Rummy went to the National Press Club yesterday, and answered some questions. Am I the only one that found his responses kind of lame?
Check out the Defense Secretary on the Pentagon’s efforts to keep tabs on home-grown peace groups, for example. First, he says he didn’t know anything about it. Then he says it was “perfectly understandable.” Then he invokes 9/11, and the prevetion of sabotage. Finally, he concludes, the whole thing is “no big deal.”
SALANT: This questioner writes about a recent report about the Defense Department monitoring antiwar protesters and wants to know why the Defense Department is doing that.
RUMSFELD: Well, I wasn’t aware of it at all, but it turns out that — this is no surprise to anyone here — the Department of Defense has the responsibility in the United States for force protection. We don’t have the responsibility for homeland security. That’s with the Department of Homeland Security.
We do have the responsibility, however, to protect our own forces. And apparently, what took place was a perfectly understandable thing.
They decided that the way — given the assignment to do that — they decided to establish a program whereby they would be able to observe and do the kind of countersurveillance to see who was taking pictures of military installations or sensitive activities, and who was observing them, and gather information of that type, so that we would not be accused of failing to protect our forces and their families and the military installations in the country. And so, they began this process.
According to the people who briefed me on it, to do that, you obviously end up scooping up information, whether it’s names or films, or whatever, to protect your base. And that information then comes into a data bank.
And, you know, think of 9/11. Everyone accused the government of not connecting the dots. You didn’t connect the dots before the fact, and you weren’t able to stop it.
So, here they are trying to connect the dots, and someone looks at it and says, oh, my goodness gracious! Isn’t that terrible! You’re collecting information on people in the United States.
And, of course, if you look at it, that’s what it is. It’s information about people who are physically in the United States, who were observing a base in some way. And so, they put in some new rules whereby the people doing this have to purge the system periodically, so we don’t end up with massive data that we don’t need and don’t want and didn’t intend to keep in the first place.
And they then review what there is and see, is there a threat to that base of some kind? Is there something that should be turned over to the FBI?
And it’s no different, in a sense, than a private business that has a building or a factory or facility, and has a security force, and they have surveillance of it to see who’s looking at it and what’s being done.
But because of the sensitivity of it, obviously, it became a big cause celebre, and I think — at least I’m told — that they now think they’ve put in place the kinds of procedures, so that the information that’s gathered will not become a permanent record, and will be purged appropriately. And to the extent they connect any dots, they obviously turn them over to the FBI, or whoever local law enforcement, if they’re concerned about some security.
In short, it’s no big deal…
But, as bad as he fumbled this question, I found this answer to even worse:
QUESTION: A lot of questions about Iraq. First one from this questioner.
What do you say to a young G.I. on his or her third tour of duty in Iraq?
RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, G.I., if you mean by that a soldier, Army, there are to my knowledge no Army people who are back for their third one-year tour that weren’t volunteers.
First of all, everybody in the military today is a volunteer.
So, the first thing I would say, though, to them is, thank you for volunteering. Thank you for deciding you wanted to serve the country. Thank you for putting up your hand and say, send me.
The tour lengths are quite different. The Army has a year — up to a year — in Iraq. The Marine Corps has seven months, up to seven months. The Navy deployments tend to be six months in and 12 months back.
The Air Force differs widely. Some are a year. Some are three months rotation where they go back in frequently.
But anyone who’s there on a third tour for a year, you can be absolutely certain volunteered. And I say, thank you for volunteering.
What’s wrong the the “thank you for volunteering” answer? He’s right…they ARE all volunteers. They weren’t drafted or otherwise forced. They can leave if they want.
If they choose that career, they have to take the good with the bad. In my job (technology consulting), I don’t always get staffed on the “good” projects I want either. That’s life.
What part of the the Constitution don’t you understand, Rummie? The President has neither the power to create, interpret, re-interpret, ignore or change LAW. Why do we even have a Congress and a Judiciary branch if the President can just create and interpret LAW himself???
We’re fighting and dying for Iraqi’s freedoms while you STEAL OURS here at home?!?!?
You’re pre-1776 mentality is downright UN-AMERICAN.
If you were so dead set on eliminating any restrictions set forth in the FISA ACT, the why didn’t you just follow the Constitution and the LAW and petition Congress to CHANGE THE LAW??
Do you think our Founding Fathers would agree with your new fangled, “unitary executive” theory??
Or would they decry that “unitary executive” is just another term for KING!?!?!
“They can leave if they want.“
You can’t be serious. What country are you from? Planet?
From the Christian Science Monitor, 1/31/06:
“Stop-loss,” a policy used by the Army to keep US soldiers and reservists in the military beyond the date when their service was supposed to end, has been used on more than 50,000 members of the armed forces since the war in Iraq began. Currently stop-loss is being used to extend the duty of 12,500 troops.
A recent Pentagon report written for the Department of Defense by Andrew Krepinevich, a former military officer, said stop-loss was a “short-term fix” enabling the Army to meet deployment requirements, but that such policies “risk breaking the force as recruitment and retention problems mount.“
But I guess ‘that’s life’, right Tartan69?
While I am completely appreciative of the service performed by our military personel, I do have to agree with Tartan69.
We have a 100% VOLUNTEER military.
No one FORCED them to sign up.
Many of them VOLUNTEERED during a time of war, what did they think would happen? I’m sorry they didn’t get sent to patrol the beaches on Maui, but that’s life.
Before responding, I just want to clarify to NathanW and joejoejoe that I am a pro-military US citizen (from the planet Earth) that completely appreciates the job done by our forces.
On the subject of stop-loss, I would like to somewhat revise that part of my argument. I feel that the practice of stop-loss is wrong and should be made illegal. A contract is a contract…extending, breaking, or changing it without consent of both parties is immoral.
Having said that, if you sign that contract knowing full well that stop-loss is in place, you forfeit the right to be surprised when it is used. It doesn’t make it right per se, but it also doesn’t remove your responsibility to know what kind of situation you are signing yourself up for. If you missed reading that part of the proverbial fine print, that isn’t the military’s fault.
In any case, the main point of my argument was simply that you have to live with the choices you make in life…too many people in our entitlement-based society want to always blame someone else for their own troubles when decisions they have made don’t go the way they would like. Just as my working at the behest of my employer is the price I must pay to garner a salary, the GI Bill money (or other benefits) that comes with service isn’t free.
Apparently in-line links are supported. Here a link to some that nice, wholesome, home-grown literature handed out at these rallies:
http://www.zombietime.com/sf_rally_april_10_2004/literature/
RUMMY IS FOR THE PARTY NOT RIGHT OR WRONG HE‘S A YES MAN FOR JR. STOP LOSS IS A FORM OF DRAFT .I WAS AGAINST THIS WAR FROM THE START . BUT NOW WE‘RE THERE LETS SUPPORT OUR BOY‘S MY OPINION ISTHIS ADMINASTRATION WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE MOST LIBERAL WE EVER HAD AND THE RUINATION OF THIS COUNTRY„WE NEED THAT INMORAL CLINTON TO GET US OUT OF THIS MESS, HE COULD AT LEAST GET THE BUDGET CLEANED UP/////
RUMMY IS FOR THE PARTY NOT RIGHT OR WRONG HE‘S A YES MAN FOR JR. STOP LOSS IS A FORM OF DRAFT .I WAS AGAINST THIS WAR FROM THE START . BUT NOW WE‘RE THERE LETS SUPPORT OUR BOY‘S MY OPINION ISTHIS ADMINASTRATION WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE MOST LIBERAL WE EVER HAD AND THE RUINATION OF THIS COUNTRY„WE NEED THAT INMORAL CLINTON TO GET US OUT OF THIS MESS, HE COULD AT LEAST GET THE BUDGET CLEANED UP/////