for his weaknesses, physical or otherwise. The second reason, however, is far more important: he is keenly aware that, at the behest of his boss, he is sending men and women into the type of danger in which painful joints would be the most trivial of worries. (Here’s an account of a meeting between the secretary and an injured soldier in Mosul, which validates the second reason in a most graphic manner.)*

To paraphrase one of the soldiers interviewed regarding the visit, Mr. Rumsfeld didn’t have to bring his old, creaky, ornery, blunt self to Iraq *yet again,* but he did. (And he and his wife don’t have to visit the injured at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, but they do—minus the prying eyes of the mainstream media.) Additionally, he honors those who didn’t have to sign up to defend our way of life, but did. One way that he does this is by speaking to them as one speaks to an equal: honestly. And, from all accounts, most of them love him for it. Real men recognize other real men on sight and shake hands looking into each others eyes; if only to make sure that neither is drawing a weapon more lethal than an inkpen.

Merry Christmas.

*I wonder what the SECDEF coin looks like!

(Thanks to Powerline and LGF)

Comments

[ron]

Spot on, The Donald was not wrong, I don't know how to post a link in your comments, or mine for the matter, but for an interesting listen, 2Slick has a link to a recent interview he gave to Mike Masters at
http://2slick.blogspot.com/ it's about an hour long,but well worth the time to hear. It covers the armor thing and many other issues from the point of view of a Captain thats in theater.

[thebastidge]

The jack*ss reporter in the first article can't even spell Charles Rangel's name correctly.

Not that I care about the disrespect to Rangel implicit in not bothering to check such a basic, because I despise the man, his politics, and his tactics. But isn't the mainstream media supposed to be better than us ignorant, non-fact-checking bloggers?

[DaveP.]

I'm glad he's on our side. I'm thankful that we don't have yet another in a LONG line of politically acceptable, non-boat-rocking "defense" secretaries. Yes, Rumsfield has made some mistakes- but he has also done a lot more right, and he's never been willing to back down.

[Silicon Valley Jim]

Speaking of insensitivity, has any of Mr. Rumsfeld’s more "empathetic" critics—especially those that brewed up the autopen BS—noticed anything about the SECDEF’s hands?

Does anyone remember how old Mr. Rumsfeld is?

Could it be that he was using an autopen to sign the letters because he has one of the most common ailments known to people over the age of seventy?

If Donald Rumsfeld has arthritis, it wouldn't surprise me to hear some folks on the left claiming that he should resign because of it. It would make as much sense as a lot of what they've been spewing for the past four years.

[Silicon Valley Jim]

wanted to close that italics tagged that I must have dropped, and, more important, to wish you and everybody here a Merry Christmas.

[baldilocks]

Done, Jim. You and yours have a Merry Christmas as well!

[Walter E. Wallis]

Ask Rangel how I saved his life at Kuni Ri.
I am begining to be sorry I did. Shoulda let him freeze.

[Walter E. Wallis]

Any Nickel Oh Trey guys out there who did Kunu Ri?
?

[StinKerr]

That's a story I'd like to hear/read, Mr.Wallis.

[DarkStar]

I thought the autopen was way overblown.

But I've talked with a few military people involved in the Iraqi mess who don't like Rummy at all.

Circle the wagons around the guy, sure, but he made some major mistakes.

Excellent post, baldi. I particularly enjoyed the second paragraph. :)

Jason from Countercolumn

[David Foster]

I like many things about Rumsfeld, and clearly the MSM is, as usual, trying to skew things. However, one thing really did disturb me...Rumsfeld's comment that the problems with the supply of armor were "a matter of physics." No one is going to be a very effective project manager with this attitude. Sure, the laws of physics are a constraint, but getting things done rapidly is really a matter of creativity, initiative, and drive. We need more of the spirit that was behind the production "miracles" of WWII---not a "it's ready when it's ready" attitude.

[j.pickens]

I would also very much like to hear Mr. Wallis's account.
Please post the details.

[JSAllison]

Welp, if we'd had casualties at the level that some in the MSM seem to have hoped for, then there'd have been way too many for Rummy to sign individual letters for and there'd be much bloviating about how many casualties there are. So does the low number of casualties (making the signing a potential issue) point to the success of the campaign to date? Yes, it does, but we'll flog Rummy nevertheless. Just keep moving those goalposts, MSM...keep demonstrating lack of seriousness, lack of understanding of the issues, pretty much lack of everything that one would suppose might be the reason for having schools of 'journalism' in the first place.

[karl]

The SecDef only went to Iraq on Xmas eve because his balls were in a vise. Rummy's did speak a truism:

As you know, 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.

But there is a corollary to that truism

As you know, you go to war with the civilian military leadership have. They’re not the civilian miliary leadership you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Rummy's plan was light on boots and heavy on chutzpah & spin. Rummy, as well as prior SecDefs such as Cohen & Cheney, has long disfavored boots prefering instead high tech toys. A B-2 "Batman" bomber may help clear the way for the troops but in the end it is the troop on the ground that takes and holds territory. 150k troops is way too low to control Iraq & the Iraqis will not have enough troops of sufficient quality to aid Allawi anytime soon. Iraq is now teetering out of control with only an outside hope that there will be enough stability for us to hold what any international monitoring agency would call bogus elections, declare victory and go home.

And before you go off half-cocked, the same story holds true with Afghanistan where we /Karzai only rule as far as we can throw arty. Afghanistan might make it with large tracts of "badlands" where outlaws still control, but might is a long way from certainty.

- k

- k

[k]

I really should have previewed that last one and it for typos, sorry folks.

[The Anchoress]

Weeeehhhhheeeeee - you got an instalanche! :-)

[Ed Flinn]

eBay search for rumsfeld "challenge coin" finds this.

[M. Simon]

David F.,

The Generals of WW2 said this of the supply chain (I can't remember which one )

The first year I ge a few.

The second year I get a trickle.

The third year I get a flood.

We are now entering year 3 of the war and the stuff we were hurting for in year zero is starting to flood the zone.

No doubt you can get a few more of anything real quick if price is no object. You can't run a whole war that way.

The thing is we have no way to tell what were higher priorities than HUMV armor. I probably don't want a public answer to that question for another three or five years. When we are well on to newer problems.

As an electronic designer for both aerospace and commercial eqpt. I can tell you it takes about two years to get production ramped up. I can make you one of anything in a few months. If you need 10,000 and it requires lots of steps - two years to start the trickle. At reasonable cost.

[M. Simon]

David F.,

The Generals of WW2 said this of the supply chain (I can't remember which one )

The first year I get a few.

The second year I get a trickle.

The third year I get a flood.

We are now entering year 3 of the war and the stuff we were hurting for in year zero is starting to flood the zone.

No doubt you can get a few more of anything real quick if price is no object. You can't run a whole war that way.

The thing is we have no way to tell what were higher priorities than HUMV armor. I probably don't want a public answer to that question for another three or five years. When we are well on to newer problems.

As an electronic designer for both aerospace and commercial eqpt. I can tell you it takes about two years to get production ramped up. I can make you one of anything in a few months. If you need 10,000 and it requires lots of steps - two years to start the trickle. At reasonable cost.

[M. Simon]

karl,

I think the latest word from the Sec Def is that we cannot defeat the insurgents until the Iraqi Army gets in gear.

That does not mean that the war is lost.

It just means that things will take longer.

I personally am unwilling to see the mass slaughters we saw in South East Asia when we left the ground and refused to support the Government of the South.

This time if it takes 50 years I am in favor of holding on. There have been far too many throats slit already. The throat slitters are not going to put their knives in their pockets when we leave.

[M. Simon]

BTW karl,

Do you favor holding a reserve for other contingencies or do we throw everything we have at Iraq and hope that that is enough? And nothing else comes up.

Rummy's plan is to not have enough boots on the ground. He said so.

He wanted to make the Iraqis pick up the slack. He wants them to be forced to develop the power to protect themselves. Judging by recruiting efforts for the Iraqi Army it is working. Every bomb explosion brings new recruits.

We will not see the trickle for another six months. Then will come the flood. It is like very very few in the public know a damn thing about logistics - partial differential equations if you will. Time. Delays. Limited resources.

So there is the constant rounds of complaint: "why can't they" or "why didn't they".

Because some things take time.
Because the plan is not the plan you imagine.

[Richard Cook]

Baldi-

I am a Naval Reserve chief with 24 yrs experience both active andd reserve. In the mid to late '90's, especially in the service journals (Proceedings for the navy) it was agreed the next war would be "Come as you are." Especially after the first Gulf war the lessons learned were that the next enemy would not allow us the luxury of time to build up forces then attack at leisure. Rumsfeld seems to remember this and I think responded appropriately. This is what you get when you have non knowledgable reporters asking non sensicle questions about non existent issues.

[David Foster]

M Simon...I understand that the products must be designed for manufacturability, processes must be developed, tooling must be created, etc etc. But still, the creativity and drive of those responsible can make a huge difference in how long things take. Consider Henry Kaiser's work in shipbuilding during WWII...with someone other than Kaiser in charge, we might have had a lot less ships. Or consider GE's work in building and staffing a plant for marine turbine production in *9 months*. In today's environment, 9 months after the 'go' decision was made, the politicians would probably still be arguing about what state to put the plant in...