U.S. Troops Fire Complaints at Rumsfeld By Tabassum Zakaria
CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came under friendly fire Wednesday from troops who took up his invitation to ask tough questions about Iraq.
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"Now settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, and it's early in the morning. I'm just gathering my thoughts here," the 72-year-old Rumsfeld told the troops.
"No way I can prove it, but I'm told that the army is breaking its neck to see that there is not a differentiation" in the quality of equipment, he added.
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Ah yes, a productive session with our fighting women and men.
Now here's the thing about asswipes: they rarely know they're asswipes (indeed, they often believe themselves to be as clever as Cole Porter and as cool as Robert Mitchum) so off they go, saying stupid things that, in a more just world, would earn them a vigorous kick to the groin - and that's if the fates were kind.
So here we have this idiot making cute with the "...settle down, settle down" as if he's back in Washington, talking to our starry eyed press corps (the same press corps that should, to echo Matt Taibbi, be tossed out of a plane over the Mojave as they're being fed into a wood chipper so at least something productive will come of their time on earth). "Settle down" he says and we're all supposed to laugh at his jolly antics.
Of course, that's enough -- more than enough, worthy of an ass kicking because of the thinly veiled contempt it displays -- but like all asswipes he couldn't leave bad enough alone and had to forge ahead into new areas of 'I don't give a fuck about you'-ism.
A Guardsman asks, 'where the hell's our decent gear'? Our bargain basement Augustus replies: "I'm told that the army is breaking its neck to see that there is not a differentiation" in the quality of equipment..."
"I'm told", he says, "I'm told". When someone whose job it is to know these things (maybe I'm wrong but you'd think it'd be part of the Sec of Defense job description) tells you, "I'm told" in that context what he's really saying is: listen, I don't give a fuck. Notice how I don't even pretend to know. No, I'm not even going to show you the courtesy of pretending to be certain about this life or death issue. Where's your gear trooper? Ask that brick wall over there, maybe it knows. Next!
How much more of this sort of thing will soldiers put up with before some seriously nasty things start to happen (well, in addition to the already nasty things happening)?
.d.