Rumsfeld explained today that retired generals were criticizing him because he had modernized the military and they’re stodgy old fogeys who don’t like change, such as cancelling the Crusader artillery piece, closing bases, adjusting our global posture and, oh yeah, totally and completely fucking up Iraq. No, “people like things the way they are, and so when you make a change like that, somebody’s not going to like it... It’s hard for people who are oriented one way to suddenly have to be oriented a different way.” I think he’s trying to tell us he’s gay. Sort of like Vito Spatafore on The Sopranos.
Another of his great ideas that people have obstructed: performance pay. “The idea of paying for performance is stunning for some people.” It’ll be really stunning for him when he finds out he owes the federal government several billion dollars because of his performance.
He was asked a rather good question: why did he offer to resign twice during the Abu Ghraib scandal, when there wasn’t evidence that he was involved or knew about it, but not now, when there are questions about decisions he actually did make. Rummy: “Oh, just call it idiosyncratic.” That’s one word for it.
Gen. Peter Pace made an interesting comment about militias coming under central government “control.” Asked to elaborate, he said that when (and if) there is a central government, it will have to decide “either... to assimilate them back into civilian society without weapons or into the police forces or the army with weapons”. Huh.
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