Think Progress

Rumsfeld: Not a failure, just misunderstood.

Iraq war architect Douglas Feith (aka: “the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet“) pens an op-ed defending Donald Rumsfeld: “Rumsfeld is a bundle of paradoxes, like a fascinating character in a work of epic literature. And as my high school teachers drummed into my head, the best literature reveals that humans are complex.”



30 Responses to “Rumsfeld: Not a failure, just misunderstood.”

  1. ForTruth says:

    Is that why thousands of people are dead and we are in this mess in Iraq, Rummy was just misunderstood.


  2. S says:

    There are a lot of people that are incapable of empathy. Anyone who now defends Rumsfeld is a sociopath


  3. Jo Fish says:

    Ten minutes with “State of Denial” and it’s obvious that Feith is trying to buff up Rumsfeld’s image. Much of what happened in Iraq can be laid at Rumsfeld’s (and Feith’s) door, from the obstruction of the State Department in the post-invasion planning, to failure to try and integrate DoD into critical inter-agency planning and communication.

    Rumsfeld’s hubris and boneheaded approach to leadership have cost more lives than the administration will ever acknowledge, as well as our prestige as a superpower (Abu Ghraib, GITMO).

    I suspect Rumsfeld will be joining Henry the K, coincidentally another Dubya favorite as a man who can’t travel outside the borders of the USA.

    Maybe that’ll go for Feith too…


  4. mparker says:

    Wow,

    Rumsfeld is the American “Jabberwocky” of National Defense with a hint of “Alice in Wonderland”.

    Oh, you poor misunderstood genius.

    Wow again, Douglas Feith is really that dumb.


  5. bs says:

    so is that why this has gone into civil war because he was just misunderstood along with thousands of killed and wounded gi’s. and lets not forget the thousands of innocent dead and wounded iraqis. the price of arrogance for world domination is high. the price of fighting the zionists war and being their lapdog is even higher.


  6. Wayne says:

    ———-(Snip)—————

    In his current position, he has frequently been criticized by senior military officials, who say he has advanced policies without considering their implications for troops on the ground.

    Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, U.S. commander during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reserved particular venom for Feith in his recent autobiography, “American Soldier.”

    “No one could deny Feith’s academic achievements,” Franks wrote. “But Feith was a theorist whose ideas were often impractical.”

    Elsewhere in the book, Franks wrote that Feith was “getting a reputation around here as the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet.”

    Sounds like he has as much credibility as Rummy. Which is tosay, none at all.
    People that do not take into consideration the men and women on the ground should not be in a position to even make those considerations.


  7. penalcolony says:

    ” . . . the best literature reveals that humans are complex.”

    Feith’s point, assuming he has one, is apparently that we should support Rumsfeld because he’s a brilliant work of fiction.

    These people really do live in Starbright Park. And, yes, Feith seems to be at least a bit stupid.


  8. dan7000 says:

    So by his reasoning, we should try to find a Jean Valjean for sec def! How about a Holden Caulfield for Vice Prez?


  9. hellinabucket says:

    But missunderstanding him, was that a known known? Maybe it was an understood missunderstanding, which is that it is understood that Rummy would be missunderstood by (fill in the blank).

    I don’t care if he was missunderstood, loved, hated or whatever. The man is a chief architect for the most poorly executed use of the military since the escalation of Vietnam. History will not be kind to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and the rest.


  10. goodscarrier says:

    Field Marshall von Rumsfeld unleased the Al Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI) whose leaders were lying in wait in Syria and Iran during the twenty plus years prior to the deposing of Saddam Hussein.

    After having been banned and persecuted by Saddam Hussein, Al Dawa and the SCIRI are finally transforming Iraq into a Shiite fundamentalist republic which has direct and long standing ties to Iran, a so-called axis of evil.

    The unleashing of the Al Dawa and the SCIRI is not the move of a genius but that of a freakin’ idiot.

    What’s more stupid is that the inadvertent fathering of Iraq as a Shiite fundamentalist republic is what Rumsfeld did in direct response to the horrific attacks of 9/11.

    9/11 + Iraq = Shiite fundamentalist republic?

    That’s STUPID!!


  11. linehan says:

    Maybe Mr. Feith should have paid more attention to his “high school” teachers and learned that it is not correct English to start a sentence with “And”.
    Even if you ignore his language skills, he is still a simpleton.


  12. PatrioticLiberalChristian(PLC) says:

    Feith has to support Rummy because they are twins of the same mother of an ideology and literature also reveals that blood wins over water.


  13. Technodaoist says:

    Poor guy just needs a hug…

    He’s misunderstood, and we don’t know what he knows about what isn’t known about knowning the unknown.

    I can’t possibly imagine why people don’t understand him…


  14. Dog_named_Boo says:

    Feith’s point, assuming he has one, is apparently that we should support Rumsfeld because he’s a brilliant work of fiction.

    So was Shakespeare and Steven King, but I wouldn’t want either as the Secretary of Defense.


  15. Tim says:

    So Don Rumsfeld is complex, he’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and this makes him a great Secretary of Defense? Is he great when he’s Jekyll or is he great when he’s Hyde. Truly amazing the hoops that people will jump through to avoid the simple fact that Mr. Bush appointed an incompetent, political hack to oversee the needless deaths of uncounted thousands of people. But Bush gets to hang that nasty Sadam fella so Daddy Bush is vendicated! It’s all just so sad and so very, very stupid.


  16. tom baker says:

    I think Jeffrey Dahmer was “just misunderstood” too.


  17. Dog_named_Boo says:

    So Don Rumsfeld is complex,

    Feith thinks convolouted and intentionally circuitous speech is complex.

    Whuddamaroon


  18. radzikowski says:

    Eww. Douglas Feith, all I can say is eww. Creepy adulation should always be met with skepticism!


  19. RUCerious says:

    All we need to know about Rummy was his insistence before the war that NO post-war planning issues or ideas could even be brought up in his office under penalty of getting pink slippered…


  20. therightisalwayswrong says:

    If Rumsfeld wants to rescue his image, he’d better ask Doug Feith to stop trying to help. That guy is the kiss of death.

    Feith is as dumb as he is stupid, with a fine dusting of clueless. I saw him once on a panel discussion- the crowd started off booing at him, but after the boos died down and he was allowed to explain himself a bit more, the crowd just laughed at him.


  21. RealScientist says:

    I don’t know who are the most pathetic losers: Rummy and Feith, or the idiots who believe a word they say.


  22. Squidbilly says:

    I guess he had blind feith. Either that or he is living in a world of delusion and neocon naivite .


  23. SpudgeBoy says:

    So was Shakespeare and Steven King, but I wouldn’t want either as the Secretary of Defense.

    Comment by Dog_named_Boo — November 13, 2006 @ 11:49 am

    I don’t know about Shakespeare, but Stephen King sent out a letter encouraging folks to vote against Bush’s failed policies and the corruption of the republican party. He could have my vote.

    I hear that much of Shakespeare’s work was ghost written, which is a very republican thing to do, so I probably wouldn’t want him for Sec of Def.


  24. Pissed Off says:

    A Rumsfeld-ian Paradox?

    “There are known knowns, and then there are unknowns knowns that we know. There are also known unknowns that we don’t know, and finally there are unknown unknowns that we know”

    And my favorite

    “We know the WMD are there around Baghdad, around Tikrit, and to North, the South, the East and the West.”

    You see, it is very easy to misunderstand Rumsfeld.


  25. james k. sayre says:

    Which of these pathetic lying war criminals is more full of it? Rummy, with his known “knowns” and unknown “unknowns?” Dead-eye Dick with his low dark-colored hoarsely-whispered warnings: the terrists are gonna git ya, (again…), ’cause I let nine-eleven happen…? or the smirking nearly brain-dead Brush-cutting Boy-King and his Crawford, Texas ranchette (the “Prairie Chapel,” oh, puke…) without any cows or horses (sounds like a northeastern frat-boy twit’s idea of a Texas ranch, huh?) with his endless twangy lies, distortions and smears.

    Well, it’s about the end of the road, boys, time to gather up your crayons, your coloring books your old war-maps and your toy soldiers and steam down to southern South America and cruise up the river to dear old Paraguay, your new home away from home…
    Cheers.


  26. pluege says:

    yea and when complex individuals cause the needless deaths of at least tens of thousands and perhaps 100s of thousands of people we call them: megalomaniacs, dangerous lunatics, psychotic, sociopaths, evil.
    .


  27. reb in NC says:

    Rumsfeld is clearly a Polonius, and one who should have been commanded by the media long ago to speak “More matter with less art.” And along with Hamlet, all I have to say is: “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!”


  28. pnac says:

    A PNAC guy writing an OP about another PNAC guy…sigh. Look, some of us have actually read your crazy documents.


  29. pluege says:

    when a colossal failure such as feith, calls rumsfeld “not a failure”, does that make a double negative, thereby in fact calling rumsfeld the monumental failure that he is?

    just askin’
    .


  30. FarOut says:

    I am a real hardcore democrat, the kind that republicans think just sits around watching porn, drinking lattes, and sending love letters to Hugo Chavez and Osama bin Laden. To be sure, I do watch porn, I do drink lattes, and I did send a congratulatory letter to Hugo Chavez after his speech to the UN General Assembly earlier this year. But to suggest that this is all I ever do, or all democrats do, is simply absurd.

    In any event, I strongly applaud Rumsfeld’s departure. He single-handedly declared war on the entire Middle East. He hates children and happiness. I also heard that when he was 6 years old, he pegged a squirrel in the head with a golf ball just because he wanted to see what sounds small animals make when they suffer.

    I hope that Nancy Pelosi will have the courage to pull our troops out of Iraq by the end of the month.

    Thank you all and keep up the fight for a progressive America!



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