Wednesday, December 07, 2005
The Epistemological Administration??
Rumsfeld’s SAIS Speech Continued
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld took some questions after his speech, ‘The Future of Iraq’, at SAIS Monday. One of the questioners opened with this statement, “You've become famous for or, shall I say, epistemological musings in the press.” No doubt he was being facetious for this Administration has been the least reflective and cerebral of all administrations and yes I include the Reagan Administration. A quest for and understanding of knowledge has never been a goal or tool of Bush the Lesser and company. In fact their concern is the opposite. They work with an Orwellian doublethink system
not in search of knowledge and truth but in search of the perfect duplicitous Rovian spin of reality.
One of the main Rove-Luntz tactics of doublethink is saying something often enough in hopes of dulling the senses and having people accept a proven lie as the truth. A perfect example of this is this statement by Rumsfeld Monday when he was asked about Iraq, “But we didn't go in there for oil. We're not going stay there for oil. We went in there for the reasons the president stated.” This begs the questions, Just where were those weapons of mass destruction? What were the ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda? What plans did Iraq have to threaten and attack America? What knowledge did we have to back up those wild assertions? Were we searching for the truth or trying to justify an agenda? Another questioner pointed this out when she said, “And there's a comment here, a discussion of the Defense Science Board, referred to as your own advisory think tank. And it says that, "The architects of the Iraq war lacked necessary knowledge of Iraq and its people and that they failed to factor in well-known lessons of history."” What were those reasons again?
As always Rumsfeld tried to pass responsibility for failure of the Administration’s knowledge and policy on to someone else, in this case Congress. To quote him, “no one asked Cheney in his confirmation hearings about Iraq. And no one asked me about Afghanistan. And yet, after September 11th, we were required to go halfway around the world to a landlocked country in a matter of days and weeks.”
He did let something important inadvertently slip about Afghanistan when he said, “I mean, in Afghanistan, the Soviets had -- I don't know -- 200,000 people in that country for year after year after year after year.” So the Soviets sent 200,000 troops into Afghanistan to support a friendly government and they lost. We sent all of 8800 to bring down an unfriendly government as well as to destroy al Qaeda. However we did send 160,000 into Iraq which had nothing to do with 9-11. It was so Reaganesque, just like in 1983 when he invaded the Caribbean nation of Granada two days after terrorists killed 241 Marines and American soldiers in Lebanon. On further reflection perhaps the gap between Reagan and the Lesser isn’t as great as I first thought.
Rumsfeld Transcript
The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.
Rumsfeld’s SAIS Speech Continued
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld took some questions after his speech, ‘The Future of Iraq’, at SAIS Monday. One of the questioners opened with this statement, “You've become famous for or, shall I say, epistemological musings in the press.” No doubt he was being facetious for this Administration has been the least reflective and cerebral of all administrations and yes I include the Reagan Administration. A quest for and understanding of knowledge has never been a goal or tool of Bush the Lesser and company. In fact their concern is the opposite. They work with an Orwellian doublethink system
not in search of knowledge and truth but in search of the perfect duplicitous Rovian spin of reality.
One of the main Rove-Luntz tactics of doublethink is saying something often enough in hopes of dulling the senses and having people accept a proven lie as the truth. A perfect example of this is this statement by Rumsfeld Monday when he was asked about Iraq, “But we didn't go in there for oil. We're not going stay there for oil. We went in there for the reasons the president stated.” This begs the questions, Just where were those weapons of mass destruction? What were the ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda? What plans did Iraq have to threaten and attack America? What knowledge did we have to back up those wild assertions? Were we searching for the truth or trying to justify an agenda? Another questioner pointed this out when she said, “And there's a comment here, a discussion of the Defense Science Board, referred to as your own advisory think tank. And it says that, "The architects of the Iraq war lacked necessary knowledge of Iraq and its people and that they failed to factor in well-known lessons of history."” What were those reasons again?
As always Rumsfeld tried to pass responsibility for failure of the Administration’s knowledge and policy on to someone else, in this case Congress. To quote him, “no one asked Cheney in his confirmation hearings about Iraq. And no one asked me about Afghanistan. And yet, after September 11th, we were required to go halfway around the world to a landlocked country in a matter of days and weeks.”
He did let something important inadvertently slip about Afghanistan when he said, “I mean, in Afghanistan, the Soviets had -- I don't know -- 200,000 people in that country for year after year after year after year.” So the Soviets sent 200,000 troops into Afghanistan to support a friendly government and they lost. We sent all of 8800 to bring down an unfriendly government as well as to destroy al Qaeda. However we did send 160,000 into Iraq which had nothing to do with 9-11. It was so Reaganesque, just like in 1983 when he invaded the Caribbean nation of Granada two days after terrorists killed 241 Marines and American soldiers in Lebanon. On further reflection perhaps the gap between Reagan and the Lesser isn’t as great as I first thought.
Rumsfeld Transcript
The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.
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